org.springframework.web.portlet.mvc
Class SimpleFormController

java.lang.Object
  org.springframework.context.support.ApplicationObjectSupport
      org.springframework.web.portlet.context.PortletApplicationObjectSupport
          org.springframework.web.portlet.handler.PortletContentGenerator
              org.springframework.web.portlet.mvc.AbstractController
                  org.springframework.web.portlet.mvc.BaseCommandController
                      org.springframework.web.portlet.mvc.AbstractFormController
                          org.springframework.web.portlet.mvc.SimpleFormController

All Implemented Interfaces:

ApplicationContextAware, PortletContextAware, Controller

public class SimpleFormController
extends AbstractFormController

Concrete FormController implementation that provides configurable form and success views, and an onSubmit chain for convenient overriding. Automatically resubmits to the form view in case of validation errors, and renders the success view in case of a valid submission.

The workflow of this Controller does not differ much from the one described in the AbstractFormController. The difference is that you do not need to implement showForm, processFormSubmission, and renderFormSubmission: A form view and a success view can be configured declaratively.

This controller is different from it's servlet counterpart in that it must take into account the two phases of a portlet request: the action phase and the render phase. See the JSR-168 spec for more details on these two phases. Be especially aware that the action phase is called only once, but that the render phase will be called repeatedly by the portal -- it does this every time the page containing the portlet is updated, even if the activity is in some other portlet. The main difference in the methods in this class is that the onSubmit methods have all been split into onSubmitAction and onSubmitRender to account for the two phases.

Workflow (in addition to the superclass):

1. Call to processFormSubmission which inspects the Errors object to see if any errors have occurred during binding and validation.
2. If errors occured, the controller will return the configured formView, showing the form again (possibly rendering according error messages).
3. If isFormChangeRequest is overridden and returns true for the given request, the controller will return the formView too. In that case, the controller will also suppress validation. Before returning the formView, the controller will invoke onFormChange(javax.portlet.ActionRequest, javax.portlet.ActionResponse, java.lang.Object, org.springframework.validation.BindException), giving sub-classes a chance to make modification to the command object. This is intended for requests that change the structure of the form, which should not cause validation and show the form in any case.
4. If no errors occurred, the controller will call onSubmitAction during the action phase and then onSubmitRender during the render phase, which in case of the default implementation delegate to onSubmitAction and onSubmitRender with just the command object. The default implementation of the latter method will return the configured successView. Consider just implementing doSubmitAction for simply performing a submit action during the action phase and then rendering the success view during the render phase.

The submit behavior can be customized by overriding one of the onSubmitAction or onSubmitRender methods. Submit actions can also perform custom validation if necessary (typically database-driven checks), calling showForm in case of validation errors to show the form view again. You do not have to override both the onSubmitAction and onSubmitRender methods at a given level unless you truly have custom logic to perform in both.

WARNING: Make sure that any one-time system updates (such as database updates or file writes) are performed in either an onSubmitAction method or the doSubmitAction method. Logic in the onSubmitRender methods may be executed repeatedly by the portal whenever the page containing the portlet is updated.

Exposed configuration properties (and those defined by superclass):

name	default	description
formView	null	Indicates what view to use when the user asks for a new form or when validation errors have occurred on form submission.
successView	null	Indicates what view to use when successful form submissions have occurred. Such a success view could e.g. display a submission summary. More sophisticated actions can be implemented by overriding one of the onSubmitRender() methods.

Parameters indicated with setPassRenderParameters will be preserved if the form has errors or if a form change request occurs. If there are render parameters you need in onSubmitRender, then you need to pass those forward from onSubmitAction.

Thanks to Rainer Schmitz and Nick Lothian for their suggestions!

Since:

2.0

Author:

John A. Lewis, Juergen Hoeller, Rob Harrop

Field Summary

Fields inherited from class org.springframework.web.portlet.mvc.BaseCommandController

DEFAULT_COMMAND_NAME

Fields inherited from class org.springframework.context.support.ApplicationObjectSupport

logger

Constructor Summary

SimpleFormController()
Create a new SimpleFormController.

