problem with very first spring project - spring-mvc

Question

I just switched from Striped to Spring but i'm having issues with my very first project,
Basically i get the 404 from the server.
Strange enough, i have followed one by one all the steps in my book.
I use Eclipse, Tomcat 6 and Spring 2.5
The structure of my project is like so:
src>
controllers(package)>SpringTestController(implements controller).....then
......web content>jsp(folder)>hello.jsp.....then....web-content>web-inf>SpringTest-servlet.xml and web.xml
inside lib i have the 9 necessary jars.
my controller:
public class SpringTestController implements Controller{
public ModelAndView handleRequest(HttpServletRequest arg0, HttpServletResponse arg1) throws Exception {
return new ModelAndView("jsp/hello.jsp");
}
}
my SpringTest-servet.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
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-2.5.xsd">
<bean name="/hello.htm" class="controllers.SpringTestController"/>
</beans>
my web.xml(without header to save space)
<servlet>
<servlet-name>SpringTest</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>
org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet
</servlet-class>
<load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>SpringTest</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>*.htm</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
Where do you think the problem could be?
I have been trying to look around the files but beside web.xml "where i dont see any abnormality" i'm very new to this flow structure so i really cannot get where the problem is.
Thx for your time

Answer 1

I'm suspicious of the practice of using the name attribute of bean to specify URL paths - while I'm sure it's probably possible, my answer will tell you how to do it using more traditional means.
First of all, here is the new SpringTest-servlet.xml:
<bean id="helloController" class="controllers.SpringTestController" />
<bean id="urlMapping" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.handler.SimpleUrlHandlerMapping">
<property name="mappings">
<props>
<prop key="/hello.htm">helloController</prop>
</props>
</property>
</bean>
<bean id="viewResolver" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver">
<property name="prefix" value="/WEB-INF/jsp/"/>
<property name="suffix" value=".jsp"/>
</bean>
You'll probably notice a few things. I'm using the id attribute of bean to define your controller so it can be referenced elsewhere (in the urlMapping bean as you're about to see).
I define a urlMapping bean, which does exactly what you think it does - maps requests (e.g. /hello.htm) to a controller bean.
I've also used viewResolver to map views names to view files, however that is a personal preference thing. Since I'm now using a view resolver, your controller looks like this:
public class SpringTestController implements Controller {
#Override
public ModelAndView handleRequest(final HttpServletRequest request, final HttpServletResponse response) throws Exception {
return new ModelAndView("hello");
}
}
I don't need to put the path to the view because the viewResolver prepends it with "/WEB-INF/jsp/" and adds ".jsp" to the end. You can change the prefix to wherever you store your view files, or you can not use it at all. It's a personal preference thing, though I like to use it :)
Sorry if this answer didn't conform to your style - I tried to get it working your way and couldn't, so this is how I normally set up a Spring project (if I'm not using annotations).
Hope this helps.