Show jsp page inside jar file using Spring MVC

Question

I'm developing a web application in java using Spring MVC 3.2.2. I'm having problems loading jsp page from within the jar file.

The Sring MVC web application that the following structure:

|-META-INF
|-WEB-INF
    |-spring
    |    |- app-config.xml
    |-classes
    |-lib
    |   |-external.jar
    |       |-WEB-INF
    |       |   |-views
    |       |       |-external.jsp
    |       |-classes
    |            |-controller-for-external.class
    |-views
        |-... jsp

Config in app-config.xml

    <context:annotation-config />
<context:component-scan base-package="com" />

<bean id="viewResolver"
    class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver">
    <property name="viewClass"
        value="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.JstlView"></property>
    <property name="prefix" value="/WEB-INF/views/"></property>
    <property name="suffix" value=".jsp"></property>
</bean>
<mvc:resources mapping="/views/**" location="classpath:/WEB-INF/views/" />
<mvc:annotation-driven />

Controller for external.jsp

   @Controller
    public class ExternalController {
protected final Log logger = LogFactory.getLog(getClass());

@RequestMapping(value="/external.htm")
public ModelAndView handleRequest(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
        throws ServletException, IOException {
    Map<String, Object> myModel = new HashMap<String, Object>();
    myModel.put("msg", "External page loaded");
    return new ModelAndView("external", "model", myModel);
}

}

web.xml file

    <web-app version="3.0" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:web="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_0.xsd"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_0.xsd">

<display-name>Springapp</display-name>
<servlet>
    <servlet-name>springapp</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
    <init-param>
        <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
        <param-value>/WEB-INF/spring/app-config.xml</param-value>
    </init-param>
    <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>

<context-param>
    <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
    <param-value>/WEB-INF/spring/app-config.xml</param-value>
</context-param>

<servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>springapp</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>*.htm</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
</web-app>

When a try to show external.jsp page, spring don't want search it and show error HTTP 404 - /springapp/WEB-INF/views/external.jsp

Answer 1

You can do this if you are using Servlet 3.0. However, it won't work with the way you have your JSPs packaged. You have to package resources into a JAR file in a specific way:

• Put all your JSPs in the META-INF/resources directory of your JAR.
• Include a web-fragment.xml file in META-INF. This is similar to a typical web.xml with some differences. See here for some details. There is also an example I found here. This is optional.
• Put your JAR in WEB-INF/lib of your WAR.

Now you should be able to refer to those JSPs within your app's context. Basically META-INF/resources is mapped to the document root of your webapp. Look at this for more details. Keep in mind that this is not limited to JSPs. You can put images, JavaScript, or even CSS in there.