Method Summary

protected void	doSubmitAction(Object command) Template method for submit actions.
String	getFormView() Return the name of the view that should be used for form display.
String	getSuccessView() Return the name of the view that should be shown on successful submit.
protected boolean	isFormChangeRequest(PortletRequest request) Determine whether the given request is a form change request.
protected void	onFormChange(ActionRequest request, ActionResponse response, Object command) Simpler onFormChange variant, called by the full version onFormChange(request, response, command, errors).
protected void	onFormChange(ActionRequest request, ActionResponse response, Object command, BindException errors) Called during form submission if isFormChangeRequest(PortletRequest) returns true.
protected void	onSubmitAction(ActionRequest request, ActionResponse response, Object command, BindException errors) Submit action phase callback with all parameters.
protected void	onSubmitAction(Object command) Simplest onSubmitAction version.
protected void	onSubmitAction(Object command, BindException errors) Simpler onSubmitAction version.
protected ModelAndView	onSubmitRender(Object command) Simplest onSubmitRender version.
protected ModelAndView	onSubmitRender(Object command, BindException errors) Simpler onSubmitRender version.
protected ModelAndView	onSubmitRender(RenderRequest request, RenderResponse response, Object command, BindException errors) Submit render phase callback with all parameters.
protected void	processFormSubmission(ActionRequest request, ActionResponse response, Object command, BindException errors) This implementation does nothing in case of errors, and delegates to onSubmitAction's full version else.
protected Map	referenceData(PortletRequest request) Create a reference data map for the given request.
protected Map	referenceData(PortletRequest request, Object command, Errors errors) Create a reference data map for the given request and command, consisting of bean name/bean instance pairs as expected by ModelAndView.
protected ModelAndView	renderFormSubmission(RenderRequest request, RenderResponse response, Object command, BindException errors) This implementation calls showForm in case of errors, and delegates to onSubmitRender's full version else.
void	setFormView(String formView) Set the name of the view that should be used for form display.
void	setSuccessView(String successView) Set the name of the view that should be shown on successful submit.
protected ModelAndView	showForm(RenderRequest request, RenderResponse response, BindException errors) This implementation shows the configured form view, delegating to the analogous showForm version with a controlModel argument.
protected ModelAndView	showForm(RenderRequest request, RenderResponse response, BindException errors, Map controlModel) This implementation shows the configured form view.
protected boolean	suppressValidation(PortletRequest request) This implementation delegates to isFormChangeRequest: A form change request changes the appearance of the form and should not get validated but just show the new form.

Methods inherited from class org.springframework.web.portlet.mvc.AbstractFormController

formBackingObject, getCommand, getErrorsForNewForm, getFormSessionAttributeName, getFormSessionAttributeName, getFormSubmitParameterName, getInvalidSubmitParameterName, getRenderParameters, handleActionRequestInternal, handleInvalidSubmit, handleRenderRequestInternal, isBindOnNewForm, isFormSubmission, isInvalidSubmission, isRedirectAction, isSessionForm, onBindOnNewForm, onBindOnNewForm, passRenderParameters, renderInvalidSubmit, setBindOnNewForm, setFormSubmit, setInvalidSubmit, setRedirectAction, setRenderParameters, setSessionForm, showForm, showForm, showNewForm

Methods inherited from class org.springframework.web.portlet.mvc.BaseCommandController

bindAndValidate, checkCommand, createBinder, createCommand, getBindingErrorProcessor, getCommandClass, getCommandName, getMessageCodesResolver, getPropertyEditorRegistrars, getRenderCommand, getRenderCommandSessionAttributeName, getRenderErrors, getRenderErrorsSessionAttributeName, getValidator, getValidators, initApplicationContext, initBinder, isValidateOnBinding, onBind, onBind, onBindAndValidate, prepareBinder, setBindingErrorProcessor, setCommandClass, setCommandName, setMessageCodesResolver, setPropertyEditorRegistrar, setPropertyEditorRegistrars, setRenderCommandAndErrors, setValidateOnBinding, setValidator, setValidators, suppressBinding, useDirectFieldAccess

Methods inherited from class org.springframework.web.portlet.mvc.AbstractController

handleActionRequest, handleRenderRequest, isRenderWhenMinimized, isSynchronizeOnSession, setRenderWhenMinimized, setSynchronizeOnSession

Methods inherited from class org.springframework.web.portlet.handler.PortletContentGenerator

applyCacheSeconds, cacheForSeconds, check, checkAndPrepare, checkAndPrepare, getCacheSeconds, isRequireSession, preventCaching, setCacheSeconds, setRequireSession

Methods inherited from class org.springframework.web.portlet.context.PortletApplicationObjectSupport

getPortletContext, getTempDir, isContextRequired, setPortletContext

Methods inherited from class org.springframework.context.support.ApplicationObjectSupport

getApplicationContext, getMessageSourceAccessor, requiredContextClass, setApplicationContext

Methods inherited from class java.lang.Object

clone, equals, finalize, getClass, hashCode, notify, notifyAll, toString, wait, wait, wait

Constructor Detail

SimpleFormController

public SimpleFormController()

Create a new SimpleFormController.

