Spring MVC Fast Tutorial: Setup

You'll need java 1.5, ant and tomcat. We're going to:

create a web app skeleton
add build files
add required JARs

Web App Skeleton

Create a new folder 'springmvc'.

Inside, create these folders: 'classes', 'jsp', 'WEB-INF'.

In 'jsp', add 'index.jsp':

<html>
  <body>
    <p>Hi</p>
  </body>
</html>

In 'WEB-INF', add 'web.xml' and create the folder 'src':

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app version="2.4" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee/web-app_2_4.xsd">
 
  <welcome-file-list>
    <welcome-file>
      jsp/index.jsp
    </welcome-file>
  </welcome-file-list>
 
</web-app>

Add 'springmvc' folder to Tomcat webapps's folder, launch Tomcat and test (your Tomcat port may differ): http://localhost:8180/springmvc/

Build files

In 'WEB-INF', add 'build.properties': (update Tomcat path)

appserver.home=/usr/share/tomcat5.5
appserver.lib=${appserver.home}/common/lib

In 'WEB-INF', add 'build.xml':

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project basedir="." default="build">
 
  <property file="build.properties"/>
  <property name="src.dir" value="src"/>
  <property name="build.dir" value="classes"/>
 
  <path id="build.classpath">
      <fileset dir="lib">
          <include name="*.jar"/>
      </fileset>
      <fileset dir="${appserver.lib}"> <!-- servlet API classes: -->
          <include name="servlet*.jar"/>
      </fileset>
      <pathelement path="${build.dir}"/>
  </path>		
 
  <target name="build">
      <mkdir dir="${build.dir}"/>
      <javac destdir="${build.dir}" source="1.5" target="1.5" debug="true" deprecation="false" optimize="false" failonerror="true">
          <src path="${src.dir}"/>
          <classpath refid="build.classpath"/>
      </javac>
  </target>
 
  <target name="clean" description="Clean output directories">
      <delete>
          <fileset dir="${build.dir}">
              <include name="**/*.class"/>
          </fileset>
      </delete>
  </target>
 
</project>

JARs

In 'WEB-INF', create the folder 'lib'.

Add into it these JARs from Spring distribution (with dependencies):

spring-framework/dist/spring.jar
spring-framework/dist/modules/spring-webmvc.jar
spring-framework/lib/jakarta-taglibs/standard.jar
spring-framework/lib/jakarta-commons/commons-logging.jar
spring-framework/lib/j2ee/servlet-api.jar
spring-framework/lib/j2ee/jstl.jar

Summary

You can download it here.

Up: Spring Fast Tutorial --- Next: Hello World

Feedback

Beware with the xml. Is not well formed, but such a thing this like this can make you loose some of your valuable time xD

Okada
May 7, 2008
#1

Thank you Okada, it's fixed now.

Jérôme Jaglale
May 8, 2008
#2

build.xml and build.properties go at the same level of 'WEB-INF' and not inside it.

Nestor Urquiza
September 11, 2008
#3

I think (I posted it also in the first part, apparently still to be accepted) that a cleaner way to organize the proejct would be maintaining src folder at same level as WEB-INF. In addition when deploying into a server as a war or exploded directory it makes sense to include only the jsp, xml classes and jars and never the src. Below is my proposal for the Ant build.xml (Maven provides a more organized way to handle dependencies and in general your project BTW)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project basedir="." default="build">
 
  <property file="build.properties"/>
  <property name="src.dir" value="src"/>
  <property name="build.dir" value="WEB-INF/classes"/>
 
  <path id="build.classpath">
      <fileset dir="WEB-INF/lib">
          <include name="*.jar"/>
      </fileset>
      <fileset dir="${appserver.lib}">
          <include name="*servlet*.jar"/>
      </fileset>
      <pathelement path="${build.dir}"/>
  </path>		
 
  <target name="build" depends="compile">
      <jar destfile="fasttutorial.war">
         <fileset dir="." includes="WEB-INF/**/*, jsp/**/*"/>
      </jar>
  </target>
  
  <target name="compile">
      <mkdir dir="${build.dir}"/>
      <javac destdir="${build.dir}" source="1.5" target="1.5" debug="true" deprecation="false" optimize="false" failonerror="true">
          <src path="${src.dir}"/>
          <classpath refid="build.classpath"/>
      </javac>
  </target>
 
  <target name="clean" description="Clean output directories">
      <delete>
          <fileset dir="${build.dir}">
              <include name="**/*.class"/>
          </fileset>
      </delete>
  </target>
 
</project>

Nestor Urquiza
September 11, 2008
#4

Hi, I´m new into Spring, I´m working with Java, Struts, Jsp, Ajax, etc, and the question I have is Why I should learn Spring ?? I don't understand very well why should learn this framework... Any help would be thanked !!!

