Controller Class Name Handler Mapping Example

The following example shows how to use the Controller Class Name Handler Mapping using the Spring Web MVC framework. The ControllerClassNameHandlerMapping class is the convention-based handler mapping class, which maps the URL request(s) to the name of the controllers mentioned in the configuration. This class takes the Controller names and converts them to lower case with a leading "/".

Note* − ControllerClassNameHandlerMapping is not available from Spring 5.1 onwards. This example is written using earlier version of spring.

For example − HelloController maps to "/hello*" URL.

<beans>
   <bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver">
      <property name = "prefix" value = "/WEB-INF/jsp/"/>
      <property name = "suffix" value = ".jsp"/>
   </bean>

   <bean class = "org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.support.ControllerClassNameHandlerMapping"/>
 
   <bean class = "com.tutorialspoint.HelloController" />

   <bean class = "com.tutorialspoint.WelcomeController"/>   
</beans>

For example, using above configuration, if URI

• /helloWorld.htm or /hello{any letter}.htm is requested, DispatcherServlet will forward the request to the HelloController.

• /welcome.htm is requested, DispatcherServlet will forward the request to the WelcomeController.

• /Welcome.htm is requested where W is capital cased, DispatcherServlet will not find any controller and the server will throw 404 status error.

To start with, let us have a working Eclipse IDE in place and consider the following steps to develop a Dynamic Form based Web Application using Spring Web Framework −

HelloController.java

package com.tutorialspoint;

import org.springframework.web.servlet.ModelAndView;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.AbstractController;

import jakarta.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import jakarta.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;

public class HelloController extends AbstractController{
  
   @Override
   protected ModelAndView handleRequestInternal(HttpServletRequest request,
      HttpServletResponse response) throws Exception {
      ModelAndView model = new ModelAndView("hello");
      model.addObject("message", "Hello World!");
      return model;
   }
}

WelcomeController.java

package com.tutorialspoint;

import org.springframework.web.servlet.ModelAndView;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.AbstractController;

import jakarta.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import jakarta.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;

public class WelcomeController extends AbstractController{
  
   @Override
   protected ModelAndView handleRequestInternal(HttpServletRequest request,
      HttpServletResponse response) throws Exception {
      ModelAndView model = new ModelAndView("welcome");
      model.addObject("message", "Welcome!");
      return model;
   }
}

hello-servlet.xml

<beans xmlns = "http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
   xmlns:context = "http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
   xmlns:xsi = "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
   xsi:schemaLocation = "
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans     
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/context 
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.0.xsd">

   <context:component-scan base-package = "com.tutorialspoint" />

   <bean class = "org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver">
      <property name = "prefix" value = "/WEB-INF/jsp/" />
      <property name = "suffix" value = ".jsp" />
   </bean>
 
   <bean id = "studentValidator" class = "com.tutorialspoint.StudentValidator" />
   <bean id = "multipartResolver"
      class = "org.springframework.web.multipart.support.StandardServletMultipartResolver" />
 
   <bean class = "org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.support.ControllerClassNameHandlerMapping"/>

   <bean class = "com.tutorialspoint.HelloController" />

   <bean class = "com.tutorialspoint.WelcomeController"/> 
</beans>

hello.jsp

<%@ page contentType = "text/html; charset = UTF-8" %>
<html>
   <head>
      <title>Hello World</title>
   </head>
   <body>
      <h2>${message}</h2>
   </body>
</html>

welcome.jsp

<%@ page contentType = "text/html; charset = UTF-8" %>
<html>
   <head>
      <title>Welcome</title>
   </head>
   <body>
      <h2>${message}</h2>
   </body>
</html>

Output

Once you are done with creating source and configuration files, export your application. Right click on your application, use Run As → Maven Install option and save your hello.war file in Tomcat's webapps folder.

Now, start your Tomcat server and make sure you are able to access other webpages from the webapps folder by using a standard browser. Try a URL − http://localhost:8080/hello/helloWorld.htm and we will see the following screen, if everything is fine with the Spring Web Application.

Try a URL − http://localhost:8080/hello/hello.htm and we will see the following screen, if everything is fine with the Spring Web Application.

Try a URL http://localhost:8080/hello/welcome.htm and we will see the following screen, if everything is fine with the Spring Web Application.

Try a URL http://localhost:8080/hello/welcome1.htm and we will see the following screen, if everything is fine with the Spring Web Application.