17.

Web MVC framework

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17. Web MVC framework

17.1 Introduction to Spring Web MVC framework

The Spring Web model-view-controller (MVC) framework is designed around a DispatcherServlet that
dispatches requests to handlers, with configurable handler mappings, view resolution, locale and theme
resolution as well as support for uploading files. The default handler is based on the @Controller and
@RequestMapping annotations, offering a wide range of flexible handling methods. With the introduction of
Spring 3.0, the @Controller mechanism also allows you to create RESTful Web sites and applications,
through the @PathVariable annotation and other features.

“Open for extension...”

A key design principle in Spring Web MVC and in Spring in general is the “Open for extension, closed
for modification” principle.

Some methods in the core classes of Spring Web MVC are marked final . As a developer you
cannot override these methods to supply your own behavior. This has not been done arbitrarily, but
specifically with this principle in mind.

For an explanation of this principle, refer to Expert Spring Web MVC and Web Flow by Seth Ladd and
others; specifically see the section "A Look At Design," on page 117 of the first edition. Alternatively,
see

1. Bob Martin, The Open-Closed Principle (PDF)

You cannot add advice to final methods when you use Spring MVC. For example, you cannot add
advice to the AbstractController.setSynchronizeOnSession() method. Refer to Section 9.6.1,
“Understanding AOP proxies” for more information on AOP proxies and why you cannot add advice to
final methods.

In Spring Web MVC you can use any object as a command or form-backing object; you do not need to
implement a framework-specific interface or base class. Spring's data binding is highly flexible: for example,
it treats type mismatches as validation errors that can be evaluated by the application, not as system errors.
Thus you need not duplicate your business objects' properties as simple, untyped strings in your form
objects simply to handle invalid submissions, or to convert the Strings properly. Instead, it is often preferable
to bind directly to your business objects.

Spring's view resolution is extremely flexible. A Controller is typically responsible for preparing a model
Map with data and selecting a view name but it can also write directly to the response stream and complete
the request. View name resolution is highly configurable through file extension or Accept header content
type negotiation, through bean names, a properties file, or even a custom ViewResolver implementation.
The model (the M in MVC) is a Map interface, which allows for the complete abstraction of the view
technology. You can integrate directly with template based rendering technologies such as JSP, Velocity and
Freemarker, or directly generate XML, JSON, Atom, and many other types of content. The model Map is
simply transformed into an appropriate format, such as JSP request attributes, a Velocity template model.

17.1.1 Features of Spring Web MVC

Spring Web Flow

Spring Web Flow (SWF) aims to be the best solution for the management of web application page
flow.

SWF integrates with existing frameworks like Spring MVC, Struts, and JSF, in both servlet and portlet
environments. If you have a business process (or processes) that would benefit from a conversational
model as opposed to a purely request model, then SWF may be the solution.

SWF allows you to capture logical page flows as self-contained modules that are reusable in different
situations, and as such is ideal for building web application modules that guide the user through
controlled navigations that drive business processes.

For more information about SWF, consult the Spring Web Flow website.

Spring's web module includes many unique web support features:

Clear separation of roles. Each role — controller, validator, command object, form object, model object,
DispatcherServlet , handler mapping, view resolver, and so on — can be fulfilled by a specialized
object.
Powerful and straightforward configuration of both framework and application classes as JavaBeans.
This configuration capability includes easy referencing across contexts, such as from web controllers to
business objects and validators.
Adaptability, non-intrusiveness, and flexibility. Define any controller method signature you need, possibly
using one of the parameter annotations (such as @RequestParam, @RequestHeader, @PathVariable,
and more) for a given scenario.
Reusable business code, no need for duplication. Use existing business objects as command or form
objects instead of mirroring them to extend a particular framework base class.
Customizable binding and validation. Type mismatches as application-level validation errors that keep
the offending value, localized date and number binding, and so on instead of String-only form objects
with manual parsing and conversion to business objects.
Customizable handler mapping and view resolution. Handler mapping and view resolution strategies
range from simple URL-based configuration, to sophisticated, purpose-built resolution strategies. Spring
is more flexible than web MVC frameworks that mandate a particular technique.
Flexible model transfer. Model transfer with a name/value Map supports easy integration with any view
technology.
Customizable locale and theme resolution, support for JSPs with or without Spring tag library, support
for JSTL, support for Velocity without the need for extra bridges, and so on.
A simple yet powerful JSP tag library known as the Spring tag library that provides support for features
such as data binding and themes. The custom tags allow for maximum flexibility in terms of markup
code. For information on the tag library descriptor, see the appendix entitled Appendix G, spring.tld
A JSP form tag library, introduced in Spring 2.0, that makes writing forms in JSP pages much easier. For
information on the tag library descriptor, see the appendix entitled Appendix H, spring-form.tld
 Beans whose lifecycle is scoped to the current HTTP request or HTTP Session . This is not a specific
feature of Spring MVC itself, but rather of the WebApplicationContext container(s) that Spring MVC
uses. These bean scopes are described in Section 5.5.4, “Request, session, and global session scopes”

17.1.2 Pluggability of other MVC implementations

Non-Spring MVC implementations are preferable for some projects. Many teams expect to leverage their
existing investment in skills and tools. A large body of knowledge and experience exist for the Struts
framework. If you can abide Struts' architectural flaws, it can be a viable choice for the web layer; the same
applies to WebWork and other web MVC frameworks.

If you do not want to use Spring's web MVC, but intend to leverage other solutions that Spring offers, you
can integrate the web MVC framework of your choice with Spring easily. Simply start up a Spring root
application context through its ContextLoaderListener , and access it through its ServletContext
attribute (or Spring's respective helper method) from within a Struts or WebWork action. No "plug-ins" are
involved, so no dedicated integration is necessary. From the web layer's point of view, you simply use Spring
as a library, with the root application context instance as the entry point.

Your registered beans and Spring's services can be at your fingertips even without Spring's Web MVC.
Spring does not compete with Struts or WebWork in this scenario. It simply addresses the many areas that
the pure web MVC frameworks do not, from bean configuration to data access and transaction handling. So
you can enrich your application with a Spring middle tier and/or data access tier, even if you just want to use,
for example, the transaction abstraction with JDBC or Hibernate.

17.2 The DispatcherServlet

Spring's web MVC framework is, like many other web MVC frameworks, request-driven, designed around a
central Servlet that dispatches requests to controllers and offers other functionality that facilitates the
development of web applications. Spring's DispatcherServlet however, does more than just that. It is
completely integrated with the Spring IoC container and as such allows you to use every other feature that
Spring has.

The request processing workflow of the Spring Web MVC DispatcherServlet is illustrated in the following
diagram. The pattern-savvy reader will recognize that the DispatcherServlet is an expression of the
“Front Controller” design pattern (this is a pattern that Spring Web MVC shares with many other leading web
frameworks).
The request processing workflow in Spring Web MVC (high level)

The DispatcherServlet is an actual Servlet (it inherits from the HttpServlet base class), and as
such is declared in the web.xml of your web application. You need to map requests that you want the
DispatcherServlet to handle, by using a URL mapping in the same web.xml file. This is standard Java
EE Servlet configuration; the following example shows such a DispatcherServlet declaration and
mapping:

<web-app>

<servlet>
<servlet-name>example</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
<load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>

<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>example</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/example/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

</web-app>

In the preceding example, all requests starting with /example will be handled by the DispatcherServlet
instance named example . In a Servlet 3.0+ environment, you also have the option of configuring the
Servlet container programmatically. Below is the code based equivalent of the above web.xml example:

public class MyWebApplicationInitializer implements WebApplicationInitializer {

@Override
 public void onStartup(ServletContext container) {
ServletRegistration.Dynamic registration = container.addServlet("dispatcher", new Di
registration.setLoadOnStartup(1);
registration.addMapping("/example/*");
}

WebApplicationInitializer is an interface provided by Spring MVC that ensures your code-based

configuration is detected and automatically used to initialize any Servlet 3 container. An abstract base class
implementation of this interace named AbstractDispatcherServletInitializer makes it even easier to
register the DispatcherServlet by simply specifying its servlet mapping. See Code-based Servlet
container initialization for more details.

The above is only the first step in setting up Spring Web MVC. You now need to configure the various beans
used by the Spring Web MVC framework (over and above the DispatcherServlet itself).

As detailed in Section 5.14, “Additional Capabilities of the ApplicationContext ”, ApplicationContext

instances in Spring can be scoped. In the Web MVC framework, each DispatcherServlet has its own
WebApplicationContext , which inherits all the beans already defined in the root
WebApplicationContext . These inherited beans can be overridden in the servlet-specific scope, and you
can define new scope-specific beans local to a given Servlet instance.

Context hierarchy in Spring Web MVC

Upon initialization of a DispatcherServlet , Spring MVC looks for a file named

[servlet-name]-servlet.xml in the WEB-INF directory of your web application and creates the beans
defined there, overriding the definitions of any beans defined with the same name in the global scope.

Consider the following DispatcherServlet Servlet configuration (in the web.xml file):

<web-app>
 <servlet>
<servlet-name>golfing</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
<load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>

<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>golfing</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/golfing/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

</web-app>

With the above Servlet configuration in place, you will need to have a file called
/WEB-INF/ golfing -servlet.xml in your application; this file will contain all of your Spring Web MVC-
specific components (beans). You can change the exact location of this configuration file through a Servlet
initialization parameter (see below for details).

The WebApplicationContext is an extension of the plain ApplicationContext that has some extra
features necessary for web applications. It differs from a normal ApplicationContext in that it is capable
of resolving themes (see Section 17.9, “Using themes”), and that it knows which Servlet it is associated with
(by having a link to the ServletContext ). The WebApplicationContext is bound in the
ServletContext , and by using static methods on the RequestContextUtils class you can always look
up the WebApplicationContext if you need access to it.

17.2.1 Special Bean Types In the WebApplicationContext

The Spring DispatcherServlet uses special beans to process requests and render the appropriate views.
These beans are part of Spring MVC. You can choose which special beans to use by simply configuring one
or more of them in the WebApplicationContext . However, you don't need to do that initially since Spring
MVC maintains a list of default beans to use if you don't configure any. More on that in the next section. First
see the table below listing the special bean types the DispatcherServlet relies on.

Table 17.1. Special bean types in the WebApplicationContext

Bean type Explanation

Maps incoming requests to handlers and a list of pre- and post-

processors (handler interceptors) based on some criteria the details of
HandlerMapping which vary by HandlerMapping implementation. The most popular
implementation supports annotated controllers but other
implementations exists as well.

Helps the DispatcherServlet to invoke a handler mapped to a

request regardless of the handler is actually invoked. For example,
HandlerAdapter invoking an annotated controller requires resolving various
annotations. Thus the main purpose of a HandlerAdapter is to
shield the DispatcherServlet from such details.
 Bean type Explanation

Maps exceptions to views also allowing for more complex exception

HandlerExceptionResolver
handling code.

ViewResolver Resolves logical String-based view names to actual View types.

Resolves the locale a client is using, in order to be able to offer

LocaleResolver
internationalized views

Resolves themes your web application can use, for example, to offer
ThemeResolver
personalized layouts

Parses multi-part requests for example to support processing file

MultipartResolver
uploads from HTML forms.

Stores and retrieves the "input" and the "output" FlashMap that can
FlashMapManager be used to pass attributes from one request to another, usually across
a redirect.

17.2.2 Default DispatcherServlet Configuration

As mentioned in the previous section for each special bean the DispatcherServlet maintains a list of
implementations to use by default. This information is kept in the file DispatcherServlet.properties in
the package org.springframework.web.servlet .

All special beans have some reasonable defaults of their own. Sooner or later though you'll need to
customize one or more of the properties these beans provide. For example it's quite common to configure an
InternalResourceViewResolver settings its prefix property to the parent location of view files.

Regardless of the details, the important concept to understand here is that once you configure a special
bean such as an InternalResourceViewResolver in your WebApplicationContext , you effectively
override the list of default implementations that would have been used otherwise for that special bean type.
For example if you configure an InternalResourceViewResolver , the default list of ViewResolver
implementations is ignored.

In Section 17.15, “Configuring Spring MVC” you'll learn about other options for configuring Spring MVC
including MVC Java config and the MVC XML namespace both of which provide a simple starting point and
assume little knowledge of how Spring MVC works. Regardless of how you choose to configure your
application, the concepts explained in this section are fundamental should be of help to you.

17.2.3 DispatcherServlet Processing Sequence

After you set up a DispatcherServlet , and a request comes in for that specific DispatcherServlet , the
DispatcherServlet starts processing the request as follows:

1. The WebApplicationContext is searched for and bound in the request as an attribute that the
controller and other elements in the process can use. It is bound by default under the key
DispatcherServlet.WEB_APPLICATION_CONTEXT_ATTRIBUTE .
 2. The locale resolver is bound to the request to enable elements in the process to resolve the locale to
use when processing the request (rendering the view, preparing data, and so on). If you do not need
locale resolving, you do not need it.
3. The theme resolver is bound to the request to let elements such as views determine which theme to
use. If you do not use themes, you can ignore it.
4. If you specify a multipart file resolver, the request is inspected for multiparts; if multiparts are found, the
request is wrapped in a MultipartHttpServletRequest for further processing by other elements in
the process. See Section 17.10, “Spring's multipart (file upload) support” for further information about
multipart handling.
5. An appropriate handler is searched for. If a handler is found, the execution chain associated with the
handler (preprocessors, postprocessors, and controllers) is executed in order to prepare a model or
rendering.
6. If a model is returned, the view is rendered. If no model is returned, (may be due to a preprocessor or
postprocessor intercepting the request, perhaps for security reasons), no view is rendered, because the
request could already have been fulfilled.

Handler exception resolvers that are declared in the WebApplicationContext pick up exceptions that are
thrown during processing of the request. Using these exception resolvers allows you to define custom
behaviors to address exceptions.

The Spring DispatcherServlet also supports the return of the last-modification-date, as specified by the
Servlet API. The process of determining the last modification date for a specific request is straightforward:
the DispatcherServlet looks up an appropriate handler mapping and tests whether the handler that is
found implements the LastModified interface. If so, the value of the long getLastModified(request)
method of the LastModified interface is returned to the client.

You can customize individual DispatcherServlet instances by adding Servlet initialization parameters
( init-param elements) to the Servlet declaration in the web.xml file. See the following table for the list of
supported parameters.

Table 17.2. DispatcherServlet initialization parameters

Parameter Explanation

Class that implements WebApplicationContext , which instantiates

contextClass the context used by this Servlet. By default, the
XmlWebApplicationContext is used.

String that is passed to the context instance (specified by

contextClass ) to indicate where context(s) can be found. The string
contextConfigLocation consists potentially of multiple strings (using a comma as a delimiter)
to support multiple contexts. In case of multiple context locations with
beans that are defined twice, the latest location takes precedence.

Namespace of the WebApplicationContext . Defaults to

namespace
[servlet-name]-servlet .
17.3 Implementing Controllers
Controllers provide access to the application behavior that you typically define through a service interface.
Controllers interpret user input and transform it into a model that is represented to the user by the view.
Spring implements a controller in a very abstract way, which enables you to create a wide variety of
controllers.

Spring 2.5 introduced an annotation-based programming model for MVC controllers that uses annotations
such as @RequestMapping , @RequestParam , @ModelAttribute , and so on. This annotation support is
available for both Servlet MVC and Portlet MVC. Controllers implemented in this style do not have to extend
specific base classes or implement specific interfaces. Furthermore, they do not usually have direct
dependencies on Servlet or Portlet APIs, although you can easily configure access to Servlet or Portlet
facilities.

Available in the samples repository, a number of web applications leverage the annotation
support described in this section including MvcShowcase, MvcAjax, MvcBasic, PetClinic,
PetCare, and others.

@Controller
public class HelloWorldController {

@RequestMapping("/helloWorld")
public String helloWorld(Model model) {
model.addAttribute("message", "Hello World!");
return "helloWorld";
}
}

As you can see, the @Controller and @RequestMapping annotations allow flexible method names and
signatures. In this particular example the method accepts a Model and returns a view name as a String ,
but various other method parameters and return values can be used as explained later in this section.
@Controller and @RequestMapping and a number of other annotations form the basis for the Spring
MVC implementation. This section documents these annotations and how they are most commonly used in a
Servlet environment.

17.3.1 Defining a controller with @Controller

The @Controller annotation indicates that a particular class serves the role of a controller. Spring does
not require you to extend any controller base class or reference the Servlet API. However, you can still
reference Servlet-specific features if you need to.

The @Controller annotation acts as a stereotype for the annotated class, indicating its role. The
dispatcher scans such annotated classes for mapped methods and detects @RequestMapping annotations
(see the next section).