Subclasses should set the following properties, either in the constructor or via a BeanFactory: commandName, commandClass, sessionForm, formView, successView. Note that commandClass doesn't need to be set when overriding formBackingObject, as this determines the class anyway.

See Also:

BaseCommandController.setCommandClass(Class), BaseCommandController.setCommandName(String), AbstractFormController.setSessionForm(boolean), setFormView(java.lang.String), setSuccessView(java.lang.String), AbstractFormController.formBackingObject(PortletRequest)

Method Detail

setFormView

public final void setFormView(String formView)

Set the name of the view that should be used for form display.

getFormView

public final String getFormView()

Return the name of the view that should be used for form display.

setSuccessView

public final void setSuccessView(String successView)

Set the name of the view that should be shown on successful submit.

getSuccessView

public final String getSuccessView()

Return the name of the view that should be shown on successful submit.

showForm

protected ModelAndView showForm(RenderRequest request,
                                RenderResponse response,
                                BindException errors)
                         throws Exception

This implementation shows the configured form view, delegating to the analogous showForm version with a controlModel argument.

Can be called within onSubmit implementations, to redirect back to the form in case of custom validation errors (i.e. not determined by the validator).

Can be overridden in subclasses to show a custom view, writing directly to the response or preparing the response before rendering a view.

If calling showForm with a custom control model in subclasses, it's preferable to override the analogous showForm version with a controlModel argument (which will handle both standard form showing and custom form showing then).

Specified by:

showForm in class AbstractFormController

Parameters:

request - current render request

response - current render response

errors - validation errors holder

Returns:

the prepared form view, or null if handled directly

Throws:

Exception - in case of invalid state or arguments

See Also:

setFormView(java.lang.String), showForm(RenderRequest, RenderResponse, BindException, Map)

showForm

protected ModelAndView showForm(RenderRequest request,
                                RenderResponse response,
                                BindException errors,
                                Map controlModel)
                         throws Exception

This implementation shows the configured form view.

Can be called within onSubmit implementations, to redirect back to the form in case of custom validation errors (i.e. not determined by the validator).

Can be overridden in subclasses to show a custom view, writing directly to the response or preparing the response before rendering a view.

Parameters:

request - current render request

errors - validation errors holder

controlModel - model map containing controller-specific control data (e.g. current page in wizard-style controllers or special error message)

Returns:

the prepared form view

Throws:

Exception - in case of invalid state or arguments

See Also:

setFormView(java.lang.String)

referenceData

protected Map referenceData(PortletRequest request,
                            Object command,
                            Errors errors)
                     throws Exception

Create a reference data map for the given request and command, consisting of bean name/bean instance pairs as expected by ModelAndView.

Default implementation delegates to referenceData(request). Subclasses can override this to set reference data used in the view.

Overrides:

referenceData in class AbstractFormController

Parameters:

request - current portlet request

command - form object with request parameters bound onto it

errors - validation errors holder

Returns:

a Map with reference data entries, or null if none

Throws:

Exception - in case of invalid state or arguments

See Also:

ModelAndView

referenceData

protected Map referenceData(PortletRequest request)
                     throws Exception

Create a reference data map for the given request. Called by referenceData version with all parameters.

Default implementation returns null. Subclasses can override this to set reference data used in the view.

Parameters:

request - current portlet request

Returns:

a Map with reference data entries, or null if none

Throws:

Exception - in case of invalid state or arguments

See Also:

referenceData(PortletRequest, Object, Errors), ModelAndView

renderFormSubmission

protected ModelAndView renderFormSubmission(RenderRequest request,
                                            RenderResponse response,
                                            Object command,
                                            BindException errors)
                                     throws Exception

This implementation calls showForm in case of errors, and delegates to onSubmitRender's full version else.

This can only be overridden to check for an action that should be executed without respect to binding errors, like a cancel action. To just handle successful submissions without binding errors, override one of the onSubmitRender methods.

