Spring mvc - How to map all wrong request mapping to a single method

Question

I am using a spring(version 3.2.5) annotation driven mvc application, basically I need be able to catch any wrong url to a single method then display an error message. For instance, if my correct url www.url.valid/login maps to a controller, if the user mistakenly insert loginw or any invalid url it should map to a default controller.

I have tried the following way:

package com.controller;

import static com.mns.utils.Constants.REGISTER_FAIL;

import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;

import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;

@Controller
public class DefaultSpringController {

      @RequestMapping
      public String forwardRequest(final HttpServletRequest request) {
         return "redirect:/" + REGISTER_FAIL;
      }

}

My Application context is as follows:

    <!-- Default to DefaultSpringController -->
     <bean id="defaultSpringController"  class="com.controller.DefaultSpringController">
     </bean>

  <bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.annotation.DefaultAnnotationHandlerMapping">
    <property name="defaultHandler" ref="defaultSpringController"/>
  </bean

But kept getting the following error:

nested exception is java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.controller.DefaultSpringController

I am not sure what I am missing here, and the controller is in the correct package.

Any idea how I can achieve it please?

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

It look like, you want a global page not found handler.

@ControllerAdvice
public class GlobalExceptionContoller {

    @ExceptionHandler(NoHandlerFoundException.class)
    public String handleError404(HttpServletRequest request, Exception e) {
        return "pageNotFoundViewNameGoesHere";
    }

}

Answer 2

You can set config at web.xml for invalid url. Note that invalid url usually throw the 404 error page.

<error-page>
        <error-code>404</error-code>
        <location>/error/error.jsp</location>
    </error-page>

If it's not enough, you can go your controller method from this error page. But I usually use this config for error page instead of server side code. There have many other alternatives ways depend on your technologies usage but this way can reduce your code.