You can define annotated controller beans explicitly, using a standard Spring bean definition in the
dispatcher's context. However, the @Controller stereotype also allows for autodetection, aligned with
Spring general support for detecting component classes in the classpath and auto-registering bean
definitions for them.
To enable autodetection of such annotated controllers, you add component scanning to your configuration.
Use the spring-context schema as shown in the following XML snippet:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:p="http://www.springframework.org/schema/p"
xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
xsi:schemaLocation="
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/context
http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context.xsd">

<context:component-scan base-package="org.springframework.samples.petclinic.web"/>

<!-- ... -->

</beans>

17.3.2 Mapping Requests With @RequestMapping

You use the @RequestMapping annotation to map URLs such as /appointments onto an entire class or a
particular handler method. Typically the class-level annotation maps a specific request path (or path pattern)
onto a form controller, with additional method-level annotations narrowing the primary mapping for a specific
HTTP method request method ("GET", "POST", etc.) or an HTTP request parameter condition.

The following example from the Petcare sample shows a controller in a Spring MVC application that uses
this annotation:

@Controller
@RequestMapping("/appointments")
public class AppointmentsController {

private final AppointmentBook appointmentBook;

@Autowired
public AppointmentsController(AppointmentBook appointmentBook) {
this.appointmentBook = appointmentBook;
}

@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.GET)
public Map<String, Appointment> get() {
return appointmentBook.getAppointmentsForToday();
}

@RequestMapping(value="/{day}", method = RequestMethod.GET)

public Map<String, Appointment> getForDay(@PathVariable @DateTimeFormat(iso=ISO.DATE) Da
return appointmentBook.getAppointmentsForDay(day);
}

@RequestMapping(value="/new", method = RequestMethod.GET)

public AppointmentForm getNewForm() {
return new AppointmentForm();
 }

@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.POST)
public String add(@Valid AppointmentForm appointment, BindingResult result) {
if (result.hasErrors()) {
return "appointments/new";
}
appointmentBook.addAppointment(appointment);
return "redirect:/appointments";
}
}

In the example, the @RequestMapping is used in a number of places. The first usage is on the type (class)
level, which indicates that all handling methods on this controller are relative to the /appointments path.
The get() method has a further @RequestMapping refinement: it only accepts GET requests, meaning
that an HTTP GET for /appointments invokes this method. The post() has a similar refinement, and the
getNewForm() combines the definition of HTTP method and path into one, so that GET requests for
appointments/new are handled by that method.

The getForDay() method shows another usage of @RequestMapping : URI templates. (See the next
section ).

A @RequestMapping on the class level is not required. Without it, all paths are simply absolute, and not
relative. The following example from the PetClinic sample application shows a multi-action controller using
@RequestMapping :

@Controller
public class ClinicController {

private final Clinic clinic;

@Autowired
public ClinicController(Clinic clinic) {
this.clinic = clinic;
}

@RequestMapping("/")
public void welcomeHandler() {
}

@RequestMapping("/vets")
public ModelMap vetsHandler() {
return new ModelMap(this.clinic.getVets());
}

A common pitfall when working with annotated controller classes happens when applying
functionality that requires creating a proxy for the controller object (e.g. @Transactional
methods). Usually you will introduce an interface for the controller in order to use JDK dynamic
proxies. To make this work you must move the @RequestMapping annotations, as well as any
other type and method-level annotations (e.g. @ModelAttribute , @InitBinder ) to the
 interface as well as the mapping mechanism can only "see" the interface exposed by the
proxy. Alternatively, you could activate proxy-target-class="true" in the configuration for
the functionality applied to the controller (in our transaction scenario in
<tx:annotation-driven /> ). Doing so indicates that CGLIB-based subclass proxies should
be used instead of interface-based JDK proxies. For more information on various proxying
mechanisms see Section 9.6, “Proxying mechanisms”.
Note however that method argument annotations, e.g. @RequestParam , must be present in
the method signatures of the controller class.

New Support Classes for @RequestMapping methods in Spring MVC 3.1

Spring 3.1 introduced a new set of support classes for @RequestMapping methods called
RequestMappingHandlerMapping and RequestMappingHandlerAdapter respectively. They are
recommended for use and even required to take advantage of new features in Spring MVC 3.1 and going
forward. The new support classes are enabled by default by the MVC namespace and the MVC Java config
but must be configured explicitly if using neither. This section describes a few important differences between
the old and the new support classes.

Prior to Spring 3.1, type and method-level request mappings were examined in two separate stages -- a
controller was selected first by the DefaultAnnotationHandlerMapping and the actual method to invoke
was narrowed down second by the AnnotationMethodHandlerAdapter .

With the new support classes in Spring 3.1, the RequestMappingHandlerMapping is the only place where
a decision is made about which method should process the request. Think of controller methods as a
collection of unique endpoints with mappings for each method derived from type and method-level
@RequestMapping information.

This enables some new possibilities. For once a HandlerInterceptor or a HandlerExceptionResolver

can now expect the Object-based handler to be a HandlerMethod , which allows them to examine the exact
method, its parameters and associated annotations. The processing for a URL no longer needs to be split
across different controllers.

There are also several things no longer possible:

Select a controller first with a SimpleUrlHandlerMapping or BeanNameUrlHandlerMapping and then

narrow the method based on @RequestMapping annotations.
Rely on method names as a fall-back mechanism to disambiguate between two @RequestMapping
methods that don't have an explicit path mapping URL path but otherwise match equally, e.g. by HTTP
method. In the new support classes @RequestMapping methods have to be mapped uniquely.
Have a single default method (without an explicit path mapping) with which requests are processed if no
other controller method matches more concretely. In the new support classes if a matching method is
not found a 404 error is raised.

The above features are still supported with the existing support classes. However to take advantage of new
Spring MVC 3.1 features you'll need to use the new support classes.

URI Template Patterns

URI templates can be used for convenient access to selected parts of a URL in a @RequestMapping
method.

A URI Template is a URI-like string, containing one or more variable names. When you substitute values for
these variables, the template becomes a URI. The proposed RFC for URI Templates defines how a URI is
parameterized. For example, the URI Template http://www.example.com/users/{userId} contains the
variable userId. Assigning the value fred to the variable yields http://www.example.com/users/fred .

In Spring MVC you can use the @PathVariable annotation on a method argument to bind it to the value of
a URI template variable:

@RequestMapping(value="/owners/{ownerId}", method=RequestMethod.GET)
public String findOwner(@PathVariable String ownerId, Model model) {
Owner owner = ownerService.findOwner(ownerId);
model.addAttribute("owner", owner);
return "displayOwner";
}

The URI Template " /owners/{ownerId} " specifies the variable name ownerId . When the controller
handles this request, the value of ownerId is set to the value found in the appropriate part of the URI. For
example, when a request comes in for /owners/fred , the value of ownerId is fred .

To process the @PathVariable annotation, Spring MVC needs to find the matching URI template
variable by name. You can specify it in the annotation:
@RequestMapping(value="/owners/{ownerId}", method=RequestMethod.GET)
public String findOwner(@PathVariable("ownerId") String theOwner, Model model) {
// implementation omitted
}
Or if the URI template variable name matches the method argument name you can omit that
detail. As long as your code is not compiled without debugging information, Spring MVC will
match the method argument name to the URI template variable name:
@RequestMapping(value="/owners/{ownerId}", method=RequestMethod.GET)
public String findOwner(@PathVariable String ownerId, Model model) {
// implementation omitted
}

A method can have any number of @PathVariable annotations:

@RequestMapping(value="/owners/{ownerId}/pets/{petId}", method=RequestMethod.GET)
public String findPet(@PathVariable String ownerId, @PathVariable String petId, Model model)
Owner owner = ownerService.findOwner(ownerId);
Pet pet = owner.getPet(petId);
model.addAttribute("pet", pet);
return "displayPet";
}

When a @PathVariable annotation is used on a Map<String, String> argument, the map is populated
with all URI template variables.
A URI template can be assembled from type and path level @RequestMapping annotations. As a result the
findPet() method can be invoked with a URL such as /owners/42/pets/21 .

@Controller
@RequestMapping("/owners/{ownerId}")
public class RelativePathUriTemplateController {

@RequestMapping("/pets/{petId}")
public void findPet(@PathVariable String ownerId, @PathVariable String petId, Model model)
// implementation omitted
}
}

A @PathVariable argument can be of any simple type such as int, long, Date, etc. Spring automatically
converts to the appropriate type or throws a TypeMismatchException if it fails to do so. You can also
register support for parsing additional data types. See the section called “Method Parameters And Type
Conversion” and the section called “Customizing WebDataBinder initialization”.

URI Template Patterns with Regular Expressions

Sometimes you need more precision in defining URI template variables. Consider the URL
"/spring-web/spring-web-3.0.5.jar" . How do you break it down into multiple parts?

The @RequestMapping annotation supports the use of regular expressions in URI template variables. The
syntax is {varName:regex} where the first part defines the variable name and the second - the regular
expression.For example:

@RequestMapping("/spring-web/{symbolicName:[a-z-]+}-{version:\\d\\.\\d\\.\\d}{extension:\\.[
public void handle(@PathVariable String version, @PathVariable String extension) {
// ...
}
}

Path Patterns

In addition to URI templates, the @RequestMapping annotation also supports Ant-style path patterns (for
example, /myPath/*.do ). A combination of URI templates and Ant-style globs is also supported (for
example, /owners/*/pets/{petId} ).

Patterns with Placeholders

Patterns in @RequestMapping annotations support ${...} placeholders against local properties and/or
system properties and environment variables. This may be useful in cases where the path a controller is
mapped to may need to be customized through configuration. For more information on placeholders see the
Javadoc for PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer .

Matrix Variables
The URI specification RFC 3986 defines the possibility of including name-value pairs within path segments.
There is no specific term used in the spec. The general "URI path parameters" could be applied although the
more unique "Matrix URIs", originating from an old post by Tim Berners-Lee, is also frequently used and
fairly well known. Within Spring MVC these are referred to as matrix variables.

Matrix variables can appear in any path segment, each matrix variable separated with a ";" (semicolon). For
example: "/cars;color=red;year=2012" . Multiple values may be either "," (comma) separated
"color=red,green,blue" or the variable name may be repeated
"color=red;color=green;color=blue" .

If a URL is expected to contain matrix variables, the request mapping pattern must represent them with a
URI template. This ensures the request can be matched correctly regardless of whether matrix variables are
present or not and in what order they are provided.

Below is an example of extracting the matrix variable "q":

// GET /pets/42;q=11;r=22

@RequestMapping(value = "/pets/{petId}", method = RequestMethod.GET)

public void findPet(@PathVariable String petId, @MatrixVariable int q) {

// petId == 42
// q == 11

Since all path segments may contain matrix variables, in some cases you need to be more specific to
identify where the variable is expected to be:

// GET /owners/42;q=11/pets/21;q=22

@RequestMapping(value = "/owners/{ownerId}/pets/{petId}", method = RequestMethod.GET)

public void findPet(
@MatrixVariable(value="q", pathVar="ownerId") int q1,
@MatrixVariable(value="q", pathVar="petId") int q2) {

// q1 == 11
// q2 == 22

A matrix variable may be defined as optional and a default value specified:

// GET /pets/42

@RequestMapping(value = "/pets/{petId}", method = RequestMethod.GET)

public void findPet(@MatrixVariable(required=true, defaultValue="1") int q) {

// q == 1

All matrix variables may be obtained in a Map:

 // GET /owners/42;q=11;r=12/pets/21;q=22;s=23

@RequestMapping(value = "/owners/{ownerId}/pets/{petId}", method = RequestMethod.GET)

public void findPet(
@MatrixVariable Map<String, String> matrixVars,
@MatrixVariable(pathVar="petId"") Map<String, String> petMatrixVars) {

// matrixVars: ["q" : [11,22], "r" : 12, "s" : 23]

// petMatrixVars: ["q" : 11, "s" : 23]

Note that to enable the use of matrix variables, you must set the removeSemicolonContent property of
RequestMappingHandlerMapping to false . By default it is set to false .

In the MVC namespace, the `mvc:annotation-driven` element has an `enableMatrixVariables` attribute that
should be set to `true`. By default it is set to `false`.

Consumable Media Types

You can narrow the primary mapping by specifying a list of consumable media types. The request will be
matched only if the Content-Type request header matches the specified media type. For example:

@Controller
@RequestMapping(value = "/pets", method = RequestMethod.POST, consumes="application/json")
public void addPet(@RequestBody Pet pet, Model model) {
// implementation omitted
}

Consumable media type expressions can also be negated as in !text/plain to match to all requests other than
those with Content-Type of text/plain.

The consumes condition is supported on the type and on the method level. Unlike most other
conditions, when used at the type level, method-level consumable types override rather than
extend type-level consumable types.

Producible Media Types

You can narrow the primary mapping by specifying a list of producible media types. The request will be
matched only if the Accept request header matches one of these values. Furthermore, use of the produces
condition ensures the actual content type used to generate the response respects the media types specified
in the produces condition. For example:

@Controller
@RequestMapping(value = "/pets/{petId}", method = RequestMethod.GET, produces="application/j
@ResponseBody
public Pet getPet(@PathVariable String petId, Model model) {
// implementation omitted
}
Just like with consumes, producible media type expressions can be negated as in !text/plain to match to all
requests other than those with an Accept header value of text/plain.

The produces condition is supported on the type and on the method level. Unlike most other
conditions, when used at the type level, method-level producible types override rather than
extend type-level producible types.

Request Parameters and Header Values

You can narrow request matching through request parameter conditions such as "myParam" , "!myParam" ,
or "myParam=myValue" . The first two test for request parameter presence/absence and the third for a
specific parameter value. Here is an example with a request parameter value condition:

@Controller
@RequestMapping("/owners/{ownerId}")
public class RelativePathUriTemplateController {

@RequestMapping(value = "/pets/{petId}", method = RequestMethod.GET, params="myParam=myVal

public void findPet(@PathVariable String ownerId, @PathVariable String petId, Model model)
// implementation omitted
}
}

The same can be done to test for request header presence/absence or to match based on a specific request
header value:

@Controller
@RequestMapping("/owners/{ownerId}")
public class RelativePathUriTemplateController {

@RequestMapping(value = "/pets", method = RequestMethod.GET, headers="myHeader=myValue")

public void findPet(@PathVariable String ownerId, @PathVariable String petId, Model model)
// implementation omitted
}
}

Although you can match to Content-Type and Accept header values using media type wild
cards (for example "content-type=text/*" will match to "text/plain" and "text/html"), it is
recommended to use the consumes and produces conditions respectively instead. They are
intended specifically for that purpose.

17.3.3 Defining @RequestMapping handler methods

An @RequestMapping handler method can have a very flexible signatures. The supported method
arguments and return values are described in the following section. Most arguments can be used in arbitrary
order with the only exception of BindingResult arguments. This is described in the next section.
 Spring 3.1 introduced a new set of support classes for @RequestMapping methods called
RequestMappingHandlerMapping and RequestMappingHandlerAdapter respectively.
They are recommended for use and even required to take advantage of new features in Spring
MVC 3.1 and going forward. The new support classes are enabled by default from the MVC
namespace and with use of the MVC Java config but must be configured explicitly if using
neither.

Supported method argument types

The following are the supported method arguments:

Request or response objects (Servlet API). Choose any specific request or response type, for example
ServletRequest or HttpServletRequest .
Session object (Servlet API): of type HttpSession . An argument of this type enforces the presence of
a corresponding session. As a consequence, such an argument is never null .