Juan Pablo
September 12, 2008
#5

@Juan Pablo: I have logged at
http://thinkinginsoftware.blogspot.com/
my opinion about question: Should I learn Spring Framework?

Nestor Urquiza
September 12, 2008
#6

@Juan Pable: I have blogged in http://thinkinginsoftware.blogspot.com/ about the question: Should I learn Spring Framework?

September 12, 2008
#7

Nice representation. But it helpful if any JAVA class included there..! I mean to say combination of bean. _ Shankar

Shankar Gangadhari
October 11, 2008
#8

zzzzz

zzzzzzzzz
November 6, 2008
#9

fffff

fffffff
February 14, 2009
#10

Is it possible to subscribe to this page using atom or rss? Thanks!

Java
February 14, 2009
#11

Hi I m getting error when try to implement this tutorial like ....springmvc.web.HelloWorldController] for bean with name '/hello_world.html' defined in ServletContext resource [/WEB-INF/springmvc-servlet.xml]; nested exception is java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: springmvc.web.HelloWorldController org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.resolveBeanClass(AbstractBeanFactory.java:1138) please suggest me ...........even i check all the version of jars are correct............ thnsk in advance

ashish
February 27, 2009
#12

Try "ant clean" then "ant"

Jérôme Jaglale
February 27, 2009
#13

can you help me by showing me how to run your great examples on jetty 6 server pls

milhad
April 8, 2009
#14

I dont see any Spring framework example in this code. Its just standard mvc framework.

anon
April 29, 2009
#15

Nice. but most of the web applications dir structure, classes will be under WEB-INF level, not at the projectRoot level. springmvc WEB-INF classes lib src jsp build.xml

Ganugapati
May 12, 2009
#16

What is the purpose of build.properties? Would appserver.home be directory where i install tomcat? I am using windows xp, tomcat 6.0, would it be, for example c:\tomcat? but tomcat install directory does not have 'common' directory? It all seems to work fine in eclipse, even without the build.properties thanks for the tutorial

babo
May 17, 2009
#17

http://www.theserverside.com/tt/articles/article.tss?l=SpringFramework

name123
June 30, 2009
#18

Hi it wld be helpful if u post some example for MultiActionController... Thanks

AK
July 14, 2009
#19

you can Google "Spring mvc tutorial" to get more info e.g. http://mhimu.wordpress.com/2007/11/27/spring-mvc-tutorial/ http://raibledesigns.com/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=SpringControllers you can find many more, your searching skills will be your best friend!

LogixPlayer
August 23, 2009
#20

very nice

sreenivas
August 24, 2009
#21

amazing tutorial for someone wanting to jump start to spring...really helped me..

Aswin
October 9, 2009
#22

amazing tutorial for someone wanting to jump start to spring...really helped me..

arun kumar tiwari
November 8, 2009
#23

I am new to Spring,I have a question,For the Spring MVC is it required to learned IOC ,AOP and ORM(I know). Any body reply quickly.

Rakesh
November 13, 2009
#24

i have done basic setups for spring mvc application, but when i transfer the control from a jsp page to controller which is mapped in webapplicationcontext, url gets changed to corresponding mapping done for controller but i get resource not found exception. please let me know whether i missed some configuration

learner
January 18, 2010
#25

Great tutorial thanks. Needed something like this - the Spring reference manual is great at what it does but it's very hard to work out how to fit everything together.

Richard
January 20, 2010
#26

Great tut! Much more straight forward than the one on the official site. Anyway I am trying to set this up using Eclipse and JBoss and I keep keep getting the following when I run the project:

---------------
HTTP Status 404 - /springmvc/

type Status report

message /springmvc/

description The requested resource (/springmvc/) is not available.
---------------

Any help will be much appreciated.

JJ
March 1, 2010
#27

I got this problem of springmvc servlet not found in tomcat and the cause is axis2.jar and when I removed it from my tomcat lib, everything was just fine!!!!! I spent nearly 4 hours to figure this out!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous
March 31, 2010
#28

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asdfghjk
April 28, 2010
#29

it's amazing and u r confident ed to me.

very much thanks

Ramk
May 4, 2010
#30

nice info, you may see this link http://bekasi-it.blogspot.com

Koharudin
May 6, 2010
#31

really good starting MVC Spring toolkit

Sanjay Sharma
June 13, 2010
#32

could you people give any link for webservices for begginers.

Yugandhar
June 30, 2010
#33

TEST

July 4, 2010
#34

Thanks! very useful :-).....Thanks to Nestor Urquiza too

Shaik Sulaiman
July 16, 2010
#35

Great tutorial I am following the steps of your tutorial but I am facing the same problem like JJ

---------------
HTTP Status 404 - /springmvc/

type Status report

message /springmvc/

description The requested resource (/springmvc/) is not available.
---------------

Any help will be much appreciated.

pravin
July 19, 2010
#36