Next state is not getting called in spring web flow - spring-webflow

Question

I have Spring 3 application having Tiles2 as view resolver. Whenever I am clicking on "submit" button next jsp page should be displayed but it stays on same page.
I have a file WebFlow.xml file inside /WEB-INF/flow directory and JSPs are also in same folder.
My configuration as follows:
-servlet.xml
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
xmlns:mvc="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc"
xmlns:flow="http://www.springframework.org/schema/webflow-config"
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
http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc
http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc-3.0.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/webflow-config
http://www.springframework.org/schema/webflow-config/spring-webflow-config-2.0.xsd">
<mvc:annotation-driven/>
<context:component-scan base-package="com.controller.*"/>
<bean id="tilesViewResolver" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.tiles2.TilesViewResolver"/>
<bean id="tilesConfigurer" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.tiles2.TilesConfigurer">
<property name="definitions">
<list>
<value>/WEB-INF/tiles.xml</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>
<flow:flow-executor id="flowExecutor" flow-registry="flowRegistry"/>
<flow:flow-registry id="flowRegistry">
<flow:flow-location path="/WEB-INF/flow/WebFlow.xml" id="flow"/>
</flow:flow-registry>
<bean id="flowHandlerMapping" class="org.springframework.webflow.mvc.servlet.FlowHandlerMapping">
<property name="flowRegistry" ref="flowRegistry"/>
</bean>
<bean id="flowHandlerAdapter" class="org.springframework.webflow.mvc.servlet.FlowHandlerAdapter">
<property name="flowExecutor" ref="flowExecutor"/>
</bean>
</beans>
WebFlow.xml
<flow xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/webflow"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/webflow
http://www.springframework.org/schema/webflow/spring-webflow-2.0.xsd">
<var name="studentRegForm" class="com.formbean.flows.StudRegForm"/>
<view-state id="login" view="login">
<transition on="studentReg" to="studentReg"/>
</view-state>
<view-state id="studentReg" view="studentReg" model="studentRegForm">
<transition on="submitStudInfo" to="studConfirmPage"/>
</view-state>
<view-state id="studConfirmPage">
<transition on="submit" to="showStoredPage"/>
<transition on="Cancel" to="studentReg"/>
</view-state>
<end-state id="showStoredPage"/>
</flow>
login.jsp
<sf:form id="loginFrm" modelAttribute="loginForm" method="GET" action="${flowExecutionUrl}">
<input type="text" name="_flowExecutionKey" value="${flowExecutionKey}"/>
<input type="submit" value="Student Registration" name="_eventId_studentReg"/>
</sf:form>
StudentReg.jsp
<sf:form id="studRegFrm" modelAttribute="studentRegForm" method="GET" action="${flowExecutionUrl}">
<input type="text" name="_flowExecutionKey" value="${flowExecutionKey}"/>
<table>
<tr>
<td><sf:label path="name">Please Enter Name:</sf:label></td>
<td><sf:input path="name"/></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><sf:label path="address">Please Enter Address:</sf:label></td>
<td><sf:input path="address"/></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td><input type="submit" name="_eventId_submitStudInfo" value="Submit"/></td>
</tr>
</table>
</sf:form>
tiles.xml
<tiles-definitions>
<definition name="mainLayout" template="/WEB-INF/jsp/layout/mainLayout.jsp">
<put-attribute name="Title" value=""/>
<put-attribute name="Header" value="/WEB-INF/jsp/layout/Header.jsp"/>
<put-attribute name="Body" value=""/>
<put-attribute name="Footer" value="/WEB-INF/jsp/layout/Footer.jsp"/>
</definition>
<definition name="login" extends="mainLayout">
<put-attribute name="Title" value="Start Page"></put-attribute>
<put-attribute name="Body" value="/WEB-INF/flow/login.jsp"/>
</definition>
<definition name="studentReg" extends="mainLayout">
<put-attribute name="Title" value="Registration Page"></put-attribute>
<put-attribute name="Body" value="/WEB-INF/flow/StudentReg.jsp"/>
</definition>
</tiles-definitions>
But whenever I am clicking on submit button of login.jsp, it gives ${flowExecutionUrl} & ${flowExecutionKey} as blank and next screen is not displaying. Am I missing some configuration or what's going wrong? Please help.

Answer 1

#Aasif your configuration 'looks' fine. SWF is notoriously un-intuitive to trouble shoot. Try inserting a logger into your flows like this:
Printing log from flow.xml
and determine where the the 'flow' execution is being interrupted. Once you isolate the location. Try to step into the flow code... I suspect an exception is being swallowed.
Possible Answer:
If I had to guess (even though your config looks correct). I would suspect SWF/tiles is NOT resolving the view name 'studentReg'. Try isolate this case by creating a separate flow and see if you can navigate to the view studentReg. You can also step into the Tiles resolver logic to make sure it is being located.
Also:
In my opinion, it is bad practice to give the same name to your viewStateId, transition, and viewName (i.e 'studentReg'). I think it makes trouble shooting more difficult when issues like this arise. Better to append a suffix to them. (i.e studentRegVsId, studentRegViewName, etc...) to create a distinction.