SPRING MVC controller annotations vs xml

Question

For new project, I was searching for which framework is to be used. I looked for the updates for existing frameworks.

I found it very intresting about Spring MVS controller, that in the controller itself you can now define which URL you want to hit. The best thing is that you do not need to rewrite url, that kind of feature is also there, i.e., you can give directly the url like:

\users\amit\stores\store1

Earlier I had to write url rewriting for making it this way, and actual url used to be like:

\StoreDetails?user=amit&store=store1

I found it very good. But on second thought, if I compare, if I start putting the urls in controller itself, will not it make a little difficult to maintain after say 1 year, when I have so many modifications done on the project and at times, the url given to Controller turns not related to the name of the Controller.

For example in above example, I might want to search for storedetails, but by url i would be searchin in StoreController etc.

What you guys suggest is good practice, to go with xml or to go with annotation based. If you guys using the annotation based, do you face any issue?

Thanks & Regards
Amit

AlexR · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-03 08:50:06Z

3

Spring MVC implements a lot of predefined conventions. For example if you do not explicitly define @RequestMapping on controller it will map it to url similar to controller name. For example if you controller is named Users it will be automatically mapped to url users. If then you rename your class to Customers it will be automatically mapped to url customers.

The same happens with methods.

The big question is whether you really want this. Typically you do not want your internal changes (including class renaming) directly and automatically affect API your provide.

If you choose to define mappings explicitly try to organize your project using certain convention that will simplify on-going support in future. You can also use public static final Strings in annotations. All URL dependent strings can be stored in one class, for example:

public interface Mapping {
    public final static String USERS = "users";
    public final static String PERMISSIONS = "permissions";
}

@RequestMapping(Mapping.USERS)
public UserController {
   ............
}

answered Jul 3, 2013 at 8:50

AlexR

116k16 gold badges137 silver badges216 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

2 Comments

Kevin Bowersox Over a year ago

Thats a really good idea. If I were an attentive user, I would accept your answer :)

Amit Over a year ago

I am looking for more views on this. Anyone against using annotation. Just trying to take help from all you experienced people on stackoverflow.

Kevin Bowersox · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-03 08:46:37Z

1

I would stick with annotations they are very simple to define and its pretty easy to discover the appropriate method from a view using a good IDE. They key is to search the entire project for a given URL string.

So for example, if I had the following jsp.

<a href="<c:url value="/store/products/${productId}"/>">Store Link</a>

I would just use the IDE's search feature (in Eclipse > File Search) to find /store/products/ which would most likely contain the controller in my search results. If your crafty with IDE search features the annotation mappings are really a non issue.

answered Jul 3, 2013 at 8:46

Kevin Bowersox

94.6k19 gold badges164 silver badges198 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

SPRING MVC controller annotations vs xml

2 Answers 2

2 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

2 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related