Spring MVC form handling annotation example
In this tutorial, we show you how to do form handling by using annotation in Spring MVC web application.
Note
This annotation-based example is converted from the last Spring MVC form handling XML-based example. So, please compare and spots the different.
This annotation-based example is converted from the last Spring MVC form handling XML-based example. So, please compare and spots the different.
1. SimpleFormController vs @Controller
In XML-based Spring MVC web application, you create a form controller by extending the SimpleFormController class.
In annotation-based, you can use @Controller instead.
SimpleFormController
public class CustomerController extends SimpleFormController{
//...
}
Annotation
@Controller
@RequestMapping("/customer.htm")
public class CustomerController{
//...
}
2. formBackingObject() vs RequestMethod.GET
In SimpleFormController, you can initialize the command object for binding in the formBackingObject() method. In annotation-based, you can do the same by annotated the method name with @RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.GET).
SimpleFormController
@Override
protected Object formBackingObject(HttpServletRequest request)
throws Exception {
Customer cust = new Customer();
//Make "Spring MVC" as default checked value
cust.setFavFramework(new String []{"Spring MVC"});
return cust;
}
Annotation
@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.GET)
public String initForm(ModelMap model){
Customer cust = new Customer();
//Make "Spring MVC" as default checked value
cust.setFavFramework(new String []{"Spring MVC"});
//command object
model.addAttribute("customer", cust);
//return form view
return "CustomerForm";
}
3. onSubmit() vs RequestMethod.POST
In SimpleFormController, the form submission is handle by the onSubmit() method. In annotation-based, you can do the same by annotated the method name with @RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.POST).
SimpleFormController
@Override
protected ModelAndView onSubmit(HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response, Object command, BindException errors)
throws Exception {
Customer customer = (Customer)command;
return new ModelAndView("CustomerSuccess");
}
Annotation
@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.POST)
public String processSubmit(
@ModelAttribute("customer") Customer customer,
BindingResult result, SessionStatus status) {
//clear the command object from the session
status.setComplete();
//return form success view
return "CustomerSuccess";
}
4. referenceData() vs @ModelAttribute
In SimpleFormController, usually you put the reference data in model via referenceData() method, so that the form view can access it. In annotation-based, you can do the same by annotated the method name with @ModelAttribute.
SimpleFormController
@Override
protected Map referenceData(HttpServletRequest request) throws Exception {
Map referenceData = new HashMap();
//Data referencing for web framework checkboxes
List<String> webFrameworkList = new ArrayList<String>();
webFrameworkList.add("Spring MVC");
webFrameworkList.add("Struts 1");
webFrameworkList.add("Struts 2");
webFrameworkList.add("JSF");
webFrameworkList.add("Apache Wicket");
referenceData.put("webFrameworkList", webFrameworkList);
return referenceData;
}
Spring’s form
<form:checkboxes items="${webFrameworkList}" path="favFramework" />
Annotation
@ModelAttribute("webFrameworkList")
public List<String> populateWebFrameworkList() {
//Data referencing for web framework checkboxes
List<String> webFrameworkList = new ArrayList<String>();
webFrameworkList.add("Spring MVC");
webFrameworkList.add("Struts 1");
webFrameworkList.add("Struts 2");
webFrameworkList.add("JSF");
webFrameworkList.add("Apache Wicket");
return webFrameworkList;
}
Spring’s form
<form:checkboxes items="${webFrameworkList}" path="favFramework" />
5. initBinder() vs @InitBinder
In SimpleFormController, you define the binding or register the custom property editor via initBinder() method. In annotation-based, you can do the same by annotated the method name with @InitBinder.
SimpleFormController
protected void initBinder(HttpServletRequest request,
ServletRequestDataBinder binder) throws Exception {
SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
binder.registerCustomEditor(Date.class, new CustomDateEditor(dateFormat, true));
}
Annotation
@InitBinder
public void initBinder(WebDataBinder binder) {
SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
binder.registerCustomEditor(Date.class, new CustomDateEditor(dateFormat, true));
}
From Validation
In SimpleFormController, you have to register and map the validator class to the controller class via XML bean configuration file, and the validation checking and work flows will be executed automatically.
