Spring MVC with JSP View

Spring MVC with JSP View is a web framework based on the Model–View–Controller (MVC) architecture, where Spring handles request routing and business logic while JSP is used to generate dynamic views.

Uses Spring MVC controllers to handle requests and manage business logic
JSP acts as the view layer to display dynamic data
Supports annotation-based configuration and clear separation of concerns

Steps to implement Spring MVC with JSP

Below are the basic steps to implement Spring MVC with JSP, starting from project setup to rendering JSP views using controllers.

Step 1: Create the Project

Eclipse IDE: File -> New -> Dynamic Web Project (check "Generate web.xml")
IntelliJ: New -> Project > Maven -> Web App archetype

Step 2: Add Maven Dependencies

Add below dependencies in pom.xml file:

Java

<dependency>
                <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
                <version>4.3.7</version>
            </dependency>
             <dependency>
                <groupId>jstl</groupId>
                <artifactId>jstl</artifactId>
                <version>1.2</version>
            </dependency> 
            <dependency>
                <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
                <artifactId>javax.servlet-api</artifactId>
                <version>3.0.1</version>
                <scope>provided</scope>
            </dependency>

Step 3: Configure web.xml

This file tells the servlet container how to load the Spring DispatcherServlet and which file has Spring configurations.

web.xml

Java

<web-app xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"
         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee 
                             http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_0.xsd"
         version="3.0">

    <display-name>SampleMVC</display-name>

    <!-- Load Spring Context -->
    <listener>
        <listener-class>org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener</listener-class>
    </listener>

    <!-- Location of Spring application context -->
    <context-param>
        <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
        <param-value>/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml</param-value>
    </context-param>

    <!-- Spring DispatcherServlet -->
    <servlet>
        <servlet-name>mvc-dispatcher</servlet-name>
        <servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
        <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
    </servlet>

    <!-- Servlet Mapping -->
    <servlet-mapping>
        <servlet-name>mvc-dispatcher</servlet-name>
        <url-pattern>/</url-pattern>
    </servlet-mapping>

    <!-- Welcome file -->
    <welcome-file-list>
        <welcome-file>index.html</welcome-file>
        <welcome-file>index.jsp</welcome-file> <!-- optional -->
    </welcome-file-list>

</web-app>

Step 4: Create Spring Configuration file

This file initializes Spring MVC, scans your Java classes and sets up view resolution (JSP mapping) WebApplicationContext. And this contains the MVC-specific configurations including view-resolvers, datasource, messagesource, multipart-resolver (file-upload), etc.

mvc-dispatcher-servlet.xml

Java

<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
       xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
       xmlns:mvc="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc"
       xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
       xsi:schemaLocation="...">

  <!-- Scan all Java classes in this package for Spring annotations -->
  <context:component-scan base-package="com.springsamples" />

  <!-- Enable Spring MVC Annotations (@Controller, @GetMapping, etc.) -->
  <mvc:annotation-driven />

  <!-- Allow static content (CSS, JS, images) -->
  <mvc:default-servlet-handler />

  <!-- Configure JSP view resolver -->
  <bean id="viewProvider" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver">
    <property name="prefix" value="/" />
    <property name="suffix" value=".jsp" />
  </bean>
</beans>

Step 5: Create the Controller

Create a controller class to handle requests, process data, and add it to the model.

Java

package com.springsamples.controller;

import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.GetMapping;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.ModelAndView;

@Controller
public class HomeController {

    @GetMapping("/") public ModelAndView firstView()
    {
        // "greet" will map to greet.jsp
        ModelAndView mav = new ModelAndView("greet");
        mav.addObject(
            "greeting",
            "GeeksForGeeks Welcomes you to Spring!");
        return mav;
    }
}

Step 6: Create the JSP View.

Place this file inside: src/main/webapp/greet.jsp

greet.jsp

Java

<%@ page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
    pageEncoding="ISO-8859-1" isELIgnored="false" %>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "- Transitional
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; 
 charset=ISO-8859-1">
<title>Start Spring MVC</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Start here</h1>
${greeting}
</body>
</html>

Step 7: Run the Application

Deploy the project on Tomcat
Open browser:

http://localhost:8080/SpringMVCApp/

Output:

Spring MVC with JSP View

Steps to implement Spring MVC with JSP

Step 1: Create the Project

Step 2: Add Maven Dependencies

Step 3: Configure web.xml

Step 4: Create Spring Configuration file

Step 5: Create the Controller

Step 6: Create the JSP View.

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