org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc

Standard controller implementations for the servlet MVC framework that comes with Spring. Provides both abstract base classes and concrete implementations for often seen use cases.

A Controller - as defined in this package - is analogous to a Struts Action. Usually Controllers are JavaBeans to allow easy configuration using the {@link org.springframework.beans org.springframework.beans} package. Controllers define the C from so-called MVC paradigm and can be used in conjunction with the {@link org.springframework.web.servlet.ModelAndView ModelAndView} to achieve interactive applications. The view might be represented by a HTML interface, but, because of model and the controller being completely independent of the view, PDF views are possible, as well as for instance Excel views.

How to actually set up a (web)application using the MVC framework Spring provides is explained in more detail in the MVC-Step-by-Step tutorial, also provided in this package (or have a look here for an online version). The classes contained by this package explain in more detail the actual workflow of some of the abstract and concrete controller and how to extend and fully use their functionality.

Especially useful to read, while getting into the Spring MVC framework are the following:

• Controller
• BaseCommandController
• ParameterizableViewController

Autopopulates a command bean from the request.

Convenient superclass for controller implementations, using the Template Method design pattern.

As stated in the org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.Controller Controller interface, a lot of functionality is already provided by certain abstract base controllers.

Form controller that auto-populates a form bean from the request. This, either using a new bean instance per request, or using the same bean when the sessionForm property has been set to true.

This class is the base class for both framework subclasses like SimpleFormController SimpleFormController and AbstractWizardFormController AbstractWizardFormController , and custom form controllers you can provide yourself.

Both form-input views and after-submission views have to be provided programmatically.

Provides infrastructure for determining view names from URLs and configurable URL lookup.

In contrast to classic forms, wizards have more than one form view page. Therefore, there are various actions instead of one single submit action:

• finish: trying to leave the wizard successfully, that is, perform its final action, and thus requiring a valid state;
• cancel: leaving the wizard without performing its final action, and thus without regard to the validity of its current state;
• page change: showing another wizard page, e.g.

Controller implementation which creates an object (the command object) on receipt of a request and attempts to populate this object with request parameters.

This controller is the base for all controllers wishing to populate JavaBeans based on request parameters, validate the content of such JavaBeans using org.springframework.validation.Validator Validators and use custom editors (in the form of java.beans.PropertyEditor PropertyEditors ) to transform objects into strings and vice versa, for example.

Extension of SimpleFormController that supports "cancellation" of form processing.

Trivial controller that always returns a named view.

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

The workflow of this Controller does not differ much from the one described in the AbstractFormController AbstractFormController .