Session access may not be thread-safe, in particular in a Servlet environment. Consider

setting the RequestMappingHandlerAdapter 's "synchronizeOnSession" flag to "true" if
multiple requests are allowed to access a session concurrently.

org.springframework.web.context.request.WebRequest or
org.springframework.web.context.request.NativeWebRequest . Allows for generic request
parameter access as well as request/session attribute access, without ties to the native Servlet/Portlet
API.
java.util.Locale for the current request locale, determined by the most specific locale resolver
available, in effect, the configured LocaleResolver in a Servlet environment.
java.io.InputStream / java.io.Reader for access to the request's content. This value is the raw
InputStream/Reader as exposed by the Servlet API.
java.io.OutputStream / java.io.Writer for generating the response's content. This value is the
raw OutputStream/Writer as exposed by the Servlet API.
java.security.Principal containing the currently authenticated user.
@PathVariable annotated parameters for access to URI template variables. See the section called
“URI Template Patterns”.
@MatrixVariable annotated parameters for access to name-value pairs located in URI path
segments. See the section called “Matrix Variables”.
@RequestParam annotated parameters for access to specific Servlet request parameters. Parameter
values are converted to the declared method argument type. See the section called “Binding request
parameters to method parameters with @RequestParam ”.
@RequestHeader annotated parameters for access to specific Servlet request HTTP headers.
Parameter values are converted to the declared method argument type.
@RequestBody annotated parameters for access to the HTTP request body. Parameter values are
converted to the declared method argument type using HttpMessageConverter s. See the section
called “Mapping the request body with the @RequestBody annotation”.
@RequestPart annotated parameters for access to the content of a "multipart/form-data" request part.
See Section 17.10.5, “Handling a file upload request from programmatic clients” and Section 17.10,
 “Spring's multipart (file upload) support”.
HttpEntity<?> parameters for access to the Servlet request HTTP headers and contents. The
request stream will be converted to the entity body using HttpMessageConverter s. See the section
called “Using HttpEntity<?> ”.
java.util.Map / org.springframework.ui.Model / org.springframework.ui.ModelMap for
enriching the implicit model that is exposed to the web view.
org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.support.RedirectAttributes to specify the exact set of
attributes to use in case of a redirect and also to add flash attributes (attributes stored temporarily on the
server-side to make them available to the request after the redirect). RedirectAttributes is used
instead of the implicit model if the method returns a "redirect:" prefixed view name or RedirectView .
Command or form objects to bind request parameters to bean properties (via setters) or directly to fields,
with customizable type conversion, depending on @InitBinder methods and/or the HandlerAdapter
configuration. See the webBindingInitializer property on RequestMappingHandlerAdapter .
Such command objects along with their validation results will be exposed as model attributes by default,
using the command class class name - e.g. model attribute "orderAddress" for a command object of
type "some.package.OrderAddress". The ModelAttribute annotation can be used on a method
argument to customize the model attribute name used.
org.springframework.validation.Errors /
org.springframework.validation.BindingResult validation results for a preceding command or
form object (the immediately preceding method argument).
org.springframework.web.bind.support.SessionStatus status handle for marking form
processing as complete, which triggers the cleanup of session attributes that have been indicated by the
@SessionAttributes annotation at the handler type level.
org.springframework.web.util.UriComponentsBuilder a builder for preparing a URL relative to
the current request's host, port, scheme, context path, and the literal part of the servlet mapping.

The Errors or BindingResult parameters have to follow the model object that is being bound
immediately as the method signature might have more that one model object and Spring will create a
separate BindingResult instance for each of them so the following sample won't work:

Example 17.1. Invalid ordering of BindingResult and @ModelAttribute

@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.POST)
public String processSubmit(@ModelAttribute("pet") Pet pet,
Model model, BindingResult result) { … }

Note, that there is a Model parameter in between Pet and BindingResult . To get this working you have
to reorder the parameters as follows:

@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.POST)
public String processSubmit(@ModelAttribute("pet") Pet pet,
BindingResult result, Model model) { … }

Supported method return types

The following are the supported return types:

 A ModelAndView object, with the model implicitly enriched with command objects and the results of
@ModelAttribute annotated reference data accessor methods.
A Model object, with the view name implicitly determined through a RequestToViewNameTranslator
and the model implicitly enriched with command objects and the results of @ModelAttribute
annotated reference data accessor methods.
A Map object for exposing a model, with the view name implicitly determined through a
RequestToViewNameTranslator and the model implicitly enriched with command objects and the
results of @ModelAttribute annotated reference data accessor methods.
A View object, with the model implicitly determined through command objects and @ModelAttribute
annotated reference data accessor methods. The handler method may also programmatically enrich the
model by declaring a Model argument (see above).
A String value that is interpreted as the logical view name, with the model implicitly determined
through command objects and @ModelAttribute annotated reference data accessor methods. The
handler method may also programmatically enrich the model by declaring a Model argument (see
above).
void if the method handles the response itself (by writing the response content directly, declaring an
argument of type ServletResponse / HttpServletResponse for that purpose) or if the view name is
supposed to be implicitly determined through a RequestToViewNameTranslator (not declaring a
response argument in the handler method signature).
If the method is annotated with @ResponseBody , the return type is written to the response HTTP body.
The return value will be converted to the declared method argument type using
HttpMessageConverter s. See the section called “Mapping the response body with the
@ResponseBody annotation”.
A HttpEntity<?> or ResponseEntity<?> object to provide access to the Servlet response HTTP
headers and contents. The entity body will be converted to the response stream using
HttpMessageConverter s. See the section called “Using HttpEntity<?> ”.
A Callable<?> can be returned when the application wants to produce the return value
asynchronously in a thread managed by Spring MVC.
A DeferredResult<?> can be returned when the application wants to produce the return value from a
thread of its own choosing.
Any other return type is considered to be a single model attribute to be exposed to the view, using the
attribute name specified through @ModelAttribute at the method level (or the default attribute name
based on the return type class name). The model is implicitly enriched with command objects and the
results of @ModelAttribute annotated reference data accessor methods.

Binding request parameters to method parameters with @RequestParam

Use the @RequestParam annotation to bind request parameters to a method parameter in your controller.

The following code snippet shows the usage:

@Controller
@RequestMapping("/pets")
@SessionAttributes("pet")
public class EditPetForm {

// ...

@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.GET)
 public String setupForm(@RequestParam("petId") int petId, ModelMap model) {
Pet pet = this.clinic.loadPet(petId);
model.addAttribute("pet", pet);
return "petForm";
}

// ...

Parameters using this annotation are required by default, but you can specify that a parameter is optional by
setting @RequestParam 's required attribute to false (e.g.,
@RequestParam(value="id", required=false) ).

Type conversion is applied automatically if the target method parameter type is not String . See the section
called “Method Parameters And Type Conversion”.

Mapping the request body with the @RequestBody annotation

The @RequestBody method parameter annotation indicates that a method parameter should be bound to
the value of the HTTP request body. For example:

@RequestMapping(value = "/something", method = RequestMethod.PUT)

public void handle(@RequestBody String body, Writer writer) throws IOException {
writer.write(body);
}

You convert the request body to the method argument by using an HttpMessageConverter .
HttpMessageConverter is responsible for converting from the HTTP request message to an object and
converting from an object to the HTTP response body. The RequestMappingHandlerAdapter supports the
@RequestBody annotation with the following default HttpMessageConverters :

ByteArrayHttpMessageConverter converts byte arrays.

StringHttpMessageConverter converts strings.
FormHttpMessageConverter converts form data to/from a MultiValueMap<String, String>.
SourceHttpMessageConverter converts to/from a javax.xml.transform.Source.

For more information on these converters, see Message Converters. Also note that if using the MVC
namespace or the MVC Java config, a wider range of message converters are registered by default. See
Enabling the MVC Java Config or the MVC XML Namespace for more information.

If you intend to read and write XML, you will need to configure the MarshallingHttpMessageConverter
with a specific Marshaller and an Unmarshaller implementation from the org.springframework.oxm
package. The example below shows how to do that directly in your configuration but if your application is
configured through the MVC namespace or the MVC Java config see Enabling the MVC Java Config or the
MVC XML Namespace instead.

<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.RequestMappingHandlerAdap
<property name="messageConverters">
<util:list id="beanList">
<ref bean="stringHttpMessageConverter"/>
<ref bean="marshallingHttpMessageConverter"/>
</util:list>
</property
 </bean>

<bean id="stringHttpMessageConverter"
class="org.springframework.http.converter.StringHttpMessageConverter"/>

<bean id="marshallingHttpMessageConverter"
class="org.springframework.http.converter.xml.MarshallingHttpMessageConverter">
<property name="marshaller" ref="castorMarshaller" />
<property name="unmarshaller" ref="castorMarshaller" />
</bean>

<bean id="castorMarshaller" class="org.springframework.oxm.castor.CastorMarshaller"/>

An @RequestBody method parameter can be annotated with @Valid , in which case it will be validated
using the configured Validator instance. When using the MVC namespace or the MVC Java config, a
JSR-303 validator is configured automatically assuming a JSR-303 implementation is available on the
classpath.

Just like with @ModelAttribute parameters, an Errors argument can be used to examine the errors. If
such an argument is not declared, a MethodArgumentNotValidException will be raised. The exception is
handled in the DefaultHandlerExceptionResolver , which sends a 400 error back to the client.

Also see Enabling the MVC Java Config or the MVC XML Namespace for information on
configuring message converters and a validator through the MVC namespace or the MVC
Java config.

Mapping the response body with the @ResponseBody annotation

The @ResponseBody annotation is similar to @RequestBody . This annotation can be put on a method and
indicates that the return type should be written straight to the HTTP response body (and not placed in a
Model, or interpreted as a view name). For example:

@RequestMapping(value = "/something", method = RequestMethod.PUT)

@ResponseBody
public String helloWorld() {
return "Hello World";
}

The above example will result in the text Hello World being written to the HTTP response stream.

As with @RequestBody , Spring converts the returned object to a response body by using an
HttpMessageConverter . For more information on these converters, see the previous section and Message
Converters.

Using HttpEntity<?>

The HttpEntity is similar to @RequestBody and @ResponseBody . Besides getting access to the request
and response body, HttpEntity (and the response-specific subclass ResponseEntity ) also allows
access to the request and response headers, like so:
 @RequestMapping("/something")
public ResponseEntity<String> handle(HttpEntity<byte[]> requestEntity) throws UnsupportedEnc
String requestHeader = requestEntity.getHeaders().getFirst("MyRequestHeader"));
byte[] requestBody = requestEntity.getBody();
// do something with request header and body

HttpHeaders responseHeaders = new HttpHeaders();

responseHeaders.set("MyResponseHeader", "MyValue");
return new ResponseEntity<String>("Hello World", responseHeaders, HttpStatus.CREATED);
}

The above example gets the value of the MyRequestHeader request header, and reads the body as a byte
array. It adds the MyResponseHeader to the response, writes Hello World to the response stream, and
sets the response status code to 201 (Created).

As with @RequestBody and @ResponseBody , Spring uses HttpMessageConverter to convert from and
to the request and response streams. For more information on these converters, see the previous section
and Message Converters.

Using @ModelAttribute on a method

The @ModelAttribute annotation can be used on methods or on method arguments. This section explains
its usage on methods while the next section explains its usage on method arguments.

An @ModelAttribute on a method indicates the purpose of that method is to add one or more model
attributes. Such methods support the same argument types as @RequestMapping methods but cannot be
mapped directly to requests. Instead @ModelAttribute methods in a controller are invoked before
@RequestMapping methods, within the same controller. A couple of examples:

// Add one attribute

// The return value of the method is added to the model under the name "account"
// You can customize the name via @ModelAttribute("myAccount")

@ModelAttribute
public Account addAccount(@RequestParam String number) {
return accountManager.findAccount(number);
}

// Add multiple attributes

@ModelAttribute
public void populateModel(@RequestParam String number, Model model) {
model.addAttribute(accountManager.findAccount(number));
// add more ...
}

@ModelAttribute methods are used to populate the model with commonly needed attributes for example
to fill a drop-down with states or with pet types, or to retrieve a command object like Account in order to use
it to represent the data on an HTML form. The latter case is further discussed in the next section.

Note the two styles of @ModelAttribute methods. In the first, the method adds an attribute implicitly by
returning it. In the second, the method accepts a Model and adds any number of model attributes to it. You
can choose between the two styles depending on your needs.

A controller can have any number of @ModelAttribute methods. All such methods are invoked before
@RequestMapping methods of the same controller.

@ModelAttribute methods can also be defined in an @ControllerAdvice -annotated class and such
methods apply to all controllers. The @ControllerAdvice annotation is a component annotation allowing
implementation classes to be autodetected through classpath scanning.

What happens when a model attribute name is not explicitly specified? In such cases a default
name is assigned to the model attribute based on its type. For example if the method returns
an object of type Account , the default name used is "account". You can change that through
the value of the @ModelAttribute annotation. If adding attributes directly to the Model , use
the appropriate overloaded addAttribute(..) method - i.e., with or without an attribute
name.

The @ModelAttribute annotation can be used on @RequestMapping methods as well. In that case the
return value of the @RequestMapping method is interpreted as a model attribute rather than as a view
name. The view name is derived from view name conventions instead much like for methods returning void
— see Section 17.12.3, “The View - RequestToViewNameTranslator ”.

Using @ModelAttribute on a method argument

As explained in the previous section @ModelAttribute can be used on methods or on method arguments.
This section explains its usage on method arguments.

An @ModelAttribute on a method argument indicates the argument should be retrieved from the model. If
not present in the model, the argument should be instantiated first and then added to the model. Once
present in the model, the argument's fields should be populated from all request parameters that have
matching names. This is known as data binding in Spring MVC, a very useful mechanism that saves you
from having to parse each form field individually.

@RequestMapping(value="/owners/{ownerId}/pets/{petId}/edit", method = RequestMethod.POST)

public String processSubmit(@ModelAttribute Pet pet) {

Given the above example where can the Pet instance come from? There are several options:

It may already be in the model due to use of @SessionAttributes — see the section called “Using
@SessionAttributes to store model attributes in the HTTP session between requests”.
It may already be in the model due to an @ModelAttribute method in the same controller — as
explained in the previous section.
It may be retrieved based on a URI template variable and type converter (explained in more detail
below).
It may be instantiated using its default constructor.

An @ModelAttribute method is a common way to to retrieve an attribute from the database, which may
optionally be stored between requests through the use of @SessionAttributes . In some cases it may be
convenient to retrieve the attribute by using an URI template variable and a type converter. Here is an
example:

@RequestMapping(value="/accounts/{account}", method = RequestMethod.PUT)

public String save(@ModelAttribute("account") Account account) {

In this example the name of the model attribute (i.e. "account") matches the name of a URI template
variable. If you register Converter<String, Account> that can turn the String account value into an
Account instance, then the above example will work without the need for an @ModelAttribute method.

The next step is data binding. The WebDataBinder class matches request parameter names — including
query string parameters and form fields — to model attribute fields by name. Matching fields are populated
after type conversion (from String to the target field type) has been applied where necessary. Data binding
and validation are covered in Chapter 7, Validation, Data Binding, and Type Conversion. Customizing the
data binding process for a controller level is covered in the section called “Customizing WebDataBinder
initialization”.

As a result of data binding there may be errors such as missing required fields or type conversion errors. To
check for such errors add a BindingResult argument immediately following the @ModelAttribute
argument:

@RequestMapping(value="/owners/{ownerId}/pets/{petId}/edit", method = RequestMethod.POST)

public String processSubmit(@ModelAttribute("pet") Pet pet, BindingResult result) {

if (result.hasErrors()) {
return "petForm";
}

// ...

With a BindingResult you can check if errors were found in which case it's common to render the same
form where the errors can be shown with the help of Spring's <errors> form tag.

In addition to data binding you can also invoke validation using your own custom validator passing the same
BindingResult that was used to record data binding errors. That allows for data binding and validation
errors to be accumulated in one place and subsequently reported back to the user:

@RequestMapping(value="/owners/{ownerId}/pets/{petId}/edit", method = RequestMethod.POST)

public String processSubmit(@ModelAttribute("pet") Pet pet, BindingResult result) {

new PetValidator().validate(pet, result);

if (result.hasErrors()) {
return "petForm";
}

// ...
}

Or you can have validation invoked automatically by adding the JSR-303 @Valid annotation:
 @RequestMapping(value="/owners/{ownerId}/pets/{petId}/edit", method = RequestMethod.POST)
public String processSubmit(@Valid @ModelAttribute("pet") Pet pet, BindingResult result) {

if (result.hasErrors()) {
return "petForm";
}

// ...
}

See Section 7.8, “Spring 3 Validation” and Chapter 7, Validation, Data Binding, and Type Conversion for
details on how to configure and use validation.

Using @SessionAttributes to store model attributes in the HTTP session between

requests

The type-level @SessionAttributes annotation declares session attributes used by a specific handler.
This will typically list the names of model attributes or types of model attributes which should be
transparently stored in the session or some conversational storage, serving as form-backing beans between
subsequent requests.

The following code snippet shows the usage of this annotation, specifying the model attribute name:

@Controller
@RequestMapping("/editPet.do")
@SessionAttributes("pet")
public class EditPetForm {
// ...
}

When using controller interfaces (e.g., for AOP proxying), make sure to consistently put all
your mapping annotations - such as @RequestMapping and @SessionAttributes - on the
controller interface rather than on the implementation class.

Specifying redirect and flash attributes

By default all model attributes are considered to be exposed as URI template variables in the redirect URL.
Of the remaining attributes those that are primitive types or collections/arrays of primitive types are
automatically appended as query parameters.