Specified by:

renderFormSubmission in class AbstractFormController

Parameters:

request - current render request

response - current render response

command - form object with request parameters bound onto it

errors - errors holder

Returns:

the prepared model and view, or null

Throws:

Exception - in case of errors

See Also:

showForm(RenderRequest, RenderResponse, BindException), onSubmitRender(RenderRequest, RenderResponse, Object, BindException), onSubmitRender(Object, BindException), onSubmitRender(Object), processFormSubmission(ActionRequest, ActionResponse, Object, BindException)

processFormSubmission

protected void processFormSubmission(ActionRequest request,
                                     ActionResponse response,
                                     Object command,
                                     BindException errors)
                              throws Exception

This implementation does nothing in case of errors, and delegates to onSubmitAction's full version else.

This can only be overridden to check for an action that should be executed without respect to binding errors, like a cancel action. To just handle successful submissions without binding errors, override one of the onSubmitAction methods or doSubmitAction.

Specified by:

processFormSubmission in class AbstractFormController

Parameters:

request - current action request

response - current action response

command - form object with request parameters bound onto it

errors - errors holder (subclass can add errors if it wants to)

Throws:

Exception - in case of errors

See Also:

showForm(javax.portlet.RenderRequest, javax.portlet.RenderResponse, org.springframework.validation.BindException), onSubmitAction(ActionRequest, ActionResponse, Object, BindException), onSubmitAction(Object, BindException), onSubmitAction(Object), doSubmitAction(Object), renderFormSubmission(RenderRequest, RenderResponse, Object, BindException)

suppressValidation

protected boolean suppressValidation(PortletRequest request)

This implementation delegates to isFormChangeRequest: A form change request changes the appearance of the form and should not get validated but just show the new form.

Overrides:

suppressValidation in class BaseCommandController

Parameters:

request - current portlet request

Returns:

whether to suppress validation for the given request

See Also:

isFormChangeRequest(javax.portlet.PortletRequest)

isFormChangeRequest

protected boolean isFormChangeRequest(PortletRequest request)

Determine whether the given request is a form change request. A form change request changes the appearance of the form and should always show the new form, without validation.

Gets called by suppressValidation and processFormSubmission. Consequently, this single method determines to suppress validation and to show the form view in any case.

Parameters:

request - current portlet request

Returns:

whether the given request is a form change request

See Also:

suppressValidation(javax.portlet.PortletRequest), processFormSubmission(javax.portlet.ActionRequest, javax.portlet.ActionResponse, java.lang.Object, org.springframework.validation.BindException)

onFormChange

protected void onFormChange(ActionRequest request,
                            ActionResponse response,
                            Object command,
                            BindException errors)
                     throws Exception

Called during form submission if isFormChangeRequest(PortletRequest) returns true. Allows subclasses to implement custom logic to modify the command object to directly modify data in the form.

Default implementation delegates to onFormChange(request, response, command).

Parameters:

request - current action request

response - current action response

command - form object with request parameters bound onto it

errors - validation errors holder, allowing for additional custom validation

Throws:

Exception - in case of errors

See Also:

isFormChangeRequest(PortletRequest), onFormChange(ActionRequest, ActionResponse, Object)

onFormChange

protected void onFormChange(ActionRequest request,
                            ActionResponse response,
                            Object command)
                     throws Exception

Simpler onFormChange variant, called by the full version onFormChange(request, response, command, errors).

Default implementation is empty.

Parameters:

request - current action request

response - current action response

command - form object with request parameters bound onto it

Throws:

Exception - in case of errors

See Also:

onFormChange(ActionRequest, ActionResponse, Object, BindException)

onSubmitRender

protected ModelAndView onSubmitRender(RenderRequest request,
                                      RenderResponse response,
                                      Object command,
                                      BindException errors)
                               throws Exception

Submit render phase callback with all parameters. Called in case of submit without errors reported by the registered validator, or on every submit if no validator.

Default implementation delegates to onSubmitRender(Object, BindException). For simply performing a submit action and rendering the specified success view, do not implement an onSubmitRender at all.

Subclasses can override this to provide custom rendering to display results of the action phase. Implementations can also call showForm to return to the form if the onSubmitAction failed custom validation. Do not implement multiple onSubmitRender methods: In that case, just this method will be called by the controller.

Call errors.getModel() to populate the ModelAndView model with the command and the Errors instance, under the specified command name, as expected by the "spring:bind" tag.

