Cannot load dispatcher-servlet.xml from src/main/resources

Question

My spring mvc webapp had this structure (Maven project):

src
- main
 -- java
 -- webapp 
  --- WEB-INF
   --- web.xml
   --- mvc-dispatcher-servlet.xml

Than I decided to write unit tests(junit). In an article I read that I should move the mvc-dispatcher-servlet.xml to src/main/resources so that I can access it here in my test in the ContextConfiguration annotation:

@RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class)
@ContextConfiguration("/mvc-dispatcher-servlet.xml")
public class UserDaoTest {

    @Autowired
    private UserDao userDao;

    @Test
    public void testGetUserByUsername() throws Exception {
        User admin = userDao.getUserByUsername("admin");
        Assert.assertNotNull(admin);
    }
}

That worked fine and my unit test was running successfull. Than I started my application server to implement further features but than I got exceptions. I figured out, that after moving the mvc-dispatcher-servlet.xml from WEB-INF to src/main/resources I forgot to make the following change in my web.xml:

<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>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
    <!-- changed from /WEB-INF/mvc-dispatcher-servlet.xml -->
    <param-value>classpath:mvc-dispatcher-servlet.xml</param-value>
</context-param>

But I still get the following exception:

org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanDefinitionStoreException: IOException parsing XML document from ServletContext resource [/WEB-INF/mvc-dispatcher-servlet.xml]; nested exception is java.io.FileNotFoundException: Could not open ServletContext resource [/WEB-INF/mvc-dispatcher-servlet.xml]

What did I do wrong?

Answer 1

Please, consider this possible solution to your problem. Unfortunately, I can't conclude what was wrong with your way, but that solution should work.

Move the description of contextConfigLocation from context-param tag to init-param tag inside servlet tag as follows:

<servlet>
    <servlet-name>mvc-dispatcher</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>
        org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
    <init-param>
        <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
        <!-- changed from /WEB-INF/mvc-dispatcher-servlet.xml -->
        <param-value>classpath:mvc-dispatcher-servlet.xml</param-value>
    </init-param>
    <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>mvc-dispatcher</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>