Spring MVC

Features of Spring Web MVC

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Spring’s web module includes many unique web support features:

  • Clear separation of roles. Each role—controller, validator, command object, form object, model object, DispatcherServlet, handler mapping, view resolver, and so on—can be fulfilled by a specialized object.
  • Powerful and straightforward configuration of both framework and application classes as JavaBeans. This configuration capability includes easy referencing across contexts, such as from web controllers to business objects and validators.
  • Adaptability, non-intrusiveness, and flexibility. Define any controller method signature you need, possibly using one of the parameter annotations (such as @RequestParam, @RequestHeader, @PathVariable, and more) for a given scenario.
  • Reusable business code, no need for duplication. Use existing business objects as command or form objects instead of mirroring them to extend a particular framework base class.
  • Customizable binding and validation. Type mismatches as application-level validation errors that keep the offending value, localized date and number binding, and so on instead of String-only form objects with manual parsing and conversion to business objects.
  • Customizable handler mapping and view resolution. Handler mapping and view resolution strategies range from simple URL-based configuration, to sophisticated, purpose-built resolution strategies. Spring is more flexible than web MVC frameworks that mandate a particular technique.
  • Flexible model transfer. Model transfer with a name/value Map supports easy integration with any view technology.
  • Customizable locale, time zone and theme resolution, support for JSPs with or without Spring tag library, support for JSTL, support for Velocity without the need for extra bridges, and so on.
  • A simple yet powerful JSP tag library known as the Spring tag library that provides support for features such as data binding and themes. The custom tags allow for maximum flexibility in terms of markup code.
  • A JSP form tag library, introduced in Spring 2.0, that makes writing forms in JSP pages much easier.
  • Beans whose lifecycle is scoped to the current HTTP request or HTTP Session. This is not a specific feature of Spring MVC itself, but rather of the WebApplicationContext container(s) that Spring MVC uses.

Features of Spring Web MVC

MallikLeave a comment

Spring’s web module includes many unique web support features:

  • Clear separation of roles. Each role — controller, validator, command object, form object, model object, DispatcherServlet, handler mapping, view resolver, and so on — can be fulfilled by a specialized object.
  • Powerful and straightforward configuration of both framework and application classes as JavaBeans. This configuration capability includes easy referencing across contexts, such as from web controllers to business objects and validators.
  • Adaptability, non-intrusiveness, and flexibility. Define any controller method signature you need, possibly using one of the parameter annotations (such as @RequestParam, @RequestHeader, @PathVariable, and more) for a given scenario.
  • Reusable business code, no need for duplication. Use existing business objects as command or form objects instead of mirroring them to extend a particular framework base class.
  • Customizable binding and validation. Type mismatches as application-level validation errors that keep the offending value, localized date and number binding, and so on instead of String-only form objects with manual parsing and conversion to business objects.
  • Customizable handler mapping and view resolution. Handler mapping and view resolution strategies range from simple URL-based configuration, to sophisticated, purpose-built resolution strategies. Spring is more flexible than web MVC frameworks that mandate a particular technique.
  • Flexible model transfer. Model transfer with a name/value Map supports easy integration with any view technology. Customizable locale, time zone and theme resolution, support for JSPs with or without Spring tag library, support for JSTL, support for Velocity without the need for extra bridges, and so on.
  • A simple yet powerful JSP tag library known as the Spring tag library that provides support for features such as data binding and themes. The custom tags allow for maximum flexibility in terms of markup code. For information on the tag library descriptor, see the appendix entitled Chapter 36, spring.tld
  • A JSP form tag library, introduced in Spring 2.0, that makes writing forms in JSP pages much easier.
  • Beans whose lifecycle is scoped to the current HTTP request or HTTP Session. This is not a specific feature of Spring MVC itself, but rather of the WebApplicationContext container(s) that Spring MVC uses. These bean scopes are described in the section called “Request, session, and global session scopes”

Source:

http://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/pdf/spring-framework-reference.pdf

List of View Resolvers in Spring MVC

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In Spring MVC, view resolvers enable you to render models in a browser without tying you to a specific view technology like JSP, Velocity, XML…etc.

There are two interfaces that are important to the way Spring handles views are ViewResolver and View. The ViewResolver provides a mapping between view names and actual views. The View interface addresses the preparation of the request and hands the request over to one of the view technologies.

Below are the important view resolvers provided by spring framework:

  1. AbstractCachingViewResolver : Abstract view resolver that caches views. Often views need preparation before they can be used; extending this view resolver provides caching.
  2. XmlViewResolver : Implementation of ViewResolver that accepts a configuration file written in XML with the same DTD as Spring’s XML bean factories. The default configuration file is /WEB-INF/views.xml.
  3. ResourceBundleViewResolver : Implementation of ViewResolver that uses bean definitions in a ResourceBundle, specified by the bundle base name. Typically you define the bundle in a properties file, located in the classpath. The default file name is views.properties.
  4. UrlBasedViewResolver : Simple implementation of the ViewResolver interface that effects the direct resolution of logical view names to URLs, without an explicit mapping definition. This is appropriate if your logical names match the names of your view resources in a straightforward manner, without the need for arbitrary mappings.
  5. InternalResourceViewResolver :  Convenient subclass of UrlBasedViewResolver that supports InternalResourceView (in effect, Servlets and JSPs) and subclasses such as JstlView and TilesView. You can specify the view class for all views generated by this resolver by using setViewClass(..).
  6. VelocityViewResolver/FreeMarkerViewResolver : Convenient subclass of UrlBasedViewResolver that supports VelocityView (in effect, Velocity templates) or FreeMarkerView ,respectively, and custom subclasses of them.
  7. ContentNegotiatingViewResolver : Implementation of the ViewResolver interface that resolves a view based on the request file name or Accept header.

Other Useful Links:

Basic Spring MVC Application

Spring MVC with Tiles framework sample application