Spring MVC - Form Handling

Spring MVC - Form Tag library

Spring MVC - Handler Mapping

Spring MVC - Controller

Spring MVC - View Resolver

Spring MVC - Integration

Spring Q & A

Spring - Questions and Answers

Spring MVC Useful Resources

Spring MVC - Hidden Field Example

Quiz

The following example shows how to use hidden fields in forms using the Spring Web MVC framework.

To start with, let us have a working Eclipse IDE in place and consider the following steps to develop a Dynamic Form based Web Application using Spring Web Framework −

Step	Description
1	Create a project with a name hello under a package com.tutorialspoint as explained in the Spring MVC - Hello World Example chapter.
2	Create Java class Student and StudentController under the com.tutorialspoint package.
3	Create view files student.jsp and result.jsp under the jsp sub-folder in WEB-INF folder.
4	The final step is to create the content of the source and configuration files and export the application as explained below.

Student.java

package com.tutorialspoint;

public class Student {
   private Integer age;
   private String name;
   private Integer id;

   public void setAge(Integer age) {
      this.age = age;
   }
   public Integer getAge() {
      return age;
   }

   public void setName(String name) {
      this.name = name;
   }
   public String getName() {
      return name;
   }

   public void setId(Integer id) {
      this.id = id;
   }
   public Integer getId() {
      return id;
   }
}

StudentController.java

package com.tutorialspoint;

import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.ModelAttribute;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.GetMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.PostMapping;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.ModelAndView;
import org.springframework.ui.ModelMap;

@Controller
public class StudentController {

   @GetMapping(value = "/student")
   public ModelAndView student() {
      return new ModelAndView("student", "command", new Student());
   }
   
   @PostMapping(value = "/addStudent")
   public String addStudent(@ModelAttribute("SpringWeb")Student student, 
      ModelMap model) {
      model.addAttribute("name", student.getName());
      model.addAttribute("age", student.getAge());
      model.addAttribute("id", student.getId());
      
      return "result";
   }
}

Here, for the first service method student(), we have passed a blank Studentobject in the ModelAndView object with the name "command", because the spring framework expects an object with the name "command", if you are using <form:form> tags in your JSP file. So, when the student() method is called, it returns the student.jsp view.

The second service method addStudent() will be called against a POST method on the HelloWeb/addStudent URL. You will prepare your model object based on the submitted information. Finally, a "result" view will be returned from the service method, which will result in rendering result.jsp

student.jsp

<%@taglib uri = "http://www.springframework.org/tags/form" prefix = "form"%>
<html>
   <head>
      <title>Spring MVC Form Handling</title>
   </head>
   <body>

      <h2>Student Information</h2>
      <form:form method = "POST" action = "/hello/addStudent">
         <table>
            <tr>
              <td><form:label path = "name">Name</form:label></td>
              <td><form:input path = "name" /></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
              <td><form:label path = "age">Age</form:label></td>
              <td><form:input path = "age" /></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
              <td>  </td>
              <td><form:hidden path = "id" value = "1" /></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
              <td colspan = "2">
                  <input type = "submit" value = "Submit"/>
              </td>
            </tr>
         </table>  
      </form:form>
   </body>
</html>

Here, we are using the <form:hidden /> tag to render a HTML hidden field.

For example −

<form:hidden path = "id" value = "1"/>

It will render following HTML content.

<input id = "id" name = "id" type = "hidden" value = "1"/>

result.jsp

<%@taglib uri = "http://www.springframework.org/tags/form" prefix = "form"%>
<html>
   <head>
      <title>Spring MVC Form Handling</title>
   </head>
   <body>

      <h2>Submitted Student Information</h2>
      <table>
         <tr>
            <td>Name</td>
            <td>${name}</td>
         </tr>
         <tr>
            <td>Age</td>
            <td>${age}</td>
         </tr>
         <tr>
            <td>ID</td>
            <td>${id}</td>
         </tr>
      </table>  
   </body>
</html>

Output

Once you are done with creating source and configuration files, export your application. Right click on your application, use Run As → Maven Install option and save your hello.war file in Tomcat's webapps folder.

Now, start your Tomcat server and make sure you are able to access other webpages from the webapps folder using a standard browser. Try a URL http://localhost:8080/hello/student and we will see the following screen if everything is fine with the Spring Web Application.

After submitting the required information, click on the submit button to submit the form. You should see the following screen, if everything is fine with your Spring Web Application.

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