Spring Framework MVC Base Controller Method

Question

I have a number of controller methods spread over a number of classes. Every method takes a Model object and all of my methods populate some shared properties into the model (control the navigation bar display mostly). Is there a way for me to plug a 'base' method into Spring? I want one method that can populate my shared properties and then go into the specific controller method (or reversed for that matter). Does anybody know how to do that?

Answer 1

Sounds like a HandlerInterceptor might be a good approach.

It's a bit AOP like -- you can define a class that has a PreHandle or PostHandle method, and configure which requests it will run on. In your case you probably want a PostHandle, since that will give you access to the ModelAndView, so you can populate it with the shared items.

Answer 2

There are several extension points in Spring and Spring MVC you can take:

• HandlerInterceptor - a simple way to intercept each handler method
• Spring AOP - before/after advice matching all your controllers
• WebArgumentResolver - maybe you can somehow customize resolving arguments and process them before calling the controller?