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

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 JSF 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 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 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.

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.

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 16.16, “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.

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

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.

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>

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) Date day, Model model) {
        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());
    }

}

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.

Tip

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”.

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

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=false, 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 true.

Tip

The MVC Java config and the MVC namespace both provide options for enabling the use of matrix variables. If you are using Java config, The Advanced Customizations with MVC Java Config section describes how the RequestMappingHandlerMapping can be customized. In the MVC namespace, the <mvc:annotation-driven> element has an enable-matrix-variables attribute that should be set to true. By default it is set to false. <?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 enable-matrix-variables="true"/> </beans>

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.

	Tip
	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/json")
@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.

	Tip
	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=myValue")
    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
    }

}

	Tip
	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.

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.

Note

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.

	Note
	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.
• org.springframework.http.HttpMethod for the HTTP request method.
• 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 16.11.5, “Handling a file upload request from programmatic clients” and Section 16.11, “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:

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) { ... }

@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";
    }

    // ...

}

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 Section 16.16.1, “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 Section 16.16.1, “Enabling the MVC Java Config or the MVC XML Namespace” instead.

<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.RequestMappingHandlerAdapter">
    <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.

	Note
	Also see Section 16.16.1, “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.

@RequestMapping(value = "/something", method = RequestMethod.PUT)
@ResponseBody
public String helloWorld() {
    return "Hello World";
}

@RequestMapping("/something")
public ResponseEntity<String> handle(HttpEntity<byte[]> requestEntity) throws UnsupportedEncodingException {
    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);
}

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 many controllers. See the the section called “Assisting Controllers with the @ControllerAdvice annotation” section for more details.

Tip

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 16.13.3, “The View - RequestToViewNameTranslator”.

@RequestMapping(value="/owners/{ownerId}/pets/{petId}/edit", method = RequestMethod.POST)
public String processSubmit(@ModelAttribute Pet pet) { }

@RequestMapping(value="/accounts/{account}", method = RequestMethod.PUT)
public String save(@ModelAttribute("account") Account account) {

}

@RequestMapping(value="/owners/{ownerId}/pets/{petId}/edit", method = RequestMethod.POST)
public String processSubmit(@ModelAttribute("pet") Pet pet, BindingResult result) {

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

    // ...

}

@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";
    }

    // ...

}

@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";
    }

    // ...

}

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

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.

	Note
	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>>.

JSESSIONID=415A4AC178C59DACE0B2C9CA727CDD84

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

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”.

	Tip
	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.

@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));
    }

    // ...

}

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

@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";
}

// Target all Controllers annotated with @RestController
@ControllerAdvice(annotations = RestController.class)
public class AnnotationAdvice {}

// Target all Controllers within specific packages
@ControllerAdvice("org.example.controllers")
public class BasePackageAdvice {}

// Target all Controllers assignable to specific classes
@ControllerAdvice(assignableTypes = {ControllerInterface.class, AbstractController.class})
public class AssignableTypesAdvice {}

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 String 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:

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.

	Note
	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.

<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/web-app_3_0.xsd"
    version="3.0">

    ...

</web-app>

The spring-test module offers first class support for testing annotated controllers. See Section 10.3.6, “Spring MVC Test Framework”.

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.RequestMappingHandlerMapping">
        <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;
        }
        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.

	Note
	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.

	Tip
	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 Section 16.16.1, “Enabling the MVC Java Config or the MVC XML Namespace”.

As discussed in Section 16.3, “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.

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.

	Note
	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.

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.InternalResourceViewResolver">
    <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!

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 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.

@RequestMapping(value = "/files/{path}", method = RequestMethod.POST)
public String upload(...) {
    // ...
    return "redirect:files/{path}";
}

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:

	Note
	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.

	Note
	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;
    }

}

In addition to obtaining the client’s locale, it is often useful to know their time zone. The LocaleContextResolver interface offers an extension to LocaleResolver that allows resolvers to provide a richer LocaleContext, which may include time zone information.

When available, the user’s TimeZone can be obtained using the RequestContext.getTimeZone() method. Time zone information will automatically be used by Date/Time Converter and Formatter objects registered with Spring’s ConversionService.

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. Note that this resolver does not support time zone information.

This locale resolver inspects a Cookie that might exist on the client to see if a Locale or TimeZone is specified. If so, it uses the specified details. 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 down) -->
    <property name="cookieMaxAge" value="100000">

</bean>

The SessionLocaleResolver allows you to retrieve Locale and TimeZone from the session that might be associated with the user’s request.

You can enable changing of locales by adding the LocaleChangeInterceptor to one of the handler mappings (see Section 16.4, “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>

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.

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.

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:

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

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.

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.

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>

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";
        }

        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";
    }

}

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.

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 to many @Controller classes when defined within an @ControllerAdvice class. The following sections explain this in more detail.

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 many controllers. 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.

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:

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.

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.

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") %>
}

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 response) {
        // 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.)

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:

If you follow the convention of naming your Controller implementations as xxxController, 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.

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 response) {

        List cartItems = // get a List of CartItem objects
        User user = // get the User doing the shopping

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

        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.

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:

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 response) {
        // 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.ControllerClassNameHandlerMapping"/>

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

	Tip
	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.

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:

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

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

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). You can register more extensions with the setUseRegisteredSuffixPatternMatch method.

The introduction of ContentNegotiationManger also enables selective suffix pattern matching for incoming requests. For more details, see the Javadoc of

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.ContentNegotiationManagerFactoryBean">
    <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 ContentNegotiatingViewResolver, 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.

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"/>

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/").setCachePeriod(31556926);
    }

}

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="/public-resources/"/>

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>

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"/>

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

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 from DelegatingWebMvcConfiguration, a subclass of WebMvcConfigurationSupport. Here is an example:

@Configuration
public class WebConfig extends DelegatingWebMvcConfiguration {

    @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

An application should have only one configuration extending DelegatingWebMvcConfiguration or a single @EnableWebMvc annotated class, since they both register the same underlying beans. Modifying beans in this way does not prevent you from using any of the higher-level constructs shown earlier in this section. WebMvcConfigurerAdapter subclasses and WebMvcConfigurer implementations are still being used.

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 BeansException {
        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.