In annotated controllers however the model may contain additional attributes originally added for rendering
purposes (e.g. drop-down field values). To gain precise control over the attributes used in a redirect
scenario, an @RequestMapping method can declare an argument of type RedirectAttributes and use it
to add attributes for use in RedirectView . If the controller method does redirect, the content of
RedirectAttributes is used. Otherwise the content of the default Model is used.

The RequestMappingHandlerAdapter provides a flag called "ignoreDefaultModelOnRedirect" that

can be used to indicate the content of the default Model should never be used if a controller method
redirects. Instead the controller method should declare an attribute of type RedirectAttributes or if it
doesn't do so no attributes should be passed on to RedirectView . Both the MVC namespace and the MVC
Java config keep this flag set to false in order to maintain backwards compatibility. However, for new
applications we recommend setting it to true

The RedirectAttributes interface can also be used to add flash attributes. Unlike other redirect
attributes, which end up in the target redirect URL, flash attributes are saved in the HTTP session (and
hence do not appear in the URL). The model of the controller serving the target redirect URL automatically
receives these flash attributes after which they are removed from the session. See Section 17.6, “Using flash
attributes” for an overview of the general support for flash attributes in Spring MVC.

Working with "application/x-www-form-urlencoded" data

The previous sections covered use of @ModelAttribute to support form submission requests from
browser clients. The same annotation is recommended for use with requests from non-browser clients as
well. However there is one notable difference when it comes to working with HTTP PUT requests. Browsers
can submit form data via HTTP GET or HTTP POST. Non-browser clients can also submit forms via HTTP
PUT. This presents a challenge because the Servlet specification requires the
ServletRequest.getParameter*() family of methods to support form field access only for HTTP POST,
not for HTTP PUT.

To support HTTP PUT and PATCH requests, the spring-web module provides the filter
HttpPutFormContentFilter , which can be configured in web.xml :

<filter>
<filter-name>httpPutFormFilter</filter-name>
<filter-class>org.springframework.web.filter.HttpPutFormContentFilter</filter-class>
</filter>

<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>httpPutFormFilter</filter-name>
<servlet-name>dispatcherServlet</servlet-name>
</filter-mapping>

<servlet>
<servlet-name>dispatcherServlet</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
</servlet>

The above filter intercepts HTTP PUT and PATCH requests with content type
application/x-www-form-urlencoded , reads the form data from the body of the request, and wraps the
ServletRequest in order to make the form data available through the
ServletRequest.getParameter*() family of methods.

As HttpPutFormContentFilter consumes the body of the request, it should not be

configured for PUT or PATCH URLs that rely on other converters for
application/x-www-form-urlencoded . This includes
@RequestBody MultiValueMap<String, String> and
HttpEntity<MultiValueMap<String, String>> .

Mapping cookie values with the @CookieValue annotation

The @CookieValue annotation allows a method parameter to be bound to the value of an HTTP cookie.

Let us consider that the following cookie has been received with an http request:

JSESSIONID=415A4AC178C59DACE0B2C9CA727CDD84

The following code sample demonstrates how to get the value of the JSESSIONID cookie:

@RequestMapping("/displayHeaderInfo.do")
public void displayHeaderInfo(@CookieValue("JSESSIONID") String cookie) {

//...

Type conversion is applied automatically if the target method parameter type is not String . See the section
called “Method Parameters And Type Conversion”.

This annotation is supported for annotated handler methods in Servlet and Portlet environments.

Mapping request header attributes with the @RequestHeader annotation

The @RequestHeader annotation allows a method parameter to be bound to a request header.

Here is a sample request header:

Host localhost:8080
Accept text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9
Accept-Language fr,en-gb;q=0.7,en;q=0.3
Accept-Encoding gzip,deflate
Accept-Charset ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7
Keep-Alive 300

The following code sample demonstrates how to get the value of the Accept-Encoding and Keep-Alive
headers:

@RequestMapping("/displayHeaderInfo.do")
public void displayHeaderInfo(@RequestHeader("Accept-Encoding") String encoding,
@RequestHeader("Keep-Alive") long keepAlive) {

//...

Type conversion is applied automatically if the method parameter is not String . See the section called
“Method Parameters And Type Conversion”.

Built-in support is available for converting a comma-separated string into an array/collection of

strings or other types known to the type conversion system. For example a method parameter
annotated with @RequestHeader("Accept") may be of type String but also String[] or
List<String> .
This annotation is supported for annotated handler methods in Servlet and Portlet environments.

Method Parameters And Type Conversion

String-based values extracted from the request including request parameters, path variables, request
headers, and cookie values may need to be converted to the target type of the method parameter or field
(e.g., binding a request parameter to a field in an @ModelAttribute parameter) they're bound to. If the
target type is not String , Spring automatically converts to the appropriate type. All simple types such as
int, long, Date, etc. are supported. You can further customize the conversion process through a
WebDataBinder (see the section called “Customizing WebDataBinder initialization”) or by registering
Formatters with the FormattingConversionService (see Section 7.6, “Spring 3 Field Formatting”).

Customizing WebDataBinder initialization

To customize request parameter binding with PropertyEditors through Spring's WebDataBinder , you can
use @InitBinder -annotated methods within your controller, @InitBinder methods within an
@ControllerAdvice class, or provide a custom WebBindingInitializer .

Customizing data binding with @InitBinder

Annotating controller methods with @InitBinder allows you to configure web data binding directly within
your controller class. @InitBinder identifies methods that initialize the WebDataBinder that will be used
to populate command and form object arguments of annotated handler methods.

Such init-binder methods support all arguments that @RequestMapping supports, except for command/form
objects and corresponding validation result objects. Init-binder methods must not have a return value. Thus,
they are usually declared as void . Typical arguments include WebDataBinder in combination with
WebRequest or java.util.Locale , allowing code to register context-specific editors.

The following example demonstrates the use of @InitBinder to configure a CustomDateEditor for all
java.util.Date form properties.

@Controller
public class MyFormController {

@InitBinder
public void initBinder(WebDataBinder binder) {
SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
dateFormat.setLenient(false);
binder.registerCustomEditor(Date.class, new CustomDateEditor(dateFormat, false));
}

// ...
}

Configuring a custom WebBindingInitializer

To externalize data binding initialization, you can provide a custom implementation of the
WebBindingInitializer interface, which you then enable by supplying a custom bean configuration for
an AnnotationMethodHandlerAdapter , thus overriding the default configuration.
The following example from the PetClinic application shows a configuration using a custom implementation
of the WebBindingInitializer interface,
org.springframework.samples.petclinic.web.ClinicBindingInitializer , which configures
PropertyEditors required by several of the PetClinic controllers.

<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.RequestMappingHandlerAdap
<property name="cacheSeconds" value="0" />
<property name="webBindingInitializer">
<bean class="org.springframework.samples.petclinic.web.ClinicBindingInitializer" />
</property>
</bean>

Customizing data binding with externalized @InitBinder methods

@InitBinder methods can also be defined in an @ControllerAdvice -annotated class in which case they
apply to all controllers. This provides an alternative to using a WebBindingInitializer .

The @ControllerAdvice annotation is a component annotation allowing implementation classes to be

autodetected through classpath scanning.

Support for the 'Last-Modified' Response Header To Facilitate Content Caching

An @RequestMapping method may wish to support 'Last-Modified' HTTP requests, as defined in the
contract for the Servlet API's getLastModified method, to facilitate content caching. This involves
calculating a lastModified long value for a given request, comparing it against the 'If-Modified-Since'
request header value, and potentially returning a response with status code 304 (Not Modified). An
annotated controller method can achieve that as follows:

@RequestMapping
public String myHandleMethod(WebRequest webRequest, Model model) {

long lastModified = // 1. application-specific calculation

if (request.checkNotModified(lastModified)) {
// 2. shortcut exit - no further processing necessary
return null;
}

// 3. or otherwise further request processing, actually preparing content

model.addAttribute(...);
return "myViewName";
}

There are two key elements to note: calling request.checkNotModified(lastModified) and returning
null . The former sets the response status to 304 before it returns true . The latter, in combination with the
former, causes Spring MVC to do no further processing of the request.

17.3.4 Asynchronous Request Processing

Spring MVC 3.2 introduced Servlet 3 based asynchronous request processing. Instead of returning a value,
as usual, a controller method can now return a java.util.concurrent.Callable and produce the return
value from a separate thread. Meanwhile the main Servlet container thread is released and allowed to
process other requests. Spring MVC invokes the Callable in a separate thread with the help of a
TaskExecutor and when the Callable returns, the request is dispatched back to the Servlet container to
resume processing with the value returned by the Callable . Here is an example controller method:

@RequestMapping(method=RequestMethod.POST)
public Callable<String> processUpload(final MultipartFile file) {

return new Callable<String>() {

public Object call() throws Exception {
// ...
return "someView";
}
};
}

A second option is for the controller to return an instance of DeferredResult . In this case the return value
will also be produced from a separate thread. However, that thread is not known to Spring MVC. For
example the result may be produced in response to some external event such as a JMS message, a
scheduled task, etc. Here is an example controller method:

@RequestMapping("/quotes")
@ResponseBody
public DeferredResult<String> quotes() {
DeferredResult<String> deferredResult = new DeferredResult<String>();
// Save the deferredResult in in-memory queue ...
return deferredResult;
}

// In some other thread...

deferredResult.setResult(data);

This may be difficult to understand without any knowledge of the Servlet 3 async processing feature. It would
certainly help to read up on it. At a very minimum consider the following basic facts:

A ServletRequest can be put in asynchronous mode by calling request.startAsync() . The main

effect of doing so is that the Servlet, as well as any Filters, can exit but the response will remain open
allowing some other thread to complete processing.
The call to request.startAsync() returns an AsyncContext , which can be used for further control
over async processing. For example it provides the method dispatch , which can be called from an
application thread in order to "dispatch" the request back to the Servlet container. An async dispatch is
similar to a forward except it is made from one (application) thread to another (Servlet container) thread
whereas a forward occurs synchronously in the same (Servlet container) thread.
ServletRequest provides access to the current DispatcherType , which can be used to distinguish if
a Servlet or a Filter is processing on the initial request processing thread and when it is
processing in an async dispatch.

With the above in mind, the following is the sequence of events for async request processing with a
Callable : (1) Controller returns a Callable , (2) Spring MVC starts async processing and submits the
Callable to a TaskExecutor for processing in a separate thread, (3) the DispatcherServlet and all
Filter's exit the request processing thread but the response remains open, (4) the Callable produces a
result and Spring MVC dispatches the request back to the Servlet container, (5) the DispatcherServlet is
invoked again and processing resumes with the asynchronously produced result from the Callable . The
exact sequencing of (2), (3), and (4) may vary depending on the speed of execution of the concurrent
threads.

The sequence of events for async request processing with a DeferredResult is the same in principal
except it's up to the application to produce the asynchronous result from some thread: (1) Controller returns
a DeferredResult and saves it in some in-memory queue or list where it can be accessed, (2) Spring
MVC starts async processing, (3) the DispatcherServlet and all configured Filter's exit the request
processing thread but the response remains open, (4) the application sets the DeferredResult from some
thread and Spring MVC dispatches the request back to the Servlet container, (5) the DispatcherServlet
is invoked again and processing resumes with the asynchronously produced result.

Explaining the motivation for async request processing and when or why to use it are beyond the scope of
this document. For further information you may wish to read this blog post series.

Exception Handling for Async Requests

What happens if a Callable returned from a controller method raises an Exception while being executed?
The effect is similar to what happens when any controller method raises an exception. It is handled by a
matching @ExceptionHandler method in the same controller or by one of the configured
HandlerExceptionResolver instances.

Under the covers, when a Callable raises an Exception, Spring MVC still dispatches to the
Servlet container to resume processing. The only difference is that the result of executing the
Callable is an Exception that must be processed with the configured
HandlerExceptionResolver instances.

When using a DeferredResult , you have a choice of calling its setErrorResult(Object) method and
provide an Exception or any other Object you'd like to use as the result. If the result is an Exception , it
will be processed with a matching @ExceptionHandler method in the same controller or with any
configured HandlerExceptionResolver instance.

Intercepting Async Requests

An existing HandlerInterceptor can implement AsyncHandlerInterceptor , which provides one

additional method afterConcurrentHandlingStarted . It is invoked after async processing starts and
when the initial request processing thread is being exited. See the Javadoc of AsyncHandlerInterceptor
for more details on that.

Further options for async request lifecycle callbacks are provided directly on DeferredResult , which has
the methods onTimeout(Runnable) and onCompletion(Runnable) . Those are called when the async
request is about to time out or has completed respectively. The timeout event can be handled by setting the
DeferredResult to some value. The completion callback however is final and the result can no longer be
set.
Similar callbacks are also available with a Callable . However, you will need to wrap the Callable in an
instance of WebAsyncTask and then use that to register the timeout and completion callbacks. Just like with
DeferredResult , the timeout event can be handled and a value can be returned while the completion
event is final.

You can also register a CallableProcessingInterceptor or a

DeferredResultProcessingInterceptor globally through the MVC Java config or the MVC namespace.
Those interceptors provide a full set of callbacks and apply every time a Callable or a DeferredResult
is used.

Configuration for Async Request Processing

Servlet 3 Async Config

To use Servlet 3 async request processing, you need to update web.xml to version 3.0:

<web-app xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/
version="3.0">

...

</web-app>

The DispatcherServlet and any Filter configuration need to have the

<async-supported>true</async-supported> sub-element. Additionally, any Filter that also needs to
get involved in async dispatches should also be configured to support the ASYNC dispatcher type. Note that
it is safe to enable the ASYNC dispatcher type for all filters provided with the Spring Framework since they
will not get involved in async dispatches unless needed.

If using Servlet 3, Java based configuration, e.g. via WebApplicationInitializer , you'll also need to set
the "asyncSupported" flag as well as the ASYNC dispatcher type just like with web.xml . To simplify all this
configuration, consider extending AbstractDispatcherServletInitializer or
AbstractAnnotationConfigDispatcherServletInitializer , which automatically set those options
and make it very easy to register Filter instances.

Spring MVC Async Config

The MVC Java config and the MVC namespace both provide options for configuring async request
processing. WebMvcConfigurer has the method configureAsyncSupport while <mvc:annotation-driven>
has an <async-support> sub-element.

Those allow you to configure the default timeout value to use for async requests, which if not set depends on
the underlying Servlet container (e.g. 10 seconds on Tomcat). You can also configure an
AsyncTaskExecutor to use for executing Callable instances returned from controller methods. It is
highly recommended to configure this property since by default Spring MVC uses
SimpleAsyncTaskExecutor . The MVC Java config and the MVC namespace also allow you to register
CallableProcessingInterceptor and DeferredResultProcessingInterceptor instances.

If you need to override the default timeout value for a specific DeferredResult , you can do so by using the
appropriate class constructor. Similarly, for a Callable , you can wrap it in a WebAsyncTask and use the
appropriate class constructor to customize the timeout value. The class constructor of WebAsyncTask also
allows providing an AsyncTaskExecutor .

17.3.5 Testing Controllers

The spring-test module offers first class support for testing annotated controllers. See Section 11.3.6,
“Spring MVC Test Framework”.

17.4 Handler mappings

In previous versions of Spring, users were required to define one or more HandlerMapping beans in the
web application context to map incoming web requests to appropriate handlers. With the introduction of
annotated controllers, you generally don't need to do that because the RequestMappingHandlerMapping
automatically looks for @RequestMapping annotations on all @Controller beans. However, do keep in
mind that all HandlerMapping classes extending from AbstractHandlerMapping have the following
properties that you can use to customize their behavior:

interceptors

List of interceptors to use. HandlerInterceptor s are discussed in Section 17.4.1, “Intercepting

requests with a HandlerInterceptor ”.

defaultHandler

Default handler to use, when this handler mapping does not result in a matching handler.

order

Based on the value of the order property (see the org.springframework.core.Ordered interface),
Spring sorts all handler mappings available in the context and applies the first matching handler.

alwaysUseFullPath

If true , Spring uses the full path within the current Servlet context to find an appropriate handler. If
false (the default), the path within the current Servlet mapping is used. For example, if a Servlet is
mapped using /testing/* and the alwaysUseFullPath property is set to true,
/testing/viewPage.html is used, whereas if the property is set to false, /viewPage.html is used.

urlDecode

Defaults to true , as of Spring 2.5. If you prefer to compare encoded paths, set this flag to false .
However, the HttpServletRequest always exposes the Servlet path in decoded form. Be aware that
the Servlet path will not match when compared with encoded paths.

The following example shows how to configure an interceptor:

 <beans>
<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.RequestMappingHandlerMa
<property name="interceptors">
<bean class="example.MyInterceptor"/>
</property>
</bean>

<beans>

17.4.1 Intercepting requests with a HandlerInterceptor

Spring's handler mapping mechanism includes handler interceptors, which are useful when you want to
apply specific functionality to certain requests, for example, checking for a principal.