Parameters:

request - current render request

response - current render response

command - form object with request parameters bound onto it

errors - Errors instance without errors (subclass can add errors if it wants to)

Returns:

the prepared model and view

Throws:

Exception - in case of errors

See Also:

onSubmitAction(ActionRequest, ActionResponse, Object, BindException), onSubmitRender(Object, BindException), doSubmitAction(java.lang.Object), showForm(javax.portlet.RenderRequest, javax.portlet.RenderResponse, org.springframework.validation.BindException), Errors, BindException.getModel()

onSubmitAction

protected void onSubmitAction(ActionRequest request,
                              ActionResponse response,
                              Object command,
                              BindException errors)
                       throws Exception

Submit action phase callback with all parameters. Called in case of submit without errors reported by the registered validator respectively on every submit if no validator.

Default implementation delegates to onSubmitAction(Object, BindException). For simply performing a submit action consider implementing doSubmitAction rather than an onSubmitAction version.

Subclasses can override this to provide custom submission handling like storing the object to the database. Implementations can also perform custom validation and signal the render phase to call showForm to return to the form. Do not implement multiple onSubmitAction methods: In that case, just this method will be called by the controller.

Parameters:

request - current action request

response - current action response

command - form object with request parameters bound onto it

errors - Errors instance without errors (subclass can add errors if it wants to)

Throws:

Exception - in case of errors

See Also:

onSubmitRender(RenderRequest, RenderResponse, Object, BindException), onSubmitAction(Object, BindException), doSubmitAction(java.lang.Object), Errors

onSubmitRender

protected ModelAndView onSubmitRender(Object command,
                                      BindException errors)
                               throws Exception

Simpler onSubmitRender version. Called by the default implementation of the onSubmitRender version with all parameters.

Default implementation calls onSubmitRender(command), using the returned ModelAndView if actually implemented in a subclass. Else, the default behavior will apply: rendering the success view with the command and Errors instance as model.

Subclasses can override this to provide custom submission handling that does not need request and response.

Call errors.getModel() to populate the ModelAndView model with the command and the Errors instance, under the specified command name, as expected by the "spring:bind" tag.

Parameters:

command - form object with request parameters bound onto it

errors - Errors instance without errors

Returns:

the prepared model and view, or null

Throws:

Exception - in case of errors

See Also:

onSubmitRender(RenderRequest, RenderResponse, Object, BindException), onSubmitRender(Object), onSubmitAction(Object, BindException), setSuccessView(java.lang.String), Errors, BindException.getModel()

onSubmitAction

protected void onSubmitAction(Object command,
                              BindException errors)
                       throws Exception

Simpler onSubmitAction version. Called by the default implementation of the onSubmitAction version with all parameters.

Default implementation calls onSubmitAction(command).

Subclasses can override this to provide custom submission handling that does not need request and response.

Parameters:

command - form object with request parameters bound onto it

errors - Errors instance without errors

Throws:

Exception - in case of errors

See Also:

onSubmitAction(ActionRequest, ActionResponse, Object, BindException), onSubmitAction(Object), onSubmitRender(Object, BindException), Errors

onSubmitRender

protected ModelAndView onSubmitRender(Object command)
                               throws Exception

Simplest onSubmitRender version. Called by the default implementation of the onSubmitRender version with command and BindException parameters.

This implementation returns null as ModelAndView, making the calling onSubmitRender method perform its default rendering of the success view.

Subclasses can override this to provide custom submission handling that just depends on the command object.

Parameters:

command - form object with request parameters bound onto it

Returns:

the prepared model and view, or null for default (i.e. successView)

Throws:

Exception - in case of errors

See Also:

onSubmitRender(Object, BindException), onSubmitAction(Object), doSubmitAction(java.lang.Object), setSuccessView(java.lang.String)

onSubmitAction

protected void onSubmitAction(Object command)
                       throws Exception

Simplest onSubmitAction version. Called by the default implementation of the onSubmitAction version with command and BindException parameters.

This implementation calls doSubmitAction.

Subclasses can override this to provide custom submission handling that just depends on the command object.

Parameters:

command - form object with request parameters bound onto it

Throws:

Exception - in case of errors

See Also:

onSubmitAction(Object, BindException), onSubmitRender(Object), doSubmitAction(java.lang.Object)

doSubmitAction

protected void doSubmitAction(Object command)
                       throws Exception

Template method for submit actions. Called by the default implementation of the simplest onSubmitAction version.

This is the preferred submit callback to implement if you want to perform an action (like storing changes to the database) and then render the success view with the command and Errors instance as model.

Parameters:

command - form object with request parameters bound onto it

Throws:

Exception - in case of errors

See Also:

onSubmitAction(Object), onSubmitRender(Object), setSuccessView(java.lang.String)