In annotation-based, you have to explicitly execute the validator and define the validation flow in the @Controller class manually. See the different :
SimpleFormController
<bean class="com.mkyong.customer.controller.CustomerController">
<property name="formView" value="CustomerForm" />
<property name="successView" value="CustomerSuccess" />
<!-- Map a validator -->
<property name="validator">
<bean class="com.mkyong.customer.validator.CustomerValidator" />
</property>
</bean>
Annotation
@Controller
@RequestMapping("/customer.htm")
public class CustomerController{
CustomerValidator customerValidator;
@Autowired
public CustomerController(CustomerValidator customerValidator){
this.customerValidator = customerValidator;
}
@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.POST)
public String processSubmit(
@ModelAttribute("customer") Customer customer,
BindingResult result, SessionStatus status) {
customerValidator.validate(customer, result);
if (result.hasErrors()) {
//if validator failed
return "CustomerForm";
} else {
status.setComplete();
//form success
return "CustomerSuccess";
}
}
//...
Full Example
See a complete @Controller example.
package com.mkyong.customer.controller;
import java.sql.Date;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.LinkedHashMap;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Map;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.beans.propertyeditors.CustomDateEditor;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.ui.ModelMap;
import org.springframework.validation.BindingResult;
import org.springframework.web.bind.WebDataBinder;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.InitBinder;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.ModelAttribute;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMethod;
import org.springframework.web.bind.support.SessionStatus;
import com.mkyong.customer.model.Customer;
import com.mkyong.customer.validator.CustomerValidator;
@Controller
@RequestMapping("/customer.htm")
public class CustomerController{
CustomerValidator customerValidator;
@Autowired
public CustomerController(CustomerValidator customerValidator){
this.customerValidator = customerValidator;
}
@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.POST)
public String processSubmit(
@ModelAttribute("customer") Customer customer,
BindingResult result, SessionStatus status) {
customerValidator.validate(customer, result);
if (result.hasErrors()) {
//if validator failed
return "CustomerForm";
} else {
status.setComplete();
//form success
return "CustomerSuccess";
}
}
@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.GET)
public String initForm(ModelMap model){
Customer cust = new Customer();
//Make "Spring MVC" as default checked value
cust.setFavFramework(new String []{"Spring MVC"});
//Make "Make" as default radio button selected value
cust.setSex("M");
//make "Hibernate" as the default java skills selection
cust.setJavaSkills("Hibernate");
//initilize a hidden value
cust.setSecretValue("I'm hidden value");
//command object
model.addAttribute("customer", cust);
//return form view
return "CustomerForm";
}
@ModelAttribute("webFrameworkList")
public List<String> populateWebFrameworkList() {
//Data referencing for web framework checkboxes
List<String> webFrameworkList = new ArrayList<String>();
webFrameworkList.add("Spring MVC");
webFrameworkList.add("Struts 1");
webFrameworkList.add("Struts 2");
webFrameworkList.add("JSF");
webFrameworkList.add("Apache Wicket");
return webFrameworkList;
}
@InitBinder
public void initBinder(WebDataBinder binder) {
SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
binder.registerCustomEditor(Date.class, new CustomDateEditor(dateFormat, true));
}
@ModelAttribute("numberList")
public List<String> populateNumberList() {
//Data referencing for number radiobuttons
List<String> numberList = new ArrayList<String>();
numberList.add("Number 1");
numberList.add("Number 2");
numberList.add("Number 3");
numberList.add("Number 4");
numberList.add("Number 5");
return numberList;
}
@ModelAttribute("javaSkillsList")
public Map<String,String> populateJavaSkillList() {
//Data referencing for java skills list box
Map<String,String> javaSkill = new LinkedHashMap<String,String>();
javaSkill.put("Hibernate", "Hibernate");
javaSkill.put("Spring", "Spring");
javaSkill.put("Apache Wicket", "Apache Wicket");
javaSkill.put("Struts", "Struts");
return javaSkill;
}
@ModelAttribute("countryList")
public Map<String,String> populateCountryList() {
//Data referencing for java skills list box
Map<String,String> country = new LinkedHashMap<String,String>();
country.put("US", "United Stated");
country.put("CHINA", "China");
country.put("SG", "Singapore");
country.put("MY", "Malaysia");
return country;
}
}
To make annotation work, you have to enable the component auto scanning feature in Spring.