Interceptors located in the handler mapping must implement HandlerInterceptor from the
org.springframework.web.servlet package. This interface defines three methods: preHandle(..) is
called before the actual handler is executed; postHandle(..) is called after the handler is executed; and
afterCompletion(..) is called after the complete request has finished. These three methods should
provide enough flexibility to do all kinds of preprocessing and postprocessing.

The preHandle(..) method returns a boolean value. You can use this method to break or continue the
processing of the execution chain. When this method returns true , the handler execution chain will
continue; when it returns false, the DispatcherServlet assumes the interceptor itself has taken care of
requests (and, for example, rendered an appropriate view) and does not continue executing the other
interceptors and the actual handler in the execution chain.

Interceptors can be configured using the interceptors property, which is present on all HandlerMapping
classes extending from AbstractHandlerMapping . This is shown in the example below:

<beans>
<bean id="handlerMapping"
class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.RequestMappingHandler
<property name="interceptors">
<list>
<ref bean="officeHoursInterceptor"/>
</list>
</property>
</bean>

<bean id="officeHoursInterceptor"
class="samples.TimeBasedAccessInterceptor">
<property name="openingTime" value="9"/>
<property name="closingTime" value="18"/>
</bean>
<beans>

package samples;

public class TimeBasedAccessInterceptor extends HandlerInterceptorAdapter {

private int openingTime;

 private int closingTime;

public void setOpeningTime(int openingTime) {

this.openingTime = openingTime;
}

public void setClosingTime(int closingTime) {

this.closingTime = closingTime;
}

public boolean preHandle(

HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response,
Object handler) throws Exception {

Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();

int hour = cal.get(HOUR_OF_DAY);
if (openingTime <= hour && hour < closingTime) {
return true;
} else {
response.sendRedirect("http://host.com/outsideOfficeHours.html");
return false;
}
}
}

Any request handled by this mapping is intercepted by the TimeBasedAccessInterceptor . If the current
time is outside office hours, the user is redirected to a static HTML file that says, for example, you can only
access the website during office hours.

When using the RequestMappingHandlerMapping the actual handler is an instance of

HandlerMethod which identifies the specific controller method that will be invoked.

As you can see, the Spring adapter class HandlerInterceptorAdapter makes it easier to extend the
HandlerInterceptor interface.

In the example above, the configured interceptor will apply to all requests handled with
annotated controller methods. If you want to narrow down the URL paths to which an
interceptor applies, you can use the MVC namespace or the MVC Java config, or declare bean
instances of type MappedInterceptor to do that. See Enabling the MVC Java Config or the
MVC XML Namespace.

17.5 Resolving views

All MVC frameworks for web applications provide a way to address views. Spring provides view resolvers,
which enable you to render models in a browser without tying you to a specific view technology. Out of the
box, Spring enables you to use JSPs, Velocity templates and XSLT views, for example. See Chapter 18,
View technologies for a discussion of how to integrate and use a number of disparate view technologies.
The two interfaces that are important to the way Spring handles views are ViewResolver and View . The
ViewResolver provides a mapping between view names and actual views. The View interface addresses
the preparation of the request and hands the request over to one of the view technologies.

17.5.1 Resolving views with the ViewResolver interface

As discussed in Section 17.3, “Implementing Controllers”, all handler methods in the Spring Web MVC
controllers must resolve to a logical view name, either explicitly (e.g., by returning a String , View , or
ModelAndView ) or implicitly (i.e., based on conventions). Views in Spring are addressed by a logical view
name and are resolved by a view resolver. Spring comes with quite a few view resolvers. This table lists
most of them; a couple of examples follow.

Table 17.3. View resolvers

ViewResolver Description

Abstract view resolver that caches views. Often views

AbstractCachingViewResolver need preparation before they can be used; extending this
view resolver provides caching.

Implementation of ViewResolver that accepts a

configuration file written in XML with the same DTD as
XmlViewResolver
Spring's XML bean factories. The default configuration file
is /WEB-INF/views.xml .

Implementation of ViewResolver that uses bean

definitions in a ResourceBundle , specified by the bundle
ResourceBundleViewResolver base name. Typically you define the bundle in a
properties file, located in the classpath. The default file
name is views.properties .

Simple implementation of the ViewResolver interface

that effects the direct resolution of logical view names to
URLs, without an explicit mapping definition. This is
UrlBasedViewResolver
appropriate if your logical names match the names of your
view resources in a straightforward manner, without the
need for arbitrary mappings.

Convenient subclass of UrlBasedViewResolver that

supports InternalResourceView (in effect, Servlets
and JSPs) and subclasses such as JstlView and
InternalResourceViewResolver TilesView . You can specify the view class for all views
generated by this resolver by using setViewClass(..) .
See the Javadocs for the UrlBasedViewResolver class
for details.

VelocityViewResolver / Convenient subclass of UrlBasedViewResolver that

FreeMarkerViewResolver supports VelocityView (in effect, Velocity templates) or
 ViewResolver Description

FreeMarkerView ,respectively, and custom subclasses

of them.

Implementation of the ViewResolver interface that

resolves a view based on the request file name or
ContentNegotiatingViewResolver
Accept header. See Section 17.5.4,
“ ContentNegotiatingViewResolver ”.

As an example, with JSP as a view technology, you can use the UrlBasedViewResolver . This view
resolver translates a view name to a URL and hands the request over to the RequestDispatcher to render
the view.

<bean id="viewResolver"
class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.UrlBasedViewResolver">
<property name="viewClass" value="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.JstlView"/>
<property name="prefix" value="/WEB-INF/jsp/"/>
<property name="suffix" value=".jsp"/>
</bean>

When returning test as a logical view name, this view resolver forwards the request to the
RequestDispatcher that will send the request to /WEB-INF/jsp/test.jsp .

When you combine different view technologies in a web application, you can use the
ResourceBundleViewResolver :

<bean id="viewResolver"
class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.ResourceBundleViewResolver">
<property name="basename" value="views"/>
<property name="defaultParentView" value="parentView"/>
</bean>

The ResourceBundleViewResolver inspects the ResourceBundle identified by the basename, and for
each view it is supposed to resolve, it uses the value of the property [viewname].(class) as the view
class and the value of the property [viewname].url as the view url. Examples can be found in the next
chapter which covers view technologies. As you can see, you can identify a parent view, from which all views
in the properties file “extend”. This way you can specify a default view class, for example.

Subclasses of AbstractCachingViewResolver cache view instances that they resolve.

Caching improves performance of certain view technologies. It's possible to turn off the cache
by setting the cache property to false . Furthermore, if you must refresh a certain view at
runtime (for example when a Velocity template is modified), you can use the
removeFromCache(String viewName, Locale loc) method.

17.5.2 Chaining ViewResolvers

Spring supports multiple view resolvers. Thus you can chain resolvers and, for example, override specific
views in certain circumstances. You chain view resolvers by adding more than one resolver to your
application context and, if necessary, by setting the order property to specify ordering. Remember, the
higher the order property, the later the view resolver is positioned in the chain.

In the following example, the chain of view resolvers consists of two resolvers, an
InternalResourceViewResolver , which is always automatically positioned as the last resolver in the
chain, and an XmlViewResolver for specifying Excel views. Excel views are not supported by the
InternalResourceViewResolver .

<bean id="jspViewResolver" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewR

<property name="viewClass" value="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.JstlView"/>
<property name="prefix" value="/WEB-INF/jsp/"/>
<property name="suffix" value=".jsp"/>
</bean>

<bean id="excelViewResolver" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.XmlViewResolver">

<property name="order" value="1"/>
<property name="location" value="/WEB-INF/views.xml"/>
</bean>

<!-- in views.xml -->

<beans>
<bean name="report" class="org.springframework.example.ReportExcelView"/>
</beans>

If a specific view resolver does not result in a view, Spring examines the context for other view resolvers. If
additional view resolvers exist, Spring continues to inspect them until a view is resolved. If no view resolver
returns a view, Spring throws a ServletException .

The contract of a view resolver specifies that a view resolver can return null to indicate the view could not be
found. Not all view resolvers do this, however, because in some cases, the resolver simply cannot detect
whether or not the view exists. For example, the InternalResourceViewResolver uses the
RequestDispatcher internally, and dispatching is the only way to figure out if a JSP exists, but this action
can only execute once. The same holds for the VelocityViewResolver and some others. Check the
Javadoc for the view resolver to see whether it reports non-existing views. Thus, putting an
InternalResourceViewResolver in the chain in a place other than the last, results in the chain not being
fully inspected, because the InternalResourceViewResolver will always return a view!

17.5.3 Redirecting to views

As mentioned previously, a controller typically returns a logical view name, which a view resolver resolves to
a particular view technology. For view technologies such as JSPs that are processed through the Servlet or
JSP engine, this resolution is usually handled through the combination of
InternalResourceViewResolver and InternalResourceView , which issues an internal forward or
include via the Servlet API's RequestDispatcher.forward(..) method or
RequestDispatcher.include() method. For other view technologies, such as Velocity, XSLT, and so on,
the view itself writes the content directly to the response stream.
It is sometimes desirable to issue an HTTP redirect back to the client, before the view is rendered. This is
desirable, for example, when one controller has been called with POST ed data, and the response is actually
a delegation to another controller (for example on a successful form submission). In this case, a normal
internal forward will mean that the other controller will also see the same POST data, which is potentially
problematic if it can confuse it with other expected data. Another reason to perform a redirect before
displaying the result is to eliminate the possibility of the user submitting the form data multiple times. In this
scenario, the browser will first send an initial POST ; it will then receive a response to redirect to a different
URL; and finally the browser will perform a subsequent GET for the URL named in the redirect response.
Thus, from the perspective of the browser, the current page does not reflect the result of a POST but rather
of a GET . The end effect is that there is no way the user can accidentally re- POST the same data by
performing a refresh. The refresh forces a GET of the result page, not a resend of the initial POST data.

RedirectView

One way to force a redirect as the result of a controller response is for the controller to create and return an
instance of Spring's RedirectView . In this case, DispatcherServlet does not use the normal view
resolution mechanism. Rather because it has been given the (redirect) view already, the
DispatcherServlet simply instructs the view to do its work.

The RedirectView issues an HttpServletResponse.sendRedirect() call that returns to the client

browser as an HTTP redirect. By default all model attributes are considered to be exposed as URI template
variables in the redirect URL. Of the remaining attributes those that are primitive types or collections/arrays
of primitive types are automatically appended as query parameters.

Appending primitive type attributes as query parameters may be the desired result if a model instance was
prepared specifically for the redirect. However, in annotated controllers the model may contain additional
attributes added for rendering purposes (e.g. drop-down field values). To avoid the possibility of having such
attributes appear in the URL an annotated controller can declare an argument of type
RedirectAttributes and use it to specify the exact attributes to make available to RedirectView . If the
controller method decides to redirect, the content of RedirectAttributes is used. Otherwise the content
of the model is used.

Note that URI template variables from the present request are automatically made available when expanding
a redirect URL and do not need to be added explicitly neither through Model nor RedirectAttributes .
For example:

@RequestMapping(value = "/files/{path}", method = RequestMethod.POST)

public String upload(...) {
// ...
return "redirect:files/{path}";
}

If you use RedirectView and the view is created by the controller itself, it is recommended that you
configure the redirect URL to be injected into the controller so that it is not baked into the controller but
configured in the context along with the view names. The next section discusses this process.

The redirect: prefix

While the use of RedirectView works fine, if the controller itself creates the RedirectView , there is no
avoiding the fact that the controller is aware that a redirection is happening. This is really suboptimal and
couples things too tightly. The controller should not really care about how the response gets handled. In
general it should operate only in terms of view names that have been injected into it.

The special redirect: prefix allows you to accomplish this. If a view name is returned that has the prefix
redirect: , the UrlBasedViewResolver (and all subclasses) will recognize this as a special indication
that a redirect is needed. The rest of the view name will be treated as the redirect URL.

The net effect is the same as if the controller had returned a RedirectView , but now the controller itself
can simply operate in terms of logical view names. A logical view name such as
redirect:/myapp/some/resource will redirect relative to the current Servlet context, while a name such
as redirect:http://myhost.com/some/arbitrary/path will redirect to an absolute URL.

The forward: prefix

It is also possible to use a special forward: prefix for view names that are ultimately resolved by
UrlBasedViewResolver and subclasses. This creates an InternalResourceView (which ultimately does
a RequestDispatcher.forward() ) around the rest of the view name, which is considered a URL.
Therefore, this prefix is not useful with InternalResourceViewResolver and InternalResourceView
(for JSPs for example). But the prefix can be helpful when you are primarily using another view technology,
but still want to force a forward of a resource to be handled by the Servlet/JSP engine. (Note that you may
also chain multiple view resolvers, instead.)

As with the redirect: prefix, if the view name with the forward: prefix is injected into the controller, the
controller does not detect that anything special is happening in terms of handling the response.

17.5.4 ContentNegotiatingViewResolver
The ContentNegotiatingViewResolver does not resolve views itself but rather delegates to other view
resolvers, selecting the view that resembles the representation requested by the client. Two strategies exist
for a client to request a representation from the server:

Use a distinct URI for each resource, typically by using a different file extension in the URI. For example,
the URI http://www.example.com/users/fred.pdf requests a PDF representation of the user fred,
and http://www.example.com/users/fred.xml requests an XML representation.

Use the same URI for the client to locate the resource, but set the Accept HTTP request header to list
the media types that it understands. For example, an HTTP request for
http://www.example.com/users/fred with an Accept header set to application/pdf requests
a PDF representation of the user fred, while http://www.example.com/users/fred with an Accept
header set to text/xml requests an XML representation. This strategy is known as content
negotiation.

One issue with the Accept header is that it is impossible to set it in a web browser within
HTML. For example, in Firefox, it is fixed to:
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8

For this reason it is common to see the use of a distinct URI for each representation when
developing browser based web applications.
To support multiple representations of a resource, Spring provides the
ContentNegotiatingViewResolver to resolve a view based on the file extension or Accept header of
the HTTP request. ContentNegotiatingViewResolver does not perform the view resolution itself but
instead delegates to a list of view resolvers that you specify through the bean property ViewResolvers .

The ContentNegotiatingViewResolver selects an appropriate View to handle the request by comparing

the request media type(s) with the media type (also known as Content-Type ) supported by the View
associated with each of its ViewResolvers . The first View in the list that has a compatible
Content-Type returns the representation to the client. If a compatible view cannot be supplied by the
ViewResolver chain, then the list of views specified through the DefaultViews property will be
consulted. This latter option is appropriate for singleton Views that can render an appropriate
representation of the current resource regardless of the logical view name. The Accept header may include
wild cards, for example text/* , in which case a View whose Content-Type was text/xml is a
compatible match.

To support the resolution of a view based on a file extension, use the

ContentNegotiatingViewResolver bean property mediaTypes to specify a mapping of file extensions
to media types. For more information on the algorithm used to determine the request media type, refer to the
API documentation for ContentNegotiatingViewResolver .

Here is an example configuration of a ContentNegotiatingViewResolver:

<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.ContentNegotiatingViewResolver">
<property name="mediaTypes">
<map>
<entry key="atom" value="application/atom+xml"/>
<entry key="html" value="text/html"/>
<entry key="json" value="application/json"/>
</map>
</property>
<property name="viewResolvers">
<list>
<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.BeanNameViewResolver"/>
<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver">
<property name="prefix" value="/WEB-INF/jsp/"/>
<property name="suffix" value=".jsp"/>
</bean>
</list>
</property>
<property name="defaultViews">
<list>
<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.json.MappingJackson2JsonView" />
</list>
</property>
</bean>

<bean id="content" class="com.springsource.samples.rest.SampleContentAtomView"/>

The InternalResourceViewResolver handles the translation of view names and JSP pages, while the
BeanNameViewResolver returns a view based on the name of a bean. (See "Resolving views with the
ViewResolver interface" for more details on how Spring looks up and instantiates a view.) In this example,
the content bean is a class that inherits from AbstractAtomFeedView , which returns an Atom RSS feed.
For more information on creating an Atom Feed representation, see the section Atom Views.

In the above configuration, if a request is made with an .html extension, the view resolver looks for a view
that matches the text/html media type. The InternalResourceViewResolver provides the matching
view for text/html . If the request is made with the file extension .atom , the view resolver looks for a view
that matches the application/atom+xml media type. This view is provided by the
BeanNameViewResolver that maps to the SampleContentAtomView if the view name returned is
content . If the request is made with the file extension .json , the MappingJackson2JsonView instance
from the DefaultViews list will be selected regardless of the view name. Alternatively, client requests can
be made without a file extension but with the Accept header set to the preferred media-type, and the same
resolution of request to views would occur.

