how to define beans in spring mvc - spring-mvc

Question

i'm new to spring mvc and i was following the example detailed in http://docs.spring.io/docs/Spring-MVC-step-by-step/ but when i try to run it i get an exception described at the end of this comment.
I've been doing some research but i can't find the answer to this problem. Does anyone knows what i am doing wrong?
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans:beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:beans="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc.xsd
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">
<!-- DispatcherServlet Context: defines this servlet's request-processing infrastructure -->
<!-- Enables the Spring MVC #Controller programming model -->
<annotation-driven />
<!-- Handles HTTP GET requests for /resources/** by efficiently serving up static resources in the ${webappRoot}/resources directory -->
<resources mapping="/resources/**" location="/resources/" />
<!-- Resolves views selected for rendering by #Controllers to .jsp resources in the /WEB-INF/views directory -->
<beans:bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver">
<beans:property name="prefix" value="/WEB-INF/views/" />
<beans:property name="suffix" value=".jsp" />
</beans:bean>
<context:component-scan base-package="springDemo.controller" />
<beans:bean id="productManager" class="springDemo.service.SimpleProductManager">
<beans:property name="products">
<beans:list>
<beans:idref bean="product1"/>
<beans:idref bean="product2"/>
<beans:idref bean="product3"/>
</beans:list>
</beans:property>
</beans:bean>
<beans:bean id="product1" class="springDemo.domain.Product">
<beans:property name="description" value="Lamp"/>
<beans:property name="price" value="5.75"/>
</beans:bean>
<beans:bean id="product2" class="springDemo.domain.Product">
<beans:property name="description" value="Table"/>
<beans:property name="price" value="75.25"/>
</beans:bean>
<beans:bean id="product3" class="springDemo.domain.Product">
<beans:property name="description" value="Chair"/>
<beans:property name="price" value="22.79"/>
</beans:bean>
<beans:bean id="messageSource" class="org.springframework.context.support.ResourceBundleMessageSource">
<beans:property name="basename" value="messages"/>
</beans:bean>
</beans:beans>
When i try to run this i get this exception
java.lang.IllegalStateException: Cannot convert value of type [java.lang.String] to required type [springDemo.domain.Product] for property 'products[0]': no matching editors or conversion strategy found
at org.springframework.beans.TypeConverterDelegate.convertIfNecessary(TypeConverterDelegate.java:241)
at org.springframework.beans.TypeConverterDelegate.convertToTypedCollection(TypeConverterDelegate.java:541)
at org.springframework.beans.TypeConverterDelegate.convertIfNecessary(TypeConverterDelegate.java:179)
at org.springframework.beans.BeanWrapperImpl.convertIfNecessary(BeanWrapperImpl.java:470)
at org.springframework.beans.BeanWrapperImpl.convertForProperty(BeanWrapperImpl.java:516)
at org.springframework.beans.BeanWrapperImpl.convertForProperty(BeanWrapperImpl.java:510)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.convertForProperty(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1406)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.applyPropertyValues(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1365)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.populateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1118)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:517)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:456)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory$1.getObject(AbstractBeanFactory.java:294)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.getSingleton(DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.java:225)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:291)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:193)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory.preInstantiateSingletons(DefaultListableBeanFactory.java:585)
at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.finishBeanFactoryInitialization(AbstractApplicationContext.java:913)
at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:464)
at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.configureAndRefreshWebApplicationContext(FrameworkServlet.java:631)
at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.createWebApplicationContext(FrameworkServlet.java:588)
at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.createWebApplicationContext(FrameworkServlet.java:645)
at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.initWebApplicationContext(FrameworkServlet.java:508)
at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.initServletBean(FrameworkServlet.java:449)
at org.springframework.web.servlet.HttpServletBean.init(HttpServletBean.java:133)
at javax.servlet.GenericServlet.init(GenericServlet.java:158)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapper.initServlet(StandardWrapper.java:1284)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapper.loadServlet(StandardWrapper.java:1197)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapper.allocate(StandardWrapper.java:864)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:134)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:122)
at org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.invoke(AuthenticatorBase.java:501)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:171)
at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:103)
at org.apache.catalina.valves.AccessLogValve.invoke(AccessLogValve.java:950)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:116)
at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:408)
at org.apache.coyote.http11.AbstractHttp11Processor.process(AbstractHttp11Processor.java:1070)
at org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$AbstractConnectionHandler.process(AbstractProtocol.java:611)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.JIoEndpoint$SocketProcessor.run(JIoEndpoint.java:314)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(Unknown Source)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.TaskThread$WrappingRunnable.run(TaskThread.java:61)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
UPDATE: i forgot to mention, i have installed the Spring Tool Suite 3.6.1 and i've created a spring web project.

Answer 1

I presume you must be inputting the products from the form so Spring is unable to convert the input string to product type. For this you have to write a property editor.
Property Editors allow you to convert between your custom objects for an instance Product and their String representations.
The exception tells that Spring can’t automatically convert from the POST string value to an actual “product” object.
check spring property editor