Spring MVC Form Handling Example

The following example shows how to write a simple web-based application, which makes use of HTML forms using Spring Web MVC framework. To start with, let us have a working Eclipse IDE in place and take the following steps to develope a Dynamic Form-based Web Application using Spring Web Framework −

Steps	Description
1	Create a Dynamic Web Project with a name HelloWeb and create a package com.tutorialspoint under the src folder in the created project.
2	Drag and drop below mentioned Spring and other libraries into the folder WebContent/WEB-INF/lib.
3	Create a Java classes Student and StudentController under the com.learnsoftware package.
4	Create Spring configuration files Web.xml and HelloWeb-servlet.xmlunder the WebContent/WEB-INF folder.
5	Create a sub-folder with a name jsp under the WebContent/WEB-INFfolder. Create a view files student.jsp and result.jsp under this sub-folder.
6	The final step is to create the content of all the source and configuration files and export the application as explained below.

Here is the content of Student.java file

package com.learnsoftware;

public class Student {
   private Integer age;
   private String name;
   private Integer id;

   public void setAge(Integer age) {
      this.age = age;
   }
   public Integer getAge() {
      return age;
   }
   public void setName(String name) {
      this.name = name;
   }
   public String getName() {
      return name;
   }
   public void setId(Integer id) {
      this.id = id;
   }
   public Integer getId() {
      return id;
   }
}

Following is the content of StudentController.java file

package com.learnsoftware;

import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
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.servlet.ModelAndView;
import org.springframework.ui.ModelMap;

@Controller
public class StudentController {
   @RequestMapping(value = "/student", method = RequestMethod.GET)
   public ModelAndView student() {
      return new ModelAndView("student", "command", new Student());
   }
   @RequestMapping(value = "/addStudent", method = RequestMethod.POST)
      public String addStudent(@ModelAttribute("SpringWeb")Student student, 
   
   ModelMap model) {
      model.addAttribute("name", student.getName());
      model.addAttribute("age", student.getAge());
      model.addAttribute("id", student.getId());
      
      return "result";
   }
}

Here the first service method student(), we have passed a blank Studentobject in the ModelAndView object with the name "command" because the Spring framework expects an object with the name "command" if you are using <form:form> tags in your JSP file. So, when student() method is called , it returns student.jsp view.

The second service method addStudent() will be called against a POST method on the HelloWeb/addStudent URL. You will prepare your model object based on the submitted information. Finally a "result" view will be returned from the service method, which will result in rendering result.jsp

Following is the content of Spring Web configuration file web.xml

<web-app id = "WebApp_ID" version = "2.4"
   xmlns = "http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee" 
   xmlns:xsi = "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
   xsi:schemaLocation = "http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee 
   http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee/web-app_2_4.xsd">
 
   <display-name>Spring MVC Form Handling</display-name>
 
   <servlet>
      <servlet-name>HelloWeb</servlet-name>
      <servlet-class>
         org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet
      </servlet-class>
      <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
   </servlet>

   <servlet-mapping>
      <servlet-name>HelloWeb</servlet-name>
      <url-pattern>/</url-pattern>
   </servlet-mapping>
 
</web-app>

Following is the content of another Spring Web configuration file HelloWeb-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>
 
</beans>

Following is the content of Spring view file student.jsp

<%@taglib uri = "http://www.springframework.org/tags/form" prefix = "form"%>
<html>
   <head>
      <title>Spring MVC Form Handling</title>
   </head>

   <body>
      <h2>Student Information</h2>
      <form:form method = "POST" action = "/HelloWeb/addStudent">
         <table>
            <tr>
               <td><form:label path = "name">Name</form:label></td>
               <td><form:input path = "name" /></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
               <td><form:label path = "age">Age</form:label></td>
               <td><form:input path = "age" /></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
               <td><form:label path = "id">id</form:label></td>
               <td><form:input path = "id" /></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
               <td colspan = "2">
                  <input type = "submit" value = "Submit"/>
               </td>
            </tr>
         </table>  
      </form:form>
   </body>
   
</html>

Following is the content of Spring view file result.jsp

<%@page contentType = "text/html;charset = UTF-8" language = "java" %>
<%@page isELIgnored = "false" %>
<%@taglib uri = "http://www.springframework.org/tags/form" prefix = "form"%>
<html>
   <head>
      <title>Spring MVC Form Handling</title>
   </head>

   <body>
      <h2>Submitted Student Information</h2>
      <table>
         <tr>
            <td>Name</td>
            <td>${name}</td>
         </tr>
         <tr>
            <td>Age</td>
            <td>${age}</td>
         </tr>
         <tr>
            <td>ID</td>
            <td>${id}</td>
         </tr>
      </table>  
   </body>
   
</html>

Finally, following is the list of Spring and other libraries to be included in your web application. You simply drag these files and drop them in WebContent/WEB-INF/lib folder.

• commons-logging-x.y.z.jar
• org.springframework.asm-x.y.z.jar
• org.springframework.beans-x.y.z.jar
• org.springframework.context-x.y.z.jar
• org.springframework.core-x.y.z.jar
• org.springframework.expression-x.y.z.jar
• org.springframework.web.servlet-x.y.z.jar
• org.springframework.web-x.y.z.jar
• spring-web.jar

Once you are done with creating source and configuration files, export your application. Right click on your application and use the Export > WAR Fileoption and save your SpringWeb.war file in Tomcat's webapps folder.

Now start your Tomcat server and make sure you are able to access other web pages from webapps folder using a standard browser. Now try a URL http://localhost:8080/SpringWeb/student and you should see the following result if everything is fine with your Spring Web Application.

After submitting the required information, click the Submit button to submit the form. You should see the following result if everything is fine with your Spring Web Application.