Spring MVC form:errors using Ajax

Question

I have a question related to Spring 3 MVC, Ajax, and form:errors.

I have a form I am submitting to the server and I am using Spring MVC. I have all the validation, controllers, etc set up and working fine. When I submit data that fails validation, I get the error message coming back and being displayed on the form as per my form:errors tags in my jsp.

My question is...

If I want to convert over to an Ajax approach, can I still take advantage of all the infrastructure of a "normal" Spring MVC app (ie, specifically the validator and form:errors features) to get the errors back to (and displayed on) the browser? I see how to submit Ajax requests, but I don't see how (or if) I can still utilize the form:errors capability of the jsp.

Does anyone know if this can be done, and if so, point me in the appropriate general direction?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You can't, since tags like <form:errors> are evaluated server-side and embed error messages/elements in the HTML content of the HTTP response. Since an AJAX request to the server typically returns XML or JSON to a response (and not HTML), which is then parsed by client-side JavaScript, there is no point at which Spring can bind to the request/form and add error messages to the content.