replacing button with href for post submission

[vikas_chess]

Below is the form submit part of the jsp code:

 
<button type="submit" name="search">Search</button>
<button type="submit" name="add">Add</button>
<button type="submit" name="save">Save</button>
<button type="submit" name="remove">Remove</button>

Below is the controller class handling the above 4 submit button calls.

 
    @RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.POST, params = "search")
    public String search(@ModelAttribute("consolidate") ConsolidateDto consolidate,
            BindingResult errors, ModelMap model) {
}
 
    @RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.POST, params = "add")
    public String add(@ModelAttribute("consolidate") ConsolidateDto consolidate,
            BindingResult errors, ModelMap model) {
}
 
    @RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.POST, params = "save")
    public String save(@ModelAttribute("consolidate") ConsolidateDto consolidate,
            BindingResult errors, ModelMap model) {
}
 
    @RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.POST, params = "remove")
    public String remove(@ModelAttribute("consolidate") ConsolidateDto consolidate,
            BindingResult errors, ModelMap model) {
}

Now, how to replace the above buttons with hyperlinks in the jsp page, so that i dont have to do any changes in the controller class.

I tried below code:

 
<a href="#" type="submit" name="search">Search</a>
<a href="#" type="add" name="add">Add</a>
<a href="#" type="save" name="save">Save</a>
<a href="#" type="remove" name="remove">Remove</a>

but it is not working.

please help.

[vikas_chess]

please someone advice me on this. Thank you.

[MartyJones]

I would suggest you use a javascript function to accomplish the task. The sample I wrote uses JQuery to make things simple:

<script type="text/javascript">
function submitForm(invokeParamVal) {
    
    // set the hidden input's name to the value you want.
    $('#submitParam').attr('name',invokeParamVal);
    
    // submit the form.
    $('#crudForm').submit();

}
</script>

<form id="crudForm" action="<your action here>" method="POST">

    <input type="hidden" name="search" id="submitParam" value="true">
    
    <a href="#" onClick="submitForm('search')">Search</a>
    <a href="#" onClick="submitForm('add')">Add</a>
    <a href="#" onClick="submitForm('save')">Save</a>
    <a href="#" onClick="submitForm('remove')">Remove</a>

</form>

[vikas_chess]

MartyJones, Thank you very much. it works perfectly fine!

However, I dont fully understand the params attribute of @RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.POST, params = "add") annotation.

Till date, I was using it to map multiple submit buttons in the jsp form to controller methods.

today, I checked a code on the net, where params is used like @RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.POST, params = "option=second")

it confused me more about params attribute as its checking option value inside the param.

can you please explain me how params attribute works. Thank you.

[MartyJones]

Take a look at the documentation. It does a good job of explaining the params option. Here is the link.

Basically, if you have params="myParam=myValue" it means that in order for the request mapping to be hit there must exist a request parameter named "myParam" with a value of "myValue".

If you have params="myParam" it means that in order for the request mapping to be hit there must exist a request parameter named "myParam". It can have any value.

Hope this helps.

Marty