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.5.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/context
http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-2.5.xsd">
<context:component-scan base-package="com.mkyong.customer.controller" />
<bean class="com.mkyong.customer.validator.CustomerValidator" />
<!-- Register the Customer.properties -->
<bean id="messageSource"
class="org.springframework.context.support.ResourceBundleMessageSource">
<property name="basename" value="com/mkyong/customer/properties/Customer" />
</bean>
<bean id="viewResolver"
class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver" >
<property name="prefix">
<value>/WEB-INF/pages/</value>
</property>
<property name="suffix">
<value>.jsp</value>
</property>
</bean>
</beans>
Download Source Code
Download it – SpringMVC-Form-Handling-Annotation-Example.zip (12KB)
Reference
- Annotated web mvc controllers in spring 2.5
- Spring MVC form handling example – XML version
- Spring MVC hello world annotation example
- Spring MVC MultiActionController annotation example
Comments
Good tutorial, nice to see that you have also provided an annotation based example. It may be worth to mention that you can name the functions as you like, when you’re using the annotations. This enables you to choose name that are more closely related to the business case you are implementing. And you can also handle multiple forms with one controller and determine which function should be called by for example path fragments. In Spring 3.0 you can even us variables in the path which are then mapped to function parameters. This has been added for the REST support,… Read more »
if u have any spring tutorial , please send me.
http://www.mkyong.com/tutorials/spring-tutorials/
http://www.mkyong.com/tutorials/spring-mvc-tutorials/
Fucked if it works!
SEVERE: Neither BindingResult nor plain target object for bean name ‘customer’ available as request attribute
java.lang.IllegalStateException: Neither BindingResult nor plain target object for bean name ‘customer’ available as request attribute
at org.springframework.web.servlet.support.BindStatus.(BindStatus.java:141)
…………..
Did you enabled the component auto scanning in Spring? Look like the customer bean is not found in the Spring container.
i think in initForm,
model.addAttribute(“customer”, cust);
should be
model.addAttribute(“customerForm”, cust);
Very GOOD!!!!!!!!!
Good Work! Very useful. Thanks
Hi, I like very much your tutorials, but I’m having troubles setting my IDE to launch the sources.
I use MyEclipse For Spring 9, can you kindly make a step to step import and build guide?
I would love to learn from all your examples, but I can’t run them because I always miss something (now a library, now a component I don’t know, for example maven, ecc).
Thanks in advance, keep with your good job!!
Andrea
“I can’t run them because I always miss something“, this is why people switch to use Maven, it handle all dependencies for you. In this site, almost examples are build with Maven. Refer to Maven tutorial for detail.
Normally, add dependencies in pom.xml and build it with Maven “mvn” command.
Though maven gave me an error when I clicked on assembly:assembly it created me a war, so even though I don’t have an eclipse project, I put it anyway in tomcat webapps, it created SpringMVC folder, but I can’t access it from my browser. There’s no index.jsp or whatever welcome page… Can you point me the url to try your project? For now I tried http://10.0.2.15:8080/SpringMVC/, http://10.0.2.15:8080/SpringMVC/CustomerForm, http://10.0.2.15:8080/SpringMVC/CustomerForm.jsp. I’m sorry to bother you with this stupid question.
Thanks again for you support.
Andrea
Take sometime to learn Maven, most projects are switched to Maven for easy maintenance.
Download attached example, navigate to the project folder where “pom.xml” is located. In command prompts, type “mvn eclipse:eclipse -Dwtpversion=2.0”, it will download all the dependencies, and convert it to Eclipse project.
To deploy, just war it with “mvn war:war”.
http://localhost:8080/SpringMVCForm/customer.htm
This is the good tutorial for freshers to understand the things
Thank you for this example. I have one question:
For Java Skills, you can select multiple ones, but it is String javaSkills in the Customer.java. Would that work, if I select more than one skills?
Thanks.
Everett
if not mistake, the selected value will be separated by comma. Try download the attachment and play the code.
[…] Reference Posted by Imran Computer, Java, Java, web Subscribe to RSS feed […]
Thanks a lot…You save my life…
Thanks for the article. It really helped me put some the annotation-driven Spring pieces together. There seems to be one missing piece for me… If I have a controller method similar to your processSubmit() method, where HTTP Parameters will be bound to available setters in the data object (Customer in your example), is there a way to explicitly supply that Consumer object as a Spring bean? For example, I might want to configure a Consumer object in a Spring XML file (so I can inject values into some members via XML where those members won’t be populated from HTTP parameters).… Read more »
Thank you. This post is very useful. I understood the user of @ModelAttribute
-Shrileckha Chaithanya
[…] Mkyong Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe the first to like this […]
http://static.springsource.org/spring/docs/3.0.0.RC3/reference/html/ch05s07.html describes configuring annotation based auto-executing validators. It also emphasizes the fact that Spring 3 is JSR-303 compliant in and of itself without the need for Hibernate validators. This is relatively cutting edge so it’s understandable that the information is not covered here, but it’s important knowledge. You no longer have to manually execute validators to do annotation based config if you use the proper mechanisms covered in that spring article.
