244 CHAPTER 5: Building Java Web Applications with Spring Web MVC

27. logger.info("Welcome home! The client locale is {}.", locale);


28. 
    


29. Date date = new Date();


30. DateFormat dateFormat = DateFormat.getDateTimeInstance(DateFormat.LONG,
    DateFormat.LONG, locale);


31. 
    


32. String formattedDate = dateFormat.format(date);


33. 
    


34. model.addAttribute("serverTime", formattedDate );


35. 
    


36. return "home";


37. }


38. 
    


39. }

   Line 17: The @Controller annotation is used to specify that this class is a Spring

controller. DispatcherServlet scans such annotated classes for mapped handler

methods by means of @RequestMapping annotations.

   Line 25: The @RequestMapping annotation specifies that the home() method will

handle a GET request with the URL / (the default page of the application).

   Line 26 to 37: The home() method creates a String object to hold the current

date based on the current locale and adds this object to the model with the

name serverTme. And finally the method returns a view named home, which will

be resolved by the view resolver specified in the servlet-context.xml file, to

find the actual view file. In one controller class, we can write many methods to

handle different URLs.

@Controller and @RequestMapping and a number of other annotations form the basis for the Spring
MVC implementation. To define a controller class in Spring 3.0 and newer, you have to mark the
class with the @Controller annotation. When an @Controller-annotated class receives a request,
it looks for an appropriate handler method to handle the request. Each method to which the request
is to be mapped is decorated with the @RequestMapping annotation, making the method a handler
method to which the request is mapped by means of handler mappings.

As you saw in Listing 5-38, the home() method in HomeController returns a view named home, which
is resolved by the view resolver specified in servlet-context.xml. Now it is time to look at the view,
which is the home.jsp file generated in the /WEB-INF/views directory. Listing 5-39 illustrates home.jsp.

Listing 5-39. home.jsp of the Hello World Application

1. <%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" prefix="c" %>


2. <%@ page session="false" %>


3. 
   
   


4. 
   
   


5. 
   
   


6. 
   
   


7. 
   
   


8. 
   

   
   



9. Hello world!


10.