If ContentNegotiatingViewResolver 's list of ViewResolvers is not configured explicitly, it

automatically uses any ViewResolvers defined in the application context.

The corresponding controller code that returns an Atom RSS feed for a URI of the form
http://localhost/content.atom or http://localhost/content with an Accept header of
application/atom+xml is shown below.

@Controller
public class ContentController {

private List<SampleContent> contentList = new ArrayList<SampleContent>();

@RequestMapping(value="/content", method=RequestMethod.GET)
public ModelAndView getContent() {
ModelAndView mav = new ModelAndView();
mav.setViewName("content");
mav.addObject("sampleContentList", contentList);
return mav;
}

17.6 Using flash attributes

Flash attributes provide a way for one request to store attributes intended for use in another. This is most
commonly needed when redirecting — for example, the Post/Redirect/Get pattern. Flash attributes are
saved temporarily before the redirect (typically in the session) to be made available to the request after the
redirect and removed immediately.

Spring MVC has two main abstractions in support of flash attributes. FlashMap is used to hold flash
attributes while FlashMapManager is used to store, retrieve, and manage FlashMap instances.

Flash attribute support is always "on" and does not need to enabled explicitly although if not used, it never
causes HTTP session creation. On each request there is an "input" FlashMap with attributes passed from a
previous request (if any) and an "output" FlashMap with attributes to save for a subsequent request. Both
FlashMap instances are accessible from anywhere in Spring MVC through static methods in
RequestContextUtils .

Annotated controllers typically do not need to work with FlashMap directly. Instead an @RequestMapping
method can accept an argument of type RedirectAttributes and use it to add flash attributes for a
redirect scenario. Flash attributes added via RedirectAttributes are automatically propagated to the
"output" FlashMap. Similarly after the redirect attributes from the "input" FlashMap are automatically added
to the Model of the controller serving the target URL.

Matching requests to flash attributes

The concept of flash attributes exists in many other Web frameworks and has proven to be exposed
sometimes to concurrency issues. This is because by definition flash attributes are to be stored until
the next request. However the very "next" request may not be the intended recipient but another
asynchronous request (e.g. polling or resource requests) in which case the flash attributes are
removed too early.

To reduce the possibility of such issues, RedirectView automatically "stamps" FlashMap instances
with the path and query parameters of the target redirect URL. In turn the default FlashMapManager
matches that information to incoming requests when looking up the "input" FlashMap .

This does not eliminate the possibility of a concurrency issue entirely but nevertheless reduces it
greatly with information that is already available in the redirect URL. Therefore the use of flash
attributes is recommended mainly for redirect scenarios .

17.7 Building URI s

Spring MVC provides a mechanism for building and encoding a URI using UriComponentsBuilder and
UriComponents .

For example you can expand and encode a URI template string:

UriComponents uriComponents =
UriComponentsBuilder.fromUriString("http://example.com/hotels/{hotel}/bookings/{book

URI uri = uriComponents.expand("42", "21").encode().toUri();

Note that UriComponents is immutable and the expand() and encode() operations return new
instances if necessary.

You can also expand and encode using individual URI components:

UriComponents uriComponents =
UriComponentsBuilder.newInstance()
.scheme("http").host("example.com").path("/hotels/{hotel}/bookings/{booking}").b
.expand("42", "21")
.encode();

In a Servlet environment the ServletUriComponentsBuilder sub-class provides static factory methods to

copy available URL information from a Servlet requests:
 HttpServletRequest request = ...

// Re-use host, scheme, port, path and query string

// Replace the "accountId" query param

ServletUriComponentsBuilder ucb =
ServletUriComponentsBuilder.fromRequest(request).replaceQueryParam("accountId", "{id
.expand("123")
.encode();

Alternatively, you may choose to copy a subset of the available information up to and including the context
path:

// Re-use host, port and context path

// Append "/accounts" to the path

ServletUriComponentsBuilder ucb =
ServletUriComponentsBuilder.fromContextPath(request).path("/accounts").build()

Or in cases where the DispatcherServlet is mapped by name (e.g. /main/* ), you can also have the
literal part of the servlet mapping included:

// Re-use host, port, context path

// Append the literal part of the servlet mapping to the path
// Append "/accounts" to the path

ServletUriComponentsBuilder ucb =
ServletUriComponentsBuilder.fromServletMapping(request).path("/accounts").build()

17.8 Using locales

Most parts of Spring's architecture support internationalization, just as the Spring web MVC framework does.
DispatcherServlet enables you to automatically resolve messages using the client's locale. This is done
with LocaleResolver objects.

When a request comes in, the DispatcherServlet looks for a locale resolver, and if it finds one it tries to
use it to set the locale. Using the RequestContext.getLocale() method, you can always retrieve the
locale that was resolved by the locale resolver.

In addition to automatic locale resolution, you can also attach an interceptor to the handler mapping (see
Section 17.4.1, “Intercepting requests with a HandlerInterceptor ” for more information on handler
mapping interceptors) to change the locale under specific circumstances, for example, based on a
parameter in the request.

Locale resolvers and interceptors are defined in the org.springframework.web.servlet.i18n package

and are configured in your application context in the normal way. Here is a selection of the locale resolvers
included in Spring.

17.8.1 AcceptHeaderLocaleResolver
This locale resolver inspects the accept-language header in the request that was sent by the client (e.g.,
a web browser). Usually this header field contains the locale of the client's operating system.

17.8.2 CookieLocaleResolver
This locale resolver inspects a Cookie that might exist on the client to see if a locale is specified. If so, it
uses the specified locale. Using the properties of this locale resolver, you can specify the name of the cookie
as well as the maximum age. Find below an example of defining a CookieLocaleResolver .

<bean id="localeResolver" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.i18n.CookieLocaleResolver">

<property name="cookieName" value="clientlanguage"/>

<!-- in seconds. If set to -1, the cookie is not persisted (deleted when browser shuts d
<property name="cookieMaxAge" value="100000">

</bean>

Table 17.4. CookieLocaleResolver properties

Property Default Description

classname +
cookieName The name of the cookie
LOCALE

The maximum time a cookie will stay persistent on the client.

cookieMaxAge Integer.MAX_INT If -1 is specified, the cookie will not be persisted; it will only be
available until the client shuts down his or her browser.

Limits the visibility of the cookie to a certain part of your site.

cookiePath / When cookiePath is specified, the cookie will only be visible
to that path and the paths below it.

17.8.3 SessionLocaleResolver
The SessionLocaleResolver allows you to retrieve locales from the session that might be associated with
the user's request.

17.8.4 LocaleChangeInterceptor
You can enable changing of locales by adding the LocaleChangeInterceptor to one of the handler
mappings (see Section 17.4, “Handler mappings”). It will detect a parameter in the request and change the
locale. It calls setLocale() on the LocaleResolver that also exists in the context. The following example
shows that calls to all *.view resources containing a parameter named siteLanguage will now change
the locale. So, for example, a request for the following URL,
http://www.sf.net/home.view?siteLanguage=nl will change the site language to Dutch.

<bean id="localeChangeInterceptor"
class="org.springframework.web.servlet.i18n.LocaleChangeInterceptor">
<property name="paramName" value="siteLanguage"/>
</bean>

<bean id="localeResolver"
class="org.springframework.web.servlet.i18n.CookieLocaleResolver"/>

<bean id="urlMapping"
class="org.springframework.web.servlet.handler.SimpleUrlHandlerMapping">
<property name="interceptors">
<list>
<ref bean="localeChangeInterceptor"/>
</list>
</property>
<property name="mappings">
<value>/**/*.view=someController</value>
</property>
</bean>

17.9 Using themes

17.9.1 Overview of themes

You can apply Spring Web MVC framework themes to set the overall look-and-feel of your application,
thereby enhancing user experience. A theme is a collection of static resources, typically style sheets and
images, that affect the visual style of the application.

17.9.2 Defining themes

To use themes in your web application, you must set up an implementation of the
org.springframework.ui.context.ThemeSource interface. The WebApplicationContext interface
extends ThemeSource but delegates its responsibilities to a dedicated implementation. By default the
delegate will be an org.springframework.ui.context.support.ResourceBundleThemeSource
implementation that loads properties files from the root of the classpath. To use a custom ThemeSource
implementation or to configure the base name prefix of the ResourceBundleThemeSource , you can register
a bean in the application context with the reserved name themeSource . The web application context
automatically detects a bean with that name and uses it.

When using the ResourceBundleThemeSource , a theme is defined in a simple properties file. The
properties file lists the resources that make up the theme. Here is an example:

styleSheet=/themes/cool/style.css
background=/themes/cool/img/coolBg.jpg

The keys of the properties are the names that refer to the themed elements from view code. For a JSP, you
typically do this using the spring:theme custom tag, which is very similar to the spring:message tag.
The following JSP fragment uses the theme defined in the previous example to customize the look and feel:

<%@ taglib prefix="spring" uri="http://www.springframework.org/tags"%>

<html>
<head>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="<spring:theme code='styleSheet'/>" type="text/css"/>
</head>
<body style="background=<spring:theme code='background'/>">
...
</body>
</html>

By default, the ResourceBundleThemeSource uses an empty base name prefix. As a result, the properties
files are loaded from the root of the classpath. Thus you would put the cool.properties theme definition
in a directory at the root of the classpath, for example, in /WEB-INF/classes . The
ResourceBundleThemeSource uses the standard Java resource bundle loading mechanism, allowing for
full internationalization of themes. For example, we could have a
/WEB-INF/classes/cool_nl.properties that references a special background image with Dutch text on
it.

17.9.3 Theme resolvers

After you define themes, as in the preceding section, you decide which theme to use. The
DispatcherServlet will look for a bean named themeResolver to find out which ThemeResolver
implementation to use. A theme resolver works in much the same way as a LocaleResolver . It detects the
theme to use for a particular request and can also alter the request's theme. The following theme resolvers
are provided by Spring:

Table 17.5. ThemeResolver implementations

Class Description

FixedThemeResolver Selects a fixed theme, set using the defaultThemeName property.

The theme is maintained in the user's HTTP session. It only needs to

SessionThemeResolver
be set once for each session, but is not persisted between sessions.

CookieThemeResolver The selected theme is stored in a cookie on the client.

Spring also provides a ThemeChangeInterceptor that allows theme changes on every request with a
simple request parameter.

17.10 Spring's multipart (file upload) support

17.10.1 Introduction
Spring's built-in multipart support handles file uploads in web applications. You enable this multipart support
with pluggable MultipartResolver objects, defined in the org.springframework.web.multipart
package. Spring provides one MultipartResolver implementation for use with Commons FileUpload and
another for use with Servlet 3.0 multipart request parsing.

By default, Spring does no multipart handling, because some developers want to handle multiparts
themselves. You enable Spring multipart handling by adding a multipart resolver to the web application's
context. Each request is inspected to see if it contains a multipart. If no multipart is found, the request
continues as expected. If a multipart is found in the request, the MultipartResolver that has been
declared in your context is used. After that, the multipart attribute in your request is treated like any other
attribute.

17.10.2 Using a MultipartResolver with Commons FileUpload

The following example shows how to use the CommonsMultipartResolver :

<bean id="multipartResolver"
class="org.springframework.web.multipart.commons.CommonsMultipartResolver">

<!-- one of the properties available; the maximum file size in bytes -->
<property name="maxUploadSize" value="100000"/>
</bean>

Of course you also need to put the appropriate jars in your classpath for the multipart resolver to work. In the
case of the CommonsMultipartResolver , you need to use commons-fileupload.jar .

When the Spring DispatcherServlet detects a multi-part request, it activates the resolver that has been
declared in your context and hands over the request. The resolver then wraps the current
HttpServletRequest into a MultipartHttpServletRequest that supports multipart file uploads. Using
the MultipartHttpServletRequest , you can get information about the multiparts contained by this
request and actually get access to the multipart files themselves in your controllers.

17.10.3 Using a MultipartResolver with Servlet 3.0

In order to use Servlet 3.0 based multipart parsing, you need to mark the DispatcherServlet with a
"multipart-config" section in web.xml , or with a javax.servlet.MultipartConfigElement in
programmatic Servlet registration, or in case of a custom Servlet class possibly with a
javax.servlet.annotation.MultipartConfig annotation on your Servlet class. Configuration settings
such as maximum sizes or storage locations need to be applied at that Servlet registration level as Servlet
3.0 does not allow for those settings to be done from the MultipartResolver.

Once Servlet 3.0 multipart parsing has been enabled in one of the above mentioned ways you can add the
StandardServletMultipartResolver to your Spring configuration:

<bean id="multipartResolver"
class="org.springframework.web.multipart.support.StandardServletMultipartResolver">
</bean>
17.10.4 Handling a file upload in a form
After the MultipartResolver completes its job, the request is processed like any other. First, create a
form with a file input that will allow the user to upload a form. The encoding attribute
( enctype="multipart/form-data" ) lets the browser know how to encode the form as multipart request:

<html>
<head>
<title>Upload a file please</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Please upload a file</h1>
<form method="post" action="/form" enctype="multipart/form-data">
<input type="text" name="name"/>
<input type="file" name="file"/>
<input type="submit"/>
</form>
</body>
</html>

The next step is to create a controller that handles the file upload. This controller is very similar to a normal
annotated @Controller , except that we use MultipartHttpServletRequest or MultipartFile in the
method parameters:

@Controller
public class FileUploadController {

@RequestMapping(value = "/form", method = RequestMethod.POST)

public String handleFormUpload(@RequestParam("name") String name,
@RequestParam("file") MultipartFile file) {

if (!file.isEmpty()) {
byte[] bytes = file.getBytes();
// store the bytes somewhere
return "redirect:uploadSuccess";
} else {
return "redirect:uploadFailure";
}
}

Note how the @RequestParam method parameters map to the input elements declared in the form. In this
example, nothing is done with the byte[] , but in practice you can save it in a database, store it on the file
system, and so on.

When using Servlet 3.0 multipart parsing you can also use javax.servlet.http.Part for the method
parameter:

@Controller
public class FileUploadController {

@RequestMapping(value = "/form", method = RequestMethod.POST)

public String handleFormUpload(@RequestParam("name") String name,
@RequestParam("file") Part file) {
 InputStream inputStream = file.getInputStream();
// store bytes from uploaded file somewhere

return "redirect:uploadSuccess";
}

17.10.5 Handling a file upload request from programmatic clients

Multipart requests can also be submitted from non-browser clients in a RESTful service scenario. All of the
above examples and configuration apply here as well. However, unlike browsers that typically submit files
and simple form fields, a programmatic client can also send more complex data of a specific content type —
for example a multipart request with a file and second part with JSON formatted data:

POST /someUrl
Content-Type: multipart/mixed

--edt7Tfrdusa7r3lNQc79vXuhIIMlatb7PQg7Vp
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="meta-data"
Content-Type: application/json; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

{
"name": "value"
}
--edt7Tfrdusa7r3lNQc79vXuhIIMlatb7PQg7Vp
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="file-data"; filename="file.properties"
Content-Type: text/xml
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
... File Data ...

You could access the part named "meta-data" with a @RequestParam("meta-data") String metadata
controller method argument. However, you would probably prefer to accept a strongly typed object initialized
from the JSON formatted data in the body of the request part, very similar to the way @RequestBody
converts the body of a non-multipart request to a target object with the help of an HttpMessageConverter .

You can use the @RequestPart annotation instead of the @RequestParam annotation for this purpose. It
allows you to have the content of a specific multipart passed through an HttpMessageConverter taking
into consideration the 'Content-Type' header of the multipart:

@RequestMapping(value="/someUrl", method = RequestMethod.POST)

public String onSubmit(@RequestPart("meta-data") MetaData metadata,
@RequestPart("file-data") MultipartFile file) {
// ...

Notice how MultipartFile method arguments can be accessed with @RequestParam or with
@RequestPart interchangeably. However, the @RequestPart("meta-data") MetaData method
argument in this case is read as JSON content based on its 'Content-Type' header and converted with
the help of the MappingJackson2HttpMessageConverter .
17.11 Handling exceptions

17.11.1 HandlerExceptionResolver
Spring HandlerExceptionResolver implementations deal with unexpected exceptions that occur during
controller execution. A HandlerExceptionResolver somewhat resembles the exception mappings you
can define in the web application descriptor web.xml . However, they provide a more flexible way to do so.
For example they provide information about which handler was executing when the exception was thrown.
Furthermore, a programmatic way of handling exceptions gives you more options for responding
appropriately before the request is forwarded to another URL (the same end result as when you use the
Servlet specific exception mappings).