Hi
http://localhost:8080/SpringMVC/customer.htm
It displays nothing , just see something at console:
15:04:02,937 WARN [org.springframework.web.servlet.PageNotFound] (http-localhost-127.0.0.1-8080-1) No mapping found for HTTP request with URI [/SpringMVC/customer.htm] in DispatcherServlet with name ‘mvc-dispatcher’
Because of JBoss AS 7.1 doesn’t work with Spring 2.5.6.
(it should upgrade to Spring 3.0.5.RELEASE).
Spring 2.5.6 works with JBoss AS 4.2.
Thanks for your extra info.
hi tell me how to configure springmvc+hibernate(hibernatetemplateclass) for crud operations in spring 3.0
Hi Mkyong,
Your example /tutorials are very nice and very useful. The only problem i am facing is, Not able identify which one is Spring 3.0 except one /two examples( Top).
If possible kindly mention the spring version in each and every example, So that it will be more helpful for me and others also.
If you don’t mind, Can you kindly send me Professional (Wrox publication) pdf for spring3.0 version.
Look forward your positive reply.
Thanks & Regards,
Balachandar.C
651 315 2180
For Spring version see the POM.xml file
Thank you very much.It was very useful blog I have came across so far.
Hi Mkyong,
Could you add tutorials on Spring JPA?
Thanks,
Samuel
good one…
If u have any good tutorial on spring JPA pls share it
you are real hero in java in internet till now i have read.
really appreciate u a lot , to write such a fantastic example.
thankx a lot mkyong.
[…] I am a Spring beginner and was recently looking at this tutorial http://www.mkyong.com/spring-mvc/spri… […]
[…] I am a Spring beginner and was recently looking at this tutorial http://www.mkyong.com/spring-mvc/spring-mvc-form-handling-annotation-example/ […]
An intriguing discussion is worth comment. I believe that you ought to publish more about this issue, it may not be a taboo subject but usually people do not discuss these issues. To the next! All the best!!
Hi Mkyong,
I copied the same code, but i’m unable to access the MVCForm using this following URL.
Please help me out to resolve this issue.
http://localhost:8080/SpringMVCForm/customer.htm
Thanks ‘n’ Regards,
Thirunavukkarasu
U can see SpringMVC in file pom.xml
and used this link
http://localhost:8080/SpringMVC/customer.htm
If you want to used this link http://localhost:8080/SpringMVCForm/customer.htm
You must change value in SpringMVC to SpringMVCForm
Adding some information: just use your war File name in URL as
localhost:8080//customer.htm
Hello, your articles here Spring MVC form handling annotation example to write well, thanks for sharing!
When i am using the Validator
it is wroking for blank space
but not for int value….as i want the value int value min 4 and max 12
And i m using @Min and @Max annotation as
public class Student{
@Id
@GeneratedValue(strategy=GenerationType.Identity)
private int studentId
@NotBlank(message=”Please enter your name”)
private String studentName;
@Min(value=”18″,message=”Age cannot be less 18″)
@Max(value=”99″,message=”Age cannot be greater than 99″)
private int age;
//setters and getters
Validation on studentName is working but not on age
Any specific reason??
Reply your answer
I will be waiting
}
This validattion will work only for String elements. Not for int.
Yhanks mkyong. Your tutorials are helped me a lot. For this tutorial(annotation based form validation) i did as you said above but i am getting error as :-
org.springframework.web.util.NestedServletException: Request processing failed; nested exception is java.lang.IllegalStateException: Neither BindingResult nor plain target object for bean name ‘customerForm’ available as request attribute
root cause
java.lang.IllegalStateException: Neither BindingResult nor plain target object for bean name ‘customerForm’ available as request attribute
note The full stack traces of the exception and its root causes are available in the GlassFish Server Open Source Edition 3.1.2 logs.
Dear sir,
i got it with the knowledge given by you with the previous tutorials i rectified that error. thanks for your posts.
You show differences very good, thanks for this good article.
good luck
thank u
i’m facing problem with including .js and .css file in jsp please help on this
Place your resources (static files ) folder inside webapp ( but not inside WEB-INFO).
For example, if you want to include js/*
Go to your dispatcher servlet xml, add the following code after the line where you’ve declared the base-package.
;
<mvc:resources mapping=”/js/**” location=”/js/” /<