servlet-mapping and spring InternalResourceViewResolver: which controls what mapping?

Question

My configuration looks like this:

web.xml

<web-app 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"
      version="2.5">    

<display-name>Demo Web Application</display-name>

<servlet>
    <servlet-name>mvc-dispatcher</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>
        org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet
    </servlet-class>
    <load-on-startup>2</load-on-startup>
</servlet>

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

<filter>
    <filter-name>hibernateFilter</filter-name>
    <filter-class>org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.support.OpenSessionInViewFilter</filter-class>
</filter>
<filter-mapping>
    <filter-name>hibernateFilter</filter-name>
    <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>

<context-param>
    <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
    <param-value>/WEB-INF/mvc-dispatcher-servlet.xml</param-value>
</context-param>

<listener>
    <listener-class>
        org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener
    </listener-class>
</listener>

</web-app>

mvc-dispatcher-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" xmlns:p="http://www.springframework.org/schema/p"
xmlns:tx="http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx" xmlns:mvc="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc"
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
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx/spring-tx-3.0.xsd
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc 
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc-3.0.xsd">

<tx:annotation-driven />
<mvc:annotation-driven />

<context:component-scan base-package="com.company.controller" />
<context:component-scan base-package="com.company.service" />
<context:component-scan base-package="com.company.dao" />
<context:component-scan base-package="com.company.hibernate" />

<bean id="propertyConfigurer"
class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer"
    p:location="/WEB-INF/jdbc.properties" />

<bean id="dataSource" class="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource"
    destroy-method="close">
    <property name="driverClassName" value="${jdbc.driverClassName}" />
    <property name="url" value="${jdbc.databaseurl}" />
    <property name="username" value="${jdbc.username}" />
    <property name="password" value="${jdbc.password}" />
    <property name="validationQuery" value="SELECT 1" />
    <property name="testOnBorrow" value="true" />
</bean>

<bean id="sessionFactory"
    class="org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.LocalSessionFactoryBean">
    <property name="dataSource" ref="dataSource" />
    <property name="configLocation">
        <value>/WEB-INF/hibernate.cfg.xml</value>
    </property>
    <property name="configurationClass">
        <value>org.hibernate.cfg.AnnotationConfiguration</value>
    </property>
    <property name="hibernateProperties">
        <props>
            <prop key="hbm2ddl.auto">update</prop>
            <prop key="hibernate.dialect">${jdbc.dialect}</prop>
            <prop key="hibernate.show_sql">true</prop>
        </props>
    </property>
</bean>

<bean id="transactionManager"
    class="org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.HibernateTransactionManager">
    <property name="sessionFactory" ref="sessionFactory" />
</bean>

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

</beans>

My controller code looks like this:

PersonController2.java

package com.company.controller;

@Controller
@RequestMapping("rest")
public class PersonController2 {

@Autowired
private PersonService personService;

@RequestMapping(value = "list", method = RequestMethod.GET)
public @ResponseBody
List<Person> listAction() {
    return personService.listPerson();
}

@RequestMapping(value = "ajax", method = RequestMethod.GET)
public @ResponseBody
String ajaxAction() {
    return "ajax";
}
}

WEB-INFO/pages/index.jsp

<%@ page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
pageEncoding="ISO-8859-1"%>

<%@ taglib prefix="c" 
       uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" %>

<html>
<head>
<style>
table,th,td
{
border:1px solid black;
background-color:#00FF00;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>

<table align="center">
    <tr>
        <td style="text-decoration: blink">
        <a href="/myprj/ajax">
    A simple page using Spring 3 restful service, ajax and AngularJS</a>
</td>
</tr>
</table>

</body>
</html>

WEB-INFO/pages/ajax.jsp

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en" ng-app id="ng-app">
<head>
<title>My Page</title>
<script src="scripts/angular.min.js"></script>
<script>
function AjaxGet($scope, $http) {
    $http({
        method : 'GET',
        url : 'myprj/rest/list'
    }).success(function(data) {
        $scope.persons = data; // response data 
    });
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<div id="ng-app" ng-app ng-controller="AjaxGet">

    <div ng-repeat="person in persons">
        <h2>
            <a href='{{person.firstName}}'></a>
        </h2>
    </div>

</div>
</body>
</html>

when I hit rest/list, it returns JSON just fine. All my JSPs are in WEB-INF/pages including ajax.jsp which will call rest/list and parse the returned JSON. What I can't figure out is how to invoke ajax.jsp. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Just remove the @ResponseBody annotation from ajaxAction() method. That way Spring MVC will call the view resolver and will try to display /WEB-INF/pages/ajax.jsp. @ResponseBody means that the framework will call the Jackson mapper that will parse the object you return from the controller method to JSON. When you use @ResponseBody you can return any object that Jackson can process. When you want to redirect to some page( without @ResponseBody ) you need to return String that will be handled by the view resolver.(or return the old school ModelAndView object)