Besides implementing the HandlerExceptionResolver interface, which is only a matter of implementing

the resolveException(Exception, Handler) method and returning a ModelAndView , you may also
use the provided SimpleMappingExceptionResolver or create @ExceptionHandler methods. The
SimpleMappingExceptionResolver enables you to take the class name of any exception that might be
thrown and map it to a view name. This is functionally equivalent to the exception mapping feature from the
Servlet API, but it is also possible to implement more finely grained mappings of exceptions from different
handlers. The @ExceptionHandler annotation on the other hand can be used on methods that should be
invoked to handle an exception. Such methods may be defined locally within an @Controller or may apply
globally to all @RequestMapping methods when defined within an @ControllerAdvice class. The
following sections explain this in more detail.

17.11.2 @ExceptionHandler
The HandlerExceptionResolver interface and the SimpleMappingExceptionResolver
implementations allow you to map Exceptions to specific views declaratively along with some optional Java
logic before forwarding to those views. However, in some cases, especially when relying on
@ResponseBody methods rather than on view resolution, it may be more convenient to directly set the
status of the response and optionally write error content to the body of the response.

You can do that with @ExceptionHandler methods. When declared within a controller such methods apply
to exceptions raised by @RequestMapping methods of that contoroller (or any of its sub-classes). You can
also declare an @ExceptionHandler method within an @ControllerAdvice class in which case it
handles exceptions from @RequestMapping methods from any controller. The @ControllerAdvice
annotation is a component annotation, which can be used with classpath scanning. It is automatically
enabled when using the MVC namespace and the MVC Java config, or otherwise depending on whether the
ExceptionHandlerExceptionResolver is configured or not. Below is an example of a controller-local
@ExceptionHandler method:

@Controller
public class SimpleController {

// @RequestMapping methods omitted ...

@ExceptionHandler(IOException.class)
 public ResponseEntity<String> handleIOException(IOException ex) {

// prepare responseEntity

return responseEntity;
}

The @ExceptionHandler value can be set to an array of Exception types. If an exception is thrown that
matches one of the types in the list, then the method annotated with the matching @ExceptionHandler will
be invoked. If the annotation value is not set then the exception types listed as method arguments are used.

Much like standard controller methods annotated with a @RequestMapping annotation, the method
arguments and return values of @ExceptionHandler methods can be flexible. For example, the
HttpServletRequest can be accessed in Servlet environments and the PortletRequest in Portlet
environments. The return type can be a String , which is interpreted as a view name, a ModelAndView
object, a ResponseEntity , or you can also add the @ResponseBody to have the method return value
converted with message converters and written to the response stream.

17.11.3 Handling Standard Spring MVC Exceptions

Spring MVC may raise a number of exceptions while processing a request. The
SimpleMappingExceptionResolver can easily map any exception to a default error view as needed.
However, when working with clients that interpret responses in an automated way you will want to set
specific status code on the response. Depending on the exception raised the status code may indicate a
client error (4xx) or a server error (5xx).

The DefaultHandlerExceptionResolver translates Spring MVC exceptions to specific error status

codes. It is registered by default with the MVC namespace, the MVC Java config, and also by the the
DispatcherServlet (i.e. when not using the MVC namespace or Java config). Listed below are some of
the exceptions handled by this resolver and the corresponding status codes:

Exception HTTP Status Code

BindException 400 (Bad Request)

ConversionNotSupportedException 500 (Internal Server Error)

HttpMediaTypeNotAcceptableException 406 (Not Acceptable)

HttpMediaTypeNotSupportedException 415 (Unsupported Media Type)

HttpMessageNotReadableException 400 (Bad Request)

HttpMessageNotWritableException 500 (Internal Server Error)

HttpRequestMethodNotSupportedException 405 (Method Not Allowed)

MethodArgumentNotValidException 400 (Bad Request)

MissingServletRequestParameterException 400 (Bad Request)

MissingServletRequestPartException 400 (Bad Request)

 Exception HTTP Status Code

NoSuchRequestHandlingMethodException 404 (Not Found)

TypeMismatchException 400 (Bad Request)

The DefaultHandlerExceptionResolver works transparently by setting the status of the response.

However, it stops short of writing any error content to the body of the response while your application may
need to add developer-friendly content to every error response for example when providing a REST API. You
can prepare a ModelAndView and render error content through view resolution -- i.e. by configuring a
ContentNegotiatingViewResolver , MappingJacksonJsonView , and so on. However, you may prefer to
use @ExceptionHandler methods instead.

If you prefer to write error content via @ExceptionHandler methods you can extend
ResponseEntityExceptionHandler instead. This is a convenient base for @ControllerAdvice classes
providing an @ExceptionHandler method to handle standard Spring MVC exceptions and return
ResponseEntity . That allows you to customize the response and write error content with message
converters. See the Javadoc of ResponseEntityExceptionHandler for more details.

17.11.4 Annotating Business Exceptions With @ResponseStatus

A business exception can be annotated with @ResponseStatus . When the exception is raised, the
ResponseStatusExceptionResolver handles it by setting the status of the response accordingly. By
default the DispatcherServlet registers the ResponseStatusExceptionResolver and it is available for
use.

17.11.5 Customizing the Default Servlet Container Error Page

When the status of the response is set to an error status code and the body of the response is empty,
Servlet containers commonly render an HTML formatted error page. To customize the default error page of
the container, you can declare an <error-page> element in web.xml . Up until Servlet 3, that element had
to be mapped to a specific status code or exception type. Starting with Servlet 3 an error page does not
need to be mapped, which effectively means the specified location customizes the default Servlet container
error page.

<error-page>
<location>/error</location>
</error-page>

Note that the actual location for the error page can be a JSP page or some other URL within the container
including one handled through an @Controller method:

When writing error information, the status code and the error message set on the HttpServletResponse
can be accessed through request attributes in a controller:

@Controller
public class ErrorController {

@RequestMapping(value="/error", produces="application/json")
@ResponseBody
 public Map<String, Object> handle(HttpServletRequest request) {

Map<String, Object> map = new HashMap<String, Object>();

map.put("status", request.getAttribute("javax.servlet.error.status_code"));
map.put("reason", request.getAttribute("javax.servlet.error.message"));

return map;
}

or in a JSP:

<%@ page contentType="application/json" pageEncoding="UTF-8"%>

{
status:<%=request.getAttribute("javax.servlet.error.status_code") %>,
reason:<%=request.getAttribute("javax.servlet.error.message") %>
}

17.12 Convention over configuration support

For a lot of projects, sticking to established conventions and having reasonable defaults is just what they
(the projects) need, and Spring Web MVC now has explicit support for convention over configuration. What
this means is that if you establish a set of naming conventions and suchlike, you can substantially cut down
on the amount of configuration that is required to set up handler mappings, view resolvers, ModelAndView
instances, etc. This is a great boon with regards to rapid prototyping, and can also lend a degree of (always
good-to-have) consistency across a codebase should you choose to move forward with it into production.

Convention-over-configuration support addresses the three core areas of MVC: models, views, and
controllers.

17.12.1 The Controller ControllerClassNameHandlerMapping

The ControllerClassNameHandlerMapping class is a HandlerMapping implementation that uses a
convention to determine the mapping between request URLs and the Controller instances that are to
handle those requests.

Consider the following simple Controller implementation. Take special notice of the name of the class.

public class ViewShoppingCartController implements Controller {

public ModelAndView handleRequest(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse respon

// the implementation is not hugely important for this example...
}
}

Here is a snippet from the corresponding Spring Web MVC configuration file:

<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.support.ControllerClassNameHandlerMapping"/
 <bean id="viewShoppingCart" class="x.y.z.ViewShoppingCartController">
<!-- inject dependencies as required... -->
</bean>

The ControllerClassNameHandlerMapping finds all of the various handler (or Controller ) beans
defined in its application context and strips Controller off the name to define its handler mappings. Thus,
ViewShoppingCartController maps to the /viewshoppingcart* request URL.

Let's look at some more examples so that the central idea becomes immediately familiar. (Notice all
lowercase in the URLs, in contrast to camel-cased Controller class names.)

WelcomeController maps to the /welcome* request URL

HomeController maps to the /home* request URL
IndexController maps to the /index* request URL
RegisterController maps to the /register* request URL

In the case of MultiActionController handler classes, the mappings generated are slightly more
complex. The Controller names in the following examples are assumed to be MultiActionController
implementations:

AdminController maps to the /admin/* request URL

CatalogController maps to the /catalog/* request URL

If you follow the convention of naming your Controller implementations as xxx Controller, the
ControllerClassNameHandlerMapping saves you the tedium of defining and maintaining a potentially
looooong SimpleUrlHandlerMapping (or suchlike).

The ControllerClassNameHandlerMapping class extends the AbstractHandlerMapping base class so

you can define HandlerInterceptor instances and everything else just as you would with many other
HandlerMapping implementations.

17.12.2 The Model ModelMap ( ModelAndView )

The ModelMap class is essentially a glorified Map that can make adding objects that are to be displayed in
(or on) a View adhere to a common naming convention. Consider the following Controller
implementation; notice that objects are added to the ModelAndView without any associated name specified.

public class DisplayShoppingCartController implements Controller {

public ModelAndView handleRequest(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse respon

List cartItems = // get a List of CartItem objects

User user = // get the User doing the shopping

ModelAndView mav = new ModelAndView("displayShoppingCart"); <-- the logical view nam

mav.addObject(cartItems); <-- look ma, no name, just the object

mav.addObject(user); <-- and again ma!

return mav;
 }
}

The ModelAndView class uses a ModelMap class that is a custom Map implementation that automatically
generates a key for an object when an object is added to it. The strategy for determining the name for an
added object is, in the case of a scalar object such as User , to use the short class name of the object's
class. The following examples are names that are generated for scalar objects put into a ModelMap
instance.

An x.y.User instance added will have the name user generated.

An x.y.Registration instance added will have the name registration generated.
An x.y.Foo instance added will have the name foo generated.
A java.util.HashMap instance added will have the name hashMap generated. You probably want to
be explicit about the name in this case because hashMap is less than intuitive.
Adding null will result in an IllegalArgumentException being thrown. If the object (or objects) that
you are adding could be null , then you will also want to be explicit about the name.

What, no automatic pluralization?

Spring Web MVC's convention-over-configuration support does not support automatic pluralization.
That is, you cannot add a List of Person objects to a ModelAndView and have the generated
name be people .

This decision was made after some debate, with the “Principle of Least Surprise” winning out in the
end.

The strategy for generating a name after adding a Set or a List is to peek into the collection, take the
short class name of the first object in the collection, and use that with List appended to the name. The
same applies to arrays although with arrays it is not necessary to peek into the array contents. A few
examples will make the semantics of name generation for collections clearer:

An x.y.User[] array with zero or more x.y.User elements added will have the name userList
generated.
An x.y.Foo[] array with zero or more x.y.User elements added will have the name fooList
generated.
A java.util.ArrayList with one or more x.y.User elements added will have the name userList
generated.
A java.util.HashSet with one or more x.y.Foo elements added will have the name fooList
generated.
An empty java.util.ArrayList will not be added at all (in effect, the addObject(..) call will
essentially be a no-op).

17.12.3 The View - RequestToViewNameTranslator

The RequestToViewNameTranslator interface determines a logical View name when no such logical
view name is explicitly supplied. It has just one implementation, the
DefaultRequestToViewNameTranslator class.
The DefaultRequestToViewNameTranslator maps request URLs to logical view names, as with this
example:

public class RegistrationController implements Controller {

public ModelAndView handleRequest(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse respon

// process the request...
ModelAndView mav = new ModelAndView();
// add data as necessary to the model...
return mav;
// notice that no View or logical view name has been set
}
}

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd">

<!-- this bean with the well known name generates view names for us -->
<bean id="viewNameTranslator"
class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.DefaultRequestToViewNameTranslator"/>

<bean class="x.y.RegistrationController">
<!-- inject dependencies as necessary -->
</bean>

<!-- maps request URLs to Controller names -->

<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.support.ControllerClassNameHandlerMappi

<bean id="viewResolver" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceView

<property name="prefix" value="/WEB-INF/jsp/"/>
<property name="suffix" value=".jsp"/>
</bean>

</beans>

Notice how in the implementation of the handleRequest(..) method no View or logical view name is
ever set on the ModelAndView that is returned. The DefaultRequestToViewNameTranslator is tasked
with generating a logical view name from the URL of the request. In the case of the above
RegistrationController , which is used in conjunction with the
ControllerClassNameHandlerMapping , a request URL of http://localhost/registration.html
results in a logical view name of registration being generated by the
DefaultRequestToViewNameTranslator . This logical view name is then resolved into the
/WEB-INF/jsp/registration.jsp view by the InternalResourceViewResolver bean.

You do not need to define a DefaultRequestToViewNameTranslator bean explicitly. If you

like the default settings of the DefaultRequestToViewNameTranslator , you can rely on the
 Spring Web MVC DispatcherServlet to instantiate an instance of this class if one is not
explicitly configured.

Of course, if you need to change the default settings, then you do need to configure your own
DefaultRequestToViewNameTranslator bean explicitly. Consult the comprehensive Javadoc for the
DefaultRequestToViewNameTranslator class for details of the various properties that can be configured.

17.13 ETag support

An ETag (entity tag) is an HTTP response header returned by an HTTP/1.1 compliant web server used to
determine change in content at a given URL. It can be considered to be the more sophisticated successor to
the Last-Modified header. When a server returns a representation with an ETag header, the client can
use this header in subsequent GETs, in an If-None-Match header. If the content has not changed, the
server returns 304: Not Modified .

Support for ETags is provided by the Servlet filter ShallowEtagHeaderFilter . It is a plain Servlet Filter,
and thus can be used in combination with any web framework. The ShallowEtagHeaderFilter filter
creates so-called shallow ETags (as opposed to deep ETags, more about that later).The filter caches the
content of the rendered JSP (or other content), generates an MD5 hash over that, and returns that as an
ETag header in the response. The next time a client sends a request for the same resource, it uses that
hash as the If-None-Match value. The filter detects this, renders the view again, and compares the two
hashes. If they are equal, a 304 is returned. This filter will not save processing power, as the view is still
rendered. The only thing it saves is bandwidth, as the rendered response is not sent back over the wire.

You configure the ShallowEtagHeaderFilter in web.xml :

<filter>
<filter-name>etagFilter</filter-name>
<filter-class>org.springframework.web.filter.ShallowEtagHeaderFilter</filter-class>
</filter>

<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>etagFilter</filter-name>
<servlet-name>petclinic</servlet-name>
</filter-mapping>

17.14 Code-based Servlet container initialization

In a Servlet 3.0+ environment, you have the option of configuring the Servlet container programmatically as
an alternative or in combination with a web.xml file. Below is an example of registering a
DispatcherServlet :

import org.springframework.web.WebApplicationInitializer;

public class MyWebApplicationInitializer implements WebApplicationInitializer {

@Override
public void onStartup(ServletContext container) {
XmlWebApplicationContext appContext = new XmlWebApplicationContext();
 appContext.setConfigLocation("/WEB-INF/spring/dispatcher-config.xml");

ServletRegistration.Dynamic registration = container.addServlet("dispatcher", new Di

registration.setLoadOnStartup(1);
registration.addMapping("/");
}

WebApplicationInitializer is an interface provided by Spring MVC that ensures your implementation is

detected and automatically used to initialize any Servlet 3 container. An abstract base class implementation
of WebApplicationInitializer named AbstractDispatcherServletInitializer makes it even
easier to register the DispatcherServlet by simply overriding methods to specify the servlet mapping and
the location of the DispatcherServlet configuration:

public class MyWebAppInitializer extends AbstractAnnotationConfigDispatcherServletInitialize

@Override
protected Class<?>[] getRootConfigClasses() {
return null;
}

@Override
protected Class<?>[] getServletConfigClasses() {
return new Class[] { MyWebConfig.class };
}

@Override
protected String[] getServletMappings() {
return new String[] { "/" };
}

The above example is for an application that uses Java-based Spring configuration. If using XML-based
Spring configuration, extend directly from AbstractDispatcherServletInitializer :

public class MyWebAppInitializer extends AbstractDispatcherServletInitializer {

@Override
protected WebApplicationContext createRootApplicationContext() {
return null;
}

@Override
protected WebApplicationContext createServletApplicationContext() {
XmlWebApplicationContext cxt = new XmlWebApplicationContext();
cxt.setConfigLocation("/WEB-INF/spring/dispatcher-config.xml");
return cxt;
}

@Override
protected String[] getServletMappings() {
 return new String[] { "/" };
}

AbstractDispatcherServletInitializer also provides a convenient way to add Filter instances and

have them automatically mapped to the DispatcherServlet :

public class MyWebAppInitializer extends AbstractDispatcherServletInitializer {

// ...

