Spring 4 programmatic or annotation based configuration

In the following tutorial, we are going to use programmatic / no-xml based spring 4.0.1 MVC project configuration. I have used STS 3.6.2.RELEASE to create the project.

Following are the versions user in this tutorial.

• Spring: 4.0.1.RELEASE
• Java: 1.8
• Servlet-api: 3.1.0
• Servlet-jsp: 2.2
• Servlet-jstl: 1.2

Now, lets see step by step approach of programmatic configuration of spring mvc project.

• Create a spring mvc project.

1. Select from menu: File > New > Spring Project.
   
2. Provide a project name select "Spring MVC Project" as template.
   
3. Next, provide top-level package and say finish.
   

• Make following changes to pom.xml

• Change spring and java versions
<java-version>1.8</java-version>
<org.springframework-version>4.0.1.RELEASE</org.springframework-version>
• Add maven-war-plugin to compile successfully even if there is no web.xml
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
<failOnMissingWebXml>false</failOnMissingWebXml>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
• Add servlet dependencies.
<!-- Servlet -->
<dependency>
<groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
<artifactId>javax.servlet-api</artifactId>
<version>3.1.0</version>
<scope>compile</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>javax.servlet.jsp</groupId>
<artifactId>jsp-api</artifactId>
<version>2.2</version>
<scope>compile</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
<artifactId>jstl</artifactId>
<version>1.2</version>
<scope>compile</scope>
</dependency>

• Create following class files.

1. WEB Application initializer.
package com.test.web.config;

import javax.servlet.ServletContext;
import javax.servlet.ServletRegistration;

import org.springframework.web.WebApplicationInitializer;
import org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener;
import org.springframework.web.context.support.AnnotationConfigWebApplicationContext;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet;

/**
 * @author Bhimu
 *
 *<code>Web application configuration class</code>
 */
public class WebAppInitializer implements WebApplicationInitializer {

    @Override
    public void onStartup(ServletContext container) {
        // Create the 'root' Spring application context
        AnnotationConfigWebApplicationContext rootContext = new AnnotationConfigWebApplicationContext();
        //rootContext.register();

        // Manage the lifecycle of the root application context
        container.addListener(new ContextLoaderListener(rootContext));

        // Create the dispatcher servlet's Spring application context
        AnnotationConfigWebApplicationContext dispatcherServlet = new AnnotationConfigWebApplicationContext();
        dispatcherServlet.register(MVCConfig.class);
           
        // Register and map the dispatcher servlet
        ServletRegistration.Dynamic dispatcher = container.addServlet("app-dispacher", new DispatcherServlet(dispatcherServlet));
        dispatcher.setLoadOnStartup(1);
        dispatcher.addMapping("/");
       
    }

 }
2. Create Spring MVC configuration class
package com.test.web.config;

import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.ComponentScan;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.config.annotation.DefaultServletHandlerConfigurer;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.config.annotation.EnableWebMvc;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.config.annotation.ResourceHandlerRegistry;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.config.annotation.WebMvcConfigurerAdapter;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver;

/**
 * @author Bhimu
 *
 *<code>Spring MVC configuration class</code>
 */
@EnableWebMvc
@Configuration
@ComponentScan(basePackages = { "com.test.web" })
public class MVCConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {


@Override
public void addResourceHandlers(ResourceHandlerRegistry registry) {
registry.addResourceHandler("/resources/**").addResourceLocations("/resources/");
}


@Override
public void configureDefaultServletHandling(DefaultServletHandlerConfigurer configurer) {
configurer.enable();
}


/**
* <code>Resolves views selected for rendering by @Controllers to .jsp resources in the /WEB-INF/views directory</code>
*/
@Bean
public InternalResourceViewResolver jspViewResolver() {
InternalResourceViewResolver bean = new InternalResourceViewResolver();
bean.setPrefix("/WEB-INF/views/");
bean.setSuffix(".jsp");
return bean;
}
}
3. Delete following file/dir from WEB-INF (We don't need these xml configuration files)
spring (dir)
web.xml (file)

We are all set with configuration. now run your application. I have used tomcat 8 to run the project.