Expert Spring MVC and Web Flow

Figure 6-3.Initial form view

The XHTML shown in Listing 6-41 has some interesting aspects. First, notice that we are

using the POST method for the form. This should be the preferred method for form submis-

sions, as discussed earlier. Second, notice how we used action=""instead of specifying a

particular URI. This is a convenience trick to avoid specifying the page’s URI, which would

tightly couple the page to the URI that indicates it. By not specifying an action, the browser

will submit the form back to the originating URI (which, in the case of SimpleFormController,

is just what we want). Lastly, notice how the form input element names correspond to the

property names from the Personobject. This should be familiar from the discussion about

the DataBinder.

Next, we show the SimpleFormControllerimplementation (Listing 6-42) for the form in

Listing 6-41. For our example, it will simply print out the Personvia toString(), but it’s easy to

imagine using a data access object to persist the person.

Listing 6-42.PersonFormController

public class PersonFormController extends SimpleFormController {

public PersonFormController() {

setCommandName("person");

setCommandClass(Person.class);

setFormView("newPerson");

setSuccessView("newPersonSuccess");

}

@Override

protected void initBinder(HttpServletRequest request,

ServletRequestDataBinder binder) throws Exception {

binder.registerCustomEditor(Date.class,

new CustomDateEditor(new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd"), false));

}

@Override

158 CHAPTER 6 ■THE CONTROLLER MENAGERIE