@Override
protected Filter[] getServletFilters() {
return new Filter[] { new HiddenHttpMethodFilter(), new CharacterEncodingFilter() };
}

Each filter is added with a default name based on its concrete type and automatically mapped to the
DispatcherServlet .

The isAsyncSupported protected method of AbstractDispatcherServletInitializer provides a

single place to enable async support on the DispatcherServlet and all filters mapped to it. By default this
flag is set to true .

17.15 Configuring Spring MVC

Section 17.2.1, “Special Bean Types In the WebApplicationContext ” and Section 17.2.2, “Default
DispatcherServlet Configuration” explained about Spring MVC's special beans and the default
implementations used by the DispatcherServlet . In this section you'll learn about two additional ways of
configuring Spring MVC. Namely the MVC Java config and the MVC XML namespace.

The MVC Java config and the MVC namespace provide similar default configuration that overrides the
DispatcherServlet defaults. The goal is to spare most applications from having to having to create the
same configuration and also to provide higher-level constructs for configuring Spring MVC that serve as a
simple starting point and require little or no prior knowledge of the underlying configuration.

You can choose either the MVC Java config or the MVC namespace depending on your preference. Also as
you will see further below, with the MVC Java config it is easier to see the underlying configuration as well as
to make fine-grained customizations directly to the created Spring MVC beans. But let's start from the
beginning.

17.15.1 Enabling the MVC Java Config or the MVC XML Namespace
To enable MVC Java config add the annotation @EnableWebMvc to one of your @Configuration classes:

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
 public class WebConfig {

To achieve the same in XML use the mvc:annotation-driven element:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:mvc="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc
http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc.xsd">

<mvc:annotation-driven />

</beans>

The above registers a RequestMappingHandlerMapping , a RequestMappingHandlerAdapter , and an

ExceptionHandlerExceptionResolver (among others) in support of processing requests with annotated
controller methods using annotations such as @RequestMapping , @ExceptionHandler , and others.

It also enables the following:

1. Spring 3 style type conversion through a ConversionService instance in addition to the JavaBeans
PropertyEditors used for Data Binding.
2. Support for formatting Number fields using the @NumberFormat annotation through the
ConversionService .
3. Support for formatting Date, Calendar, Long, and Joda Time fields using the @DateTimeFormat
annotation.
4. Support for validating @Controller inputs with @Valid , if a JSR-303 Provider is present on the
classpath.
5. HttpMessageConverter support for @RequestBody method parameters and @ResponseBody method
return values from @RequestMapping or @ExceptionHandler methods.
This is the complete list of HttpMessageConverters set up by mvc:annotation-driven:
ByteArrayHttpMessageConverter converts byte arrays.
StringHttpMessageConverter converts strings.
ResourceHttpMessageConverter converts to/from org.springframework.core.io.Resource
for all media types.
SourceHttpMessageConverter converts to/from a javax.xml.transform.Source .
FormHttpMessageConverter converts form data to/from a MultiValueMap<String, String> .
Jaxb2RootElementHttpMessageConverter converts Java objects to/from XML — added if
JAXB2 is present on the classpath.
MappingJackson2HttpMessageConverter (or MappingJacksonHttpMessageConverter )
converts to/from JSON — added if Jackson 2 (or Jackson) is present on the classpath.
AtomFeedHttpMessageConverter converts Atom feeds — added if Rome is present on the
classpath.
RssChannelHttpMessageConverter converts RSS feeds — added if Rome is present on the
classpath.
17.15.2 Customizing the Provided Configuration
To customize the default configuration in Java you simply implement the WebMvcConfigurer interface or
more likely extend the class WebMvcConfigurerAdapter and override the methods you need. Below is an
example of some of the available methods to override. See WebMvcConifgurer for a list of all methods and
the Javadoc for further details:

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

@Override
protected void addFormatters(FormatterRegistry registry) {
// Add formatters and/or converters
}

@Override
public void configureMessageConverters(List<HttpMessageConverter<?>> converters) {
// Configure the list of HttpMessageConverters to use
}

To customize the default configuration of <mvc:annotation-driven /> check what attributes and sub-
elements it supports. You can view the Spring MVC XML schema or use the code completion feature of your
IDE to discover what attributes and sub-elements are available. The sample below shows a subset of what is
available:

<mvc:annotation-driven conversion-service="conversionService">
<mvc:message-converters>
<bean class="org.example.MyHttpMessageConverter"/>
<bean class="org.example.MyOtherHttpMessageConverter"/>
</mvc:message-converters>
</mvc:annotation-driven>

<bean id="conversionService" class="org.springframework.format.support.FormattingConversionS

<property name="formatters">
<list>
<bean class="org.example.MyFormatter"/>
<bean class="org.example.MyOtherFormatter"/>
</list>
</property>
</bean>

17.15.3 Configuring Interceptors

You can configure HandlerInterceptors or WebRequestInterceptors to be applied to all incoming
requests or restricted to specific URL path patterns.

An example of registering interceptors in Java:

 @Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

@Override
public void addInterceptors(InterceptorRegistry registry) {
registry.addInterceptor(new LocaleInterceptor());
registry.addInterceptor(new ThemeInterceptor()).addPathPatterns("/**").excludePathPatter
registry.addInterceptor(new SecurityInterceptor()).addPathPatterns("/secure/*");
}

And in XML use the <mvc:interceptors> element:

<mvc:interceptors>
<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.i18n.LocaleChangeInterceptor" />
<mvc:interceptor>
<mapping path="/**"/>
<exclude-mapping path="/admin/**"/>
<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.theme.ThemeChangeInterceptor" />
</mvc:interceptor>
<mvc:interceptor>
<mapping path="/secure/*"/>
<bean class="org.example.SecurityInterceptor" />
</mvc:interceptor>
</mvc:interceptors>

17.15.4 Configuring Content Negotiation

Staring with Spring Framework 3.2, you can configure how Spring MVC determines the requested media
types from the client for request mapping as well as for content negotiation purposes. The available options
are to check the file extension in the request URI, the "Accept" header, a request parameter, as well as to fall
back on a default content type. By default, file extension in the request URI is checked first and the "Accept"
header is checked next.

For file extensions in the request URI, the MVC Java config and the MVC namespace, automatically register
extensions such as .json , .xml , .rss , and .atom if the corresponding dependencies such as Jackson,
JAXB2, or Rome are present on the classpath. Additional extensions may be not need to be registered
explicitly if they can be discovered via ServletContext.getMimeType(String) or the Java Activation
Framework (see javax.activation.MimetypesFileTypeMap ).

Below is an example of customizing content negotiation options through the MVC Java config:

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

@Override
public void configureContentNegotiation(ContentNegotiationConfigurer configurer) {
configurer.favorPathExtension(false).favorParameter(true);
 }
}

In the MVC namespace, the <mvc:annotation-driven> element has a content-negotiation-manager

attribute, which expects a ContentNegotiationManager that in turn can be created with a
ContentNegotiationManagerFactoryBean :

<mvc:annotation-driven content-negotiation-manager="contentNegotiationManager" />

<bean id="contentNegotiationManager" class="org.springframework.web.accept.ContentNegotiatio

<property name="favorPathExtension" value="false" />
<property name="favorParameter" value="true" />
<property name="mediaTypes" >
<value>
json=application/json
xml=application/xml
</value>
</property>
</bean>

If not using the MVC Java config or the MVC namespace, you'll need to create an instance of
ContentNegotiationManager and use it to configure RequestMappingHandlerMapping for request
mapping purposes, and RequestMappingHandlerAdapter and ExceptionHandlerExceptionResolver
for content negotiation purposes.

Note that ContentNegotiatingViewResolver now can also be configured with a

ContentNegotiationManager , so you can use one instance throughout Spring MVC.

In more advanced cases, it may be useful to configure multiple ContentNegotiationManager instances

that in turn may contain custom ContentNegotiationStrategy implementations. For example you could
configure ExceptionHandlerExceptionResolver with a ContentNegotiationManager that always
resolves the requested media type to "application/json" . Or you may want to plug a custom strategy
that has some logic to select a default content type (e.g. either XML or JSON) if no content types were
requested.

17.15.5 Configuring View Controllers

This is a shortcut for defining a ParameterizableViewController that immediately forwards to a view
when invoked. Use it in static cases when there is no Java controller logic to execute before the view
generates the response.

An example of forwarding a request for "/" to a view called "home" in Java:

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

@Override
public void addViewControllers(ViewControllerRegistry registry) {
registry.addViewController("/").setViewName("home");
}
 }

And the same in XML use the <mvc:view-controller> element:

<mvc:view-controller path="/" view-name="home"/>

17.15.6 Configuring Serving of Resources

This option allows static resource requests following a particular URL pattern to be served by a
ResourceHttpRequestHandler from any of a list of Resource locations. This provides a convenient way
to serve static resources from locations other than the web application root, including locations on the
classpath. The cache-period property may be used to set far future expiration headers (1 year is the
recommendation of optimization tools such as Page Speed and YSlow) so that they will be more efficiently
utilized by the client. The handler also properly evaluates the Last-Modified header (if present) so that a
304 status code will be returned as appropriate, avoiding unnecessary overhead for resources that are
already cached by the client. For example, to serve resource requests with a URL pattern of
/resources/** from a public-resources directory within the web application root you would use:

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

@Override
public void addResourceHandlers(ResourceHandlerRegistry registry) {
registry.addResourceHandler("/resources/**").addResourceLocations("/public-resources/");
}

And the same in XML:

<mvc:resources mapping="/resources/**" location="/public-resources/"/>

To serve these resources with a 1-year future expiration to ensure maximum use of the browser cache and a
reduction in HTTP requests made by the browser:

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

@Override
public void addResourceHandlers(ResourceHandlerRegistry registry) {
registry.addResourceHandler("/resources/**").addResourceLocations("/public-resources/").
}

And in XML:
 <mvc:resources mapping="/resources/**" location="/public-resources/" cache-period="31556926"

The mapping attribute must be an Ant pattern that can be used by SimpleUrlHandlerMapping , and the
location attribute must specify one or more valid resource directory locations. Multiple resource locations
may be specified using a comma-separated list of values. The locations specified will be checked in the
specified order for the presence of the resource for any given request. For example, to enable the serving of
resources from both the web application root and from a known path of
/META-INF/public-web-resources/ in any jar on the classpath use:

@EnableWebMvc
@Configuration
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

@Override
public void addResourceHandlers(ResourceHandlerRegistry registry) {
registry.addResourceHandler("/resources/**")
.addResourceLocations("/", "classpath:/META-INF/public-web-resources/");
}

And in XML:

<mvc:resources mapping="/resources/**" location="/, classpath:/META-INF/public-web-resources

When serving resources that may change when a new version of the application is deployed, it is
recommended that you incorporate a version string into the mapping pattern used to request the resources,
so that you may force clients to request the newly deployed version of your application's resources. Such a
version string can be parameterized and accessed using SpEL so that it may be easily managed in a single
place when deploying new versions.

As an example, let's consider an application that uses a performance-optimized custom build (as
recommended) of the Dojo JavaScript library in production, and that the build is generally deployed within
the web application at a path of /public-resources/dojo/dojo.js . Since different parts of Dojo may be
incorporated into the custom build for each new version of the application, the client web browsers need to
be forced to re-download that custom-built dojo.js resource any time a new version of the application is
deployed. A simple way to achieve this would be to manage the version of the application in a properties file,
such as:

application.version=1.0.0

and then to make the properties file's values accessible to SpEL as a bean using the util:properties
tag:

<util:properties id="applicationProps" location="/WEB-INF/spring/application.properties"/>

With the application version now accessible via SpEL, we can incorporate this into the use of the
resources tag:
 <mvc:resources mapping="/resources-#{applicationProps['application.version']}/**" location="

In Java, you can use the @PropertySouce annotation and then inject the Environment abstraction for
access to all defined properties:

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
@PropertySource("/WEB-INF/spring/application.properties")
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

@Inject Environment env;

@Override
public void addResourceHandlers(ResourceHandlerRegistry registry) {
registry.addResourceHandler("/resources-" + env.getProperty("application.version") + "/*
.addResourceLocations("/public-resources/");
}

and finally, to request the resource with the proper URL, we can take advantage of the Spring JSP tags:

<spring:eval expression="@applicationProps['application.version']" var="applicationVersion"/

<spring:url value="/resources-{applicationVersion}" var="resourceUrl">

<spring:param name="applicationVersion" value="${applicationVersion}"/>
</spring:url>

<script src="${resourceUrl}/dojo/dojo.js" type="text/javascript"> </script>

17.15.7 mvc:default-servlet-handler
This tag allows for mapping the DispatcherServlet to "/" (thus overriding the mapping of the container's
default Servlet), while still allowing static resource requests to be handled by the container's default Servlet.
It configures a DefaultServletHttpRequestHandler with a URL mapping of "/**" and the lowest priority
relative to other URL mappings.

This handler will forward all requests to the default Servlet. Therefore it is important that it remains last in the
order of all other URL HandlerMappings . That will be the case if you use <mvc:annotation-driven> or
alternatively if you are setting up your own customized HandlerMapping instance be sure to set its order
property to a value lower than that of the DefaultServletHttpRequestHandler , which is
Integer.MAX_VALUE .

To enable the feature using the default setup use:

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

@Override
 public void configureDefaultServletHandling(DefaultServletHandlerConfigurer configurer) {
configurer.enable();
}

Or in XML:

<mvc:default-servlet-handler/>

The caveat to overriding the "/" Servlet mapping is that the RequestDispatcher for the default Servlet
must be retrieved by name rather than by path. The DefaultServletHttpRequestHandler will attempt to
auto-detect the default Servlet for the container at startup time, using a list of known names for most of the
major Servlet containers (including Tomcat, Jetty, GlassFish, JBoss, Resin, WebLogic, and WebSphere). If
the default Servlet has been custom configured with a different name, or if a different Servlet container is
being used where the default Servlet name is unknown, then the default Servlet's name must be explicitly
provided as in the following example:

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

@Override
public void configureDefaultServletHandling(DefaultServletHandlerConfigurer configurer) {
configurer.enable("myCustomDefaultServlet");
}

Or in XML:

<mvc:default-servlet-handler default-servlet-name="myCustomDefaultServlet"/>

17.15.8 More Spring Web MVC Resources

See the following links and pointers for more resources about Spring Web MVC:

There are many excellent articles and tutorials that show how to build web applications with Spring
MVC. Read them at the Spring Documentation page.
“Expert Spring Web MVC and Web Flow” by Seth Ladd and others (published by Apress) is an excellent
hard copy source of Spring Web MVC goodness.

17.15.9 Advanced Customizations with MVC Java Config

As you can see from the above examples, MVC Java config and the MVC namespace provide higher level
constructs that do not require deep knowledge of the underlying beans created for you. Instead it helps you
to focus on your application needs. However, at some point you may need more fine-grained control or you
may simply wish to understand the underlying configuration.
The first step towards more fine-grained control is to see the underlying beans created for you. In MVC Java
config you can see the Javadoc and the @Bean methods in WebMvcConfigurationSupport . The
configuration in this class is automatically imported through the @EnableWebMvc annotation. In fact if you
open @EnableWebMvc you can see the @Import statement.

The next step towards more fine-grained control is to customize a property on one of the beans created in
WebMvcConfigurationSupport or perhaps to provide your own instance. This requires two things --
remove the @EnableWebMvc annotation in order to prevent the import and then extend directly from
WebMvcConfigurationSupport . Here is an example:

@Configuration
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurationSupport {

@Override
public void addInterceptors(InterceptorRegistry registry){
// ...
}

@Override
@Bean
public RequestMappingHandlerAdapter requestMappingHandlerAdapter() {

// Create or let "super" create the adapter

// Then customize one of its properties
}

Note that modifying beans in this way does not prevent you from using any of the higher-level constructs
shown earlier in this section.

17.15.10 Advanced Customizations with the MVC Namespace

Fine-grained control over the configuration created for you is a bit harder with the MVC namespace.

If you do need to do that, rather than replicating the configuration it provides, consider configuring a
BeanPostProcessor that detects the bean you want to customize by type and then modifying its properties
as necessary. For example:

@Component
public class MyPostProcessor implements BeanPostProcessor {

public Object postProcessBeforeInitialization(Object bean, String name) throws BeansExcept

if (bean instanceof RequestMappingHandlerAdapter) {
// Modify properties of the adapter
}
}

Note that MyPostProcessor needs to be included in an <component scan /> in order for it to be
detected or if you prefer you can declare it explicitly with an XML bean declaration.
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