Spring MVC: Controller RequestMapping working, but return always gives a 404

Question

I have a couple of SYSOUTs in my controller's methods, and they appear in the console log... verifying for me that all of the @RequestMapping is behaving as expected. The @Autowiring of an environment bean is also working (is also correctly displayed by a SYSOUT).

However, the methods' returns (I am using methods that return String type) are only resulting in 404s. The *.jsps aren't found. Project is using Maven; IDE is eclipse kepler, FWIW.

My ViewResolver is bog-standard. Can't see the disconnect.

My web.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app version="2.5" 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">

    <display-name>BluPrint</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>groupId</param-name>
       <param-value>${project.groupId}</param-value>
  </context-param>

    <context-param>
      <param-name>artifactId</param-name>
        <param-value>${project.artifactId}</param-value>
   </context-param>

</web-app>

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<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:aop="http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop" xmlns:jee="http://www.springframework.org/schema/jee"
    xmlns:tx="http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx" xmlns:util="http://www.springframework.org/schema/util"
    xmlns:batch="http://www.springframework.org/schema/batch" xmlns:task="http://www.springframework.org/schema/task"
  xmlns:mvc="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc" xmlns:xjp="http://www.corpabc.com/schema/xjp"
    xsi:schemaLocation="
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.1.xsd
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc-3.1.xsd
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/context http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.1.xsd
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop/spring-aop-3.1.xsd
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/jee http://www.springframework.org/schema/jee/spring-jee-3.1.xsd
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx/spring-tx-3.1.xsd
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/util http://www.springframework.org/schema/util/spring-util-3.1.xsd
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/context http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.1.xsd
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/task http://www.springframework.org/schema/task/spring-task-3.1.xsd
   http://www.corpabc.com/schema/xjp http://www.corpabc.com/schema/xjp/beans.xsd">

   <context:component-scan base-package="com.corpabc.bluprint" />
 
   <mvc:annotation-driven />
    <mvc:resources mapping="/resources/**" location="/resources/" />
 
   <import resource="classpath:corpabc/xjp/configuration/properties.xml" />

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

 <bean id="dataSourceDB2" class="org.springframework.jndi.JndiObjectFactoryBean">
     <property name="jndiName" value="jdbc/BluPrint" />
       <property name="resourceRef" value="true" />
 </bean>

 <xjp:environment artifactId="${artifactId}" groupId="${groupId}" />

</beans>

package com.corpabc.bluprint.controllers;
import java.util.Map;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.ModelAndView;
import corpabc.xjp.configuration.env.Environment;

/**
 * 
 * Handles requests for the application.
 */

@Controller
@RequestMapping("/*")
public class BluPrintController {

    @Autowired
    private Environment xjpEnvironment;

    @RequestMapping("/init")
    protected String catchInit(Map<String, Object> model) {
        System.out.println("Got into init method.  XJP Environment: "+xjpEnvironment);
        model.put("xjp", this.xjpEnvironment);
        return "envtest";
    }

    @RequestMapping("/*")
    protected String catchAllOthers(Map<String, Object> model) {
        System.out.println("Got into catch-all method: ");
        return "defaultPage";
    }
}

My envtest.jsp is under /WEB-INF/jsp/ ... but entering URL ~localhost:8080/bluprint/init ... I get a 404.

My defaultPage.jsp doesn't exist... I would expect a not found condition here, and that's what I get when I enter ~localhost:8080/bluprint/ . Not sure if it should be a 404, specifically, but that's what I get, in any case.

Answer 1

I suspect that you problem is in your servlet mapping. /* will force everything through your dispatcher servlet, including jsps. Try losing the *. I'll find the relevant part in the servlet spec and update....

From the servlet spec:

12.2 Specification of Mappings In the Web application deployment descriptor, the following syntax is used to define mappings: A string beginning with a '/' character and ending with a '/*' suffix is used for path mapping.

• A string beginning with a '*.'prefix is used as an extension mapping.

• The empty string ("") is a special URL pattern that exactly maps to the application's context root, ie, requests of the form . In this case the path info is '/' and the servlet path and context path is empty string (““).

• A string containing only the '/' character indicates the "default" servlet of the application. In this case the servlet path is the request URI minus the context path and the path info is null.

• All other strings are used for exact matches only.

So if you specify /* that overrides the *.jsp mapping, so jsp requests get routed back into your dispatcher servlet instead of hitting the jsp.

Answer 2

Remove * from servlet-maping, since you are using * means any request, it will start taking any page. Therefore remove *

from

<servlet-mapping>
        <servlet-name>mvc-dispatcher</servlet-name>
        <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
  </servlet-mapping>

to

<servlet-mapping>
        <servlet-name>mvc-dispatcher</servlet-name>
        <url-pattern>/</url-pattern>
  </servlet-mapping>