Spring MVC - Simple Url Handler Mapping Example

The following example show how to use Simple Url Handler Mapping using Spring Web MVC framework. SimpleUrlHandlerMapping class helps to explicitly map URLs with their controllers respectively.

<beans>

   <bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver">
      <property name="prefix" value="/WEB-INF/jsp/"/>
      <property name="suffix" value=".jsp"/>
   </bean>

   <bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.handler.SimpleUrlHandlerMapping">
      <property name="mappings">
         <props>
            <prop key="/welcome.htm">welcomeController</prop>     
            <prop key="/helloWorld.htm">helloController</prop>
         </props>
      </property>
   </bean>

   <bean id="helloController" class="com.tutorialspoint.HelloController" />

   <bean id="welcomeController" class="com.tutorialspoint.WelcomeController"/>  
</beans>

For example, using above configuration, if URI

1. /helloWorld.htm is requested, DispatcherServlet will forward the request to the HelloController.
2. /welcome.htm is requested, DispatcherServlet will forward the request to the WelcomeController.

To start with it, let us have working Eclipse IDE in place and follow the following steps to develop a Dynamic Form based Web Application using Spring Web Framework:

Step	Description
1	Create a project with a name TestWeb under a package com.tutorialspoint as explained in the Spring MVC - Hello World Example chapter.
2	Create a Java classes HelloController, WelcomeController under the com.tutorialspoint package.
3	Create a view files hello.jsp, welcome.jsp under jsp sub-folder.
4	The final step is to create the content of all the source and configuration files and export the application as explained below.

HelloController.java

package com.tutorialspoint;

import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;

import org.springframework.web.servlet.ModelAndView;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.AbstractController;

public class HelloController extends AbstractController{
  
   @Override
   protected ModelAndView handleRequestInternal(HttpServletRequest request,
      HttpServletResponse response) throws Exception {
      ModelAndView model = new ModelAndView("hello");
      model.addObject("message", "Hello World!");
      return model;
   }
}

WelcomeController.java

package com.tutorialspoint;

import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;

import org.springframework.web.servlet.ModelAndView;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.AbstractController;

public class WelcomeController extends AbstractController{
  
   @Override
   protected ModelAndView handleRequestInternal(HttpServletRequest request,
      HttpServletResponse response) throws Exception {
      ModelAndView model = new ModelAndView("welcome");
      model.addObject("message", "Welcome!");
      return model;
   }
}

TestWeb-servlet.xml

<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
   xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
   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-3.0.xsd
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/context 
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.0.xsd">

   <bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver">
      <property name="prefix" value="/WEB-INF/jsp/"/>
      <property name="suffix" value=".jsp"/>
   </bean>

   <bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.handler.SimpleUrlHandlerMapping">
      <property name="mappings">
         <props>
            <prop key="/welcome.htm">welcomeController</prop>     
            <prop key="/helloWorld.htm">helloController</prop>
         </props>
      </property>
   </bean>

   <bean id="helloController" class="com.tutorialspoint.HelloController" />

   <bean id="welcomeController" class="com.tutorialspoint.WelcomeController"/>   
</beans>

hello.jsp

<%@ page contentType="text/html; charset=UTF-8" %>
<html>
<head>
<title>Hello World</title>
</head>
<body>
   <h2>${message}</h2>
</body>
</html>

welcome.jsp

<%@ page contentType="text/html; charset=UTF-8" %>
<html>
<head>
<title>Welcome</title>
</head>
<body>
   <h2>${message}</h2>
</body>
</html>

Once you are done with creating source and configuration files, export your application. Right click on your application and use Export > WAR File option and save your TestWeb.war file in Tomcat's webapps folder.
Now start your Tomcat server and make sure you are able to access other web pages from webapps folder using a standard browser. Now try a URL http://localhost:8080/TestWeb/helloWorld.htm and you should see the following result if everything is fine with your Spring Web Application:
Try a URL http://localhost:8080/TestWeb/welcome.htm and you should see the following result if everything is fine with your Spring Web Application: