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Hey guys in this article, you will learn about passing data from Controller to view template in Spring MVC

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Overview

• We can make use of Spring Model to pass data from controller to view template
• Spring Model is a container for accessing data in spring application
• We can add anything to Spring Model in Spring Controller. We can add, string, boolean, objects, array and database records etc..,
• Inside the view template we can access the Spring Model to access the data.

theModel.addAttribute(name, value);

theModel, is the Spring Model. addAttribute() takes two parameters, name and value. Inside the view template (if you are using JSP) we can access the model data using EL expression ${name}

Complete Example

Lets create a step by step maven project to understand the Spring MVC

Create a maven project

First you need to create a maven webapp project. You can check the below post to create new maven webapp project –

• Create a maven webapp project

Add Maven Dependencies

Open pom.xml and add the following maven dependencies

<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
	xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
	xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
	<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
	<groupId>in.bushansirgur</groupId>
	<artifactId>springmvc</artifactId>
	<packaging>war</packaging>
	<version>1.0.0</version>
	<name>springmvc Maven Webapp</name>
	<url>http://maven.apache.org</url>
	<properties>
		<maven.compiler.source>1.11</maven.compiler.source>
		<maven.compiler.target>1.11</maven.compiler.target>
		<spring.version>4.3.6.RELEASE</spring.version>
	</properties>
	<dependencies>
		<dependency>
			<groupId>junit</groupId>
			<artifactId>junit</artifactId>
			<version>3.8.1</version>
			<scope>test</scope>
		</dependency>
		<dependency>
			<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
			<artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
			<version>${spring.version}</version>
		</dependency>
		<dependency>
		    <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
		    <artifactId>jsp-api</artifactId>
		    <version>2.0</version>
		    <scope>provided</scope>
		</dependency>

	</dependencies>
	<build>
		<finalName>springmvc</finalName>
	</build>
</project>

Configure Dispatcher Servlet

Open web.xml and add the following content

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
	xmlns="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee"
	xsi:schemaLocation="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_1.xsd"
	id="WebApp_ID" version="3.1">

	<display-name>spring-mvc-demo</display-name>

	<absolute-ordering />

	<!-- Spring MVC Configs -->

	<!-- Step 1: Configure Spring MVC Dispatcher Servlet -->
	<servlet>
		<servlet-name>dispatcher</servlet-name>
		<servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
		<init-param>
			<param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
			<param-value>/WEB-INF/spring-mvc-dispatcherservlet.xml</param-value>
		</init-param>
		<load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
	</servlet>
	
		<!-- Step 2: Set up URL mapping for Spring MVC Dispatcher Servlet -->
	<servlet-mapping>
		<servlet-name>dispatcher</servlet-name>
		<url-pattern>/</url-pattern>
	</servlet-mapping>
	
</web-app>

Configure View Resolver

Create spring-mvc-dispatcherservlet.xml under webapp/WEB-INF and add the following content

<?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:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
	xmlns:mvc="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc"
	xsi:schemaLocation="
		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
    	http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc.xsd">

<!-- Step 3: Add support for component scanning -->
<context:component-scan base-package="in.bushansirgur.springmvc" />

<!-- Step 4: Add support for conversion, formatting and validation support -->
<mvc:annotation-driven/>

<!-- Step 5: Define Spring MVC view resolver -->
<bean
	class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver">
	<property name="prefix" value="/WEB-INF/view/" />
	<property name="suffix" value=".jsp" />
</bean>

</beans>

Create a Controller

Inside src/main/java create a package in.bushansirgur.springmvc.controller, under this create HomeController.java and add the following content

package in.bushansirgur.springmvc.controller;

import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;

import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.ui.Model;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;

@Controller
public class HomeController {
	
	@RequestMapping(value = "/")
	public String showHomePage() {
		return "home-page";
	}
	
	@RequestMapping(value = "/processForm")
	public String showDashboardPage(HttpServletRequest request, Model theModel) {
		String name = request.getParameter("empName");
		theModel.addAttribute("empName", name);
		return "dashboard";
	}
}

Create a view template

Create home-page.jsp inside webapp/WEB-INF/view folder and add the following content

<%@ page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
    pageEncoding="ISO-8859-1"%>
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="ISO-8859-1">
<title>Insert title here</title>
</head>
<body>
	<h1>Read the textbox value</h1>
	<hr/>
	<form action="processForm">
		<input type="text" name="empName" placeholder="Enter employee name" />
		<button type="submit">Send</button>
	</form>
</body>
</html>

Create dashboard.jsp inside webapp/WEB-INF/view folder and add the following content

<%@ page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
    pageEncoding="ISO-8859-1"%>
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="ISO-8859-1">
<title>Insert title here</title>
</head>
<body>
	<h1>Read the textbox value</h1>
	<hr/>
	<p>Employee name: ${empName}</p>
</body>
</html>

Run the App

Start the tomcat server, navigate to the URL localhost:8080/springmvc/

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