How to access static resources when mapping a global front controller servlet on /*

Question

I've mapped the Spring MVC dispatcher as a global front controller servlet on /*.

<servlet>          <servlet-name>home</servlet-name>            <servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>      </servlet>   <servlet-mapping>          <servlet-name>home</servlet-name>            <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>      </servlet-mapping> 

However, this mapping stops the access to static files like CSS, JS, images etc which are all in the /res/ folder.

How can I access them anyway?

Answer 1

Map the controller servlet on a more specific url-pattern like /pages/*, put the static content in a specific folder like /static and create a Filter listening on /* which transparently continues the chain for any static content and dispatches requests to the controller servlet for other content.

In a nutshell:

<filter>     <filter-name>filter</filter-name>     <filter-class>com.example.Filter</filter-class> </filter> <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>filter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern> </filter-mapping>  <servlet>     <servlet-name>controller</servlet-name>     <servlet-class>com.example.Controller</servlet-class> </servlet> <servlet-mapping>     <servlet-name>controller</servlet-name>     <url-pattern>/pages/*</url-pattern> </servlet-mapping> 

with the following in filter's doFilter():

HttpServletRequest req = (HttpServletRequest) request; String path = req.getRequestURI().substring(req.getContextPath().length());  if (path.startsWith("/static")) {     chain.doFilter(request, response); // Goes to default servlet. } else {     request.getRequestDispatcher("/pages" + path).forward(request, response); } 

No, this does not end up with /pages in browser address bar. It's fully transparent. You can if necessary make "/static" and/or "/pages" an init-param of the filter.