In this tutorial I will show you how to create a simple form using Spring 3 MVC Web framework. I have checked other examples regarding creation of forms in Spring MVC Framework, there are many ways of achieving it. With the simplicity of Spring MVC version 3, we are easing our forms to be implemented on forms. Especially we enjoy coding forms in spring avoiding definition of each command name or anything on xml configuration file. So let’s get started to Spring forms! We are creating a simple project adds and lists as many users as you enter. Also the project is on my Github as well, you may download the entire project
First of all we need essentially our POJO class, the below we are creating one
User.java
package com.tugrulaslan.domain;
/**
* Created by Tugrul on 19.02.2014.
*/
public class User {
private String firstName;
private String lastName;
private String email;
private Integer age;
public String getFirstName() {
return firstName;
}
public void setFirstName(String firstName) {
this.firstName = firstName;
}
public String getLastName() {
return lastName;
}
public void setLastName(String lastName) {
this.lastName = lastName;
}
public String getEmail() {
return email;
}
public void setEmail(String email) {
this.email = email;
}
public Integer getAge() {
return age;
}
public void setAge(Integer age) {
this.age = age;
}
@Override
public String toString() {
return "User{" +
"firstName='" + firstName + '\'' +
", lastName='" + lastName + '\'' +
", email='" + email + '\'' +
", age=" + age +
'}';
}
}
MainController.java
package com.tugrulaslan.controller;
import com.tugrulaslan.domain.User;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.ModelAttribute;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.ModelAndView;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
/**
* Created by Tugrul on 19.02.2014.
*/
@Controller
public class MainController {
private List<User> allUserList = new ArrayList<User>();
@RequestMapping(value = "/user-form")
public ModelAndView personPage(){
return new ModelAndView("user-page", "userCommand", new User());
}
@RequestMapping(value = "/addUser")
public ModelAndView processPerson(@ModelAttribute User user){
ModelAndView modelAndView = new ModelAndView();
modelAndView.setViewName("user-result-page");
modelAndView.addObject("user", user);
allUserList.add(user);
return modelAndView;
}
@RequestMapping(value = "/listUsers")
public ModelAndView listAllPerson(){
ModelAndView modelAndView = new ModelAndView();
modelAndView.setViewName("user-list");
modelAndView.addObject("users",allUserList);
return modelAndView;
}
}
Here is the important point what we need to focus on “userCommand” in “personPage”, we need to combine and link our controller to the desired form area, also the form variables need to be hooked up with the domain object, on the 3rd parameter we are sending a new class of User POJO the below evaluate the
user-page.jsp
<%--
Created by IntelliJ IDEA.
User: Tugrul
Date: 19.02.2014
Time: 11:19
To change this template use File | Settings | File Templates.
--%>
<%@ page contentType="text/html;charset=UTF-8" language="java" %>
<%@taglib uri="http://www.springframework.org/tags/form" prefix="form"%>
<html>
<head>
<title>Person Form</title>
</head>
<body>
<form:form method="post" commandName="userCommand" action="addUser.html">
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><form:label path="firstName">Firstname: </form:label></td>
<td><form:input path="firstName" /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><form:label path="lastName">Lastname: </form:label></td>
<td><form:input path="lastName" /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><form:label path="email">Email: </form:label></td>
<td><form:input path="email" /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><form:label path="age">Age: </form:label></td>
<td><form:input path="age" /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2">
<input type="submit" value="Add User" />
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</form:form>
</body>
</html>
As we see the simple form here, we have combined our controller and User POJO class with each other to provide the communication.
user-list.jsp
<%--
Created by IntelliJ IDEA.
User: Tugrul
Date: 19.02.2014
Time: 11:40
To change this template use File | Settings | File Templates.
--%>
<%@ page contentType="text/html;charset=UTF-8" language="java" %>
<%@taglib prefix="c" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" %>
<html>
<head>
<title>Person List</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>User List</h1>
<c:if test="${not empty users}">
<table border="1">
<tr>
<td>Firstname</td>
<td>Lastname</td>
<td>Email</td>
<td>Age</td>
</tr>
<c:forEach var="element" items="${users}">
<tr>
<td>${element.firstName}</td>
<td>${element.lastName}</td>
<td>${element.email}</td>
<td>${element.age}</td>
</tr>
</c:forEach>
</table>
</c:if>
<a href="/">Index</a><br />
</body>
</html>
Here we are listing all registered and stored users in our list defined in our controller class
user-result-page.jsp
<%--
Created by IntelliJ IDEA.
User: Tugrul
Date: 19.02.2014
Time: 11:23
To change this template use File | Settings | File Templates.
--%>
<%@ page contentType="text/html;charset=UTF-8" language="java" %>
<html>
<head>
<title>Person Result Page</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Created User Details</h1>
<p><b>First Name:</b> ${user.firstName}</p>
<p><b>Last Name:</b> ${user.lastName}</p>
<p><b>Email:</b> ${user.email}</p>
<p><b>Age:</b> ${user.age}</p>
<a href="/">Index</a>
</body>
</html>
where we show the outcome what the user has entered
index.jsp
<%-- Created by IntelliJ IDEA. User: Tugrul Date: 19.02.2014 Time: 11:40 To change this template use File | Settings | File Templates. --%> <html> <body> <h2>===Main Menu===</h2> </body> <a href="/user-form">Add a New User</a><br /> <a href="/listUsers">List All Users</a> </html>
Web.xml
<web-app xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee
http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd"
version="2.5">
<display-name>Archetype Created Web Application</display-name>
<servlet>
<servlet-name>mvc-dispatcher</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
<load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>mvc-dispatcher</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
<context-param>
<param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
<param-value>/WEB-INF/mvc-dispatcher-servlet.xml</param-value>
</context-param>
<listener>
<listener-class>
org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener
</listener-class>
</listener>
</web-app>
mvc-dispatcher-servlet.xml
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:p="http://www.springframework.org/schema/p"
xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context" xmlns:tx="http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx"
xmlns:util="http://www.springframework.org/schema/util" xmlns:jee="http://www.springframework.org/schema/jee"
xmlns:lang="http://www.springframework.org/schema/lang" xmlns:mvc="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/context
http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc
http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/jee http://www.springframework.org/schema/jee/spring-jee.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/lang http://www.springframework.org/schema/lang/spring-lang.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx/spring-tx.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/util http://www.springframework.org/schema/util/spring-util.xsd">
<context:component-scan
base-package="com.tugrulaslan.controller" />
<bean
class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver">
<property name="prefix">
<value>/WEB-INF/jsp/</value>
</property>
<property name="suffix">
<value>.jsp</value>
</property>
</bean>
<mvc:annotation-driven />
</beans>
pom.xml
<project xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<groupId>com.tugrulaslan</groupId>
<artifactId>SpringFormExample</artifactId>
<packaging>war</packaging>
<version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
<name>SpringFormExample Maven Webapp</name>
<url>http://maven.apache.org</url>
<properties>
<org.springframework.version>3.2.6.RELEASE</org.springframework.version>
</properties>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>junit</groupId>
<artifactId>junit</artifactId>
<version>4.8.1</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>jstl</groupId>
<artifactId>jstl</artifactId>
<version>1.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>taglibs</groupId>
<artifactId>standard</artifactId>
<version>1.1.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
<version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-context-support</artifactId>
<version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-orm</artifactId>
<version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-context</artifactId>
<version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-oxm</artifactId>
<version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
<scope>compile</scope>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
<build>
<finalName>SpringFormExample</finalName>
</build>
</project>