Struts ForwardAction counterpart in Spring MVC?

[marceloverdijk]

Hi,

I'm currenly doing a pilot with the Spring framework and rebuilding a my Struts controller to Spring MVC.
I have a lot of simple url requests (actions) which do nothing with the model but just go to a .jsp page (view). Struts has a convienient ForwarAction I use for this.

<action
path="/login"
type="org.apache.struts.actions.ForwardAction"
parameter="/WEB-INF/jsp/login/display_login.jsp"
/>

I can use the Spring MVC UrlFilenameViewController and SimpleUrlHandlerMapping but then the view name has to have the same name as the path.

I was wondering if there is some UrlHandlerMapping in which I can wire the url mapping path directly to a view name?

Regards,
Marcel

[lumpynose]

I think you want to look at the view resolvers; e.g., org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResou rceViewResolver.

Look at the api docs for org.springframework.web.servlet.ViewResolver and then look at the classes that implement that interface.

[marceloverdijk]

Thanks for your reply lumpynose,

I think the view resolving is one step later.

What I'm trying to avoid is to create and define a Controllers (actions) for simple forward actions.

[rstearns01]

The InternalResourceViewResolver iteself can work with proper naming conventions, but I think what you're looking for is the ParameterizableViewController. You'll need to map the incoming url to the controller, and the controller forwards to a (specified) view name, which must then be mapped via a ViewResolver to the desired jsp.

The samples have examples of its usage.

HTH

[marceloverdijk]

Thanks for your reply HTH,

With the ParameterizableViewController I could do the following:

<bean id="urlMapping" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.handler.Sim pleUrlHandlerMapping">
<property name="mappings">
<props>
<prop key="/home.htm">homeForwardController</prop>
<prop key="/faq.htm">faqForwardController</prop>
</props>
</property>
</bean>

<bean name="homeForwardController" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.Paramet erizableViewController">
<property name="viewName"><value>indexView</value></property>
</bean>

<bean name="faqForwardController" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.Paramet erizableViewController">
<property name="viewName"><value>faqView</value></property>
</bean>

This would work, but for each simple forward action (from a request directly to a view) I have to define a controller! This is time consuming and will explode my *-servlet.xml.

I was hoping to define 1 controller and specify the view name as a property in the HandlerMapping.

E.g. some kind of SimpleUrlToViewHandlerMapping class:
<bean id="urlMapping" class="xyz.SimpleUrlToViewHandlerMapping">
<property name="mappings">
<props>
<prop key="/home.htm">indexView</prop>
<prop key="/faq.htm">faqView</prop>
</props>
</property>
</bean>

Before creating some class like this, I want to make sure I cannot define this with the already existing classes.

Regards,
Marcel

[lumpynose]

("HTH" is one of those acronyms like LOL. HTH means "happy to help.")

[lumpynose]

What about the ResourceBundleViewResolver? With it I have a views.properties file that specifies 3 views handled by the same class:

signInView.class=org.springframework.web.servlet.view.JstlView
signInView.url=/WEB-INF/jsp/signInView.jsp

adminView.class=org.springframework.web.servlet.view.JstlView
adminView.url=/WEB-INF/jsp/adminView.jsp

waitlistView.class=org.springframework.web.servlet.view.JstlView
waitlistView.url=/WEB-INF/jsp/waitlistView.jsp

(I'm a rank newbie at this so I may not know what I'm talking about.)

[marceloverdijk]

Hi, - thanks for your help again -

I'm using the XmlViewResolver to do what you described.

You wrote you are using one class (1 controller I assume) and the have the ability to forward to 1 of 3 views. This means you had the code the controller class.
That's what I don't want to do as my controller type as I described is a very very simple controller which returns always only 1 and the same view.

The ParameterizableViewController is the which comes close but it could be better....

Regards,
Marcel

[marceloverdijk]

Hi,
I solved it by using the standard BeanNameUrlHandlerMapping and ParameterizableViewController classes.
See the example:

<!-- Simple handler mapping which maps url requests directly to the specified views. -->
<bean id="urlViewMapping" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.handler.BeanNameUrlHandlerMapping"/> 

<bean name="/index.htm" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.ParameterizableViewController"> 
    <property name="viewName"><value>indexView</value></property> 
</bean> 
<bean name="/faq.htm" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.ParameterizableViewController"> 
    <property name="viewName"><value>faqView</value></property> 
</bean> 	
<bean name="/questions.htm" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.ParameterizableViewController"> 
    <property name="viewName"><value>faqView2</value></property> 
</bean>