DispatcherServlet

See equivalent in the Reactive stack

Spring MVC, as many other web frameworks, is designed around the front controller pattern where a central Servlet, the DispatcherServlet, provides a shared algorithm for request processing, while actual work is performed by configurable delegate components. This model is flexible and supports diverse workflows.

The DispatcherServlet, as any Servlet, needs to be declared and mapped according to the Servlet specification by using Java configuration or in web.xml. In turn, the DispatcherServlet uses Spring configuration to discover the delegate components it needs for request mapping, view resolution, exception handling, and more.

The following example of the Java configuration registers and initializes the DispatcherServlet, which is auto-detected by the Servlet container (see Servlet Config):

  • Java

  • Kotlin

public class MyWebApplicationInitializer implements WebApplicationInitializer {

	@Override
	public void onStartup(ServletContext servletContext) {

		// Load Spring web application configuration
		AnnotationConfigWebApplicationContext context = new AnnotationConfigWebApplicationContext();
		context.register(AppConfig.class);

		// Create and register the DispatcherServlet
		DispatcherServlet servlet = new DispatcherServlet(context);
		ServletRegistration.Dynamic registration = servletContext.addServlet("app", servlet);
		registration.setLoadOnStartup(1);
		registration.addMapping("/app/*");
	}
}
class MyWebApplicationInitializer : WebApplicationInitializer {

	override fun onStartup(servletContext: ServletContext) {

		// Load Spring web application configuration
		val context = AnnotationConfigWebApplicationContext()
		context.register(AppConfig::class.java)

		// Create and register the DispatcherServlet
		val servlet = DispatcherServlet(context)
		val registration = servletContext.addServlet("app", servlet)
		registration.setLoadOnStartup(1)
		registration.addMapping("/app/*")
	}
}
In addition to using the ServletContext API directly, you can also extend AbstractAnnotationConfigDispatcherServletInitializer and override specific methods (see the example under Context Hierarchy).
For programmatic use cases, a GenericWebApplicationContext can be used as an alternative to AnnotationConfigWebApplicationContext. See the GenericWebApplicationContext javadoc for details.

The following example of web.xml configuration registers and initializes the DispatcherServlet:

<web-app>

	<listener>
		<listener-class>org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener</listener-class>
	</listener>

	<context-param>
		<param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
		<param-value>/WEB-INF/app-context.xml</param-value>
	</context-param>

	<servlet>
		<servlet-name>app</servlet-name>
		<servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
		<init-param>
			<param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
			<param-value></param-value>
		</init-param>
		<load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
	</servlet>

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

</web-app>
Spring Boot follows a different initialization sequence. Rather than hooking into the lifecycle of the Servlet container, Spring Boot uses Spring configuration to bootstrap itself and the embedded Servlet container. Filter and Servlet declarations are detected in Spring configuration and registered with the Servlet container. For more details, see the Spring Boot documentation.