Spring SimpleFormController in 3.0

Question

i notice that this controller has now been deprecated in the latest spring and was wondering what the alternative controller is?

Answer 1

Annotated POJOs can act as controllers; see @Controller.

Answer 2

In Spring 3.0 you should use simple classes annotated by @Controller. Such controller can handle more than one request. Each request is handled by its own method. These methods are annotated by @RequestMapping.

One thing you need to rethink is the fact, that a old school SimpleFormController handle a lot of different requests (at least: one to get the form and a second to submit the form). You have to handle this now by hand. But believe me it is easier.

For example this Controller in REST Style, will handle two requests:

• /book - POST: to create a book
• /book/form - GET: to get the form for creation

Java Code:

@RequestMapping("/book/**") @Controller public class BookController {      @RequestMapping(value = "/book", method = RequestMethod.POST)     public String create(         @ModelAttribute("bookCommand") final BookCommand bookCommand) {          Book book = createBookFromBookCommand(bookCommand);         return "redirect:/book/" + book.getId();     }      @RequestMapping(value = "/book/form", method = RequestMethod.GET)     public String createForm(final ModelMap modelMap) {         modelMap.addAttribute("all", "what you need");         return "book/create"; //book/create.jsp     } }