In this example, we create a form for user input and show user detail through the Spring MVC form tag.
<form:input path="">
This is provided by the Spring MVC form tag for the text field.
![text_field_spring_mvc_form_tag](https://springjava.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/image-173.png)
Development Process:
1. Keep Eclipse IDE ready
2. Project Structure
3. Add the jar file
4. Configure Spring DispacherServlet
5. Add configuration to a file
6. Create View Page
7. Create Bean Class
8. Create Controller Class
9. Run the App
1. Keep Eclipse IDE ready
2. Project Structure
![text_field_spring_mvc_form_tag](https://springjava.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/image-175.png)
3. Add the jar file
common-logging-<version>.jar
spring-aop-<version>.jar
spring-context-<version>.jar
spring-core-<version>.jar
spring-expression-<version>.jar
spring-web-<version>.jar
spring-webmvc-<version>.jar
4. Create View Page
home.jsp:
<%@ page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" pageEncoding="ISO-8859-1"%>
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<body>
<a href="http://localhost:8080/spring_mvc_text_field_demo/user/showForm">Click For User Form</a>
</body>
</html>
user-form.jsp:
<%@ taglib prefix="form" uri="http://www.springframework.org/tags/form"%>
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>User Registration Form</title>
</head>
<body>
<form:form action="processForm" modelAttribute="user">
First name: <form:input path="firstName" />
<br>
<br>
Last name: <form:input path="lastName" />
<br>
<br>
<input type="submit" value="Submit" />
</form:form>
</body>
</html>
→ When the form is loaded Spring MVC will call the user.getXXX() method.
→ When clicking the submit button then Spring MVC will call the user.setXXX(-) method
→ <form:input path=”firstName” /> this firstName is a bean class property name.
user-detail.jsp:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>User Detail</title>
</head>
<body>User Detail: ${user.firstName} ${user.lastName}
</body>
</html>
5. Configure Spring DispacherServlet
web.xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_4.xsd"
id="WebApp_ID" version="4.0">
<display-name>spring-mvc-text-field-demo</display-name>
<absolute-ordering />
<!-- Spring MVC Configs -->
<!-- Configure Spring MVC Dispatcher Servlet -->
<servlet>
<servlet-name>dispatcher</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
<init-param>
<param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
<param-value>/WEB-INF/dispatcher-servlet.xml</param-value>
</init-param>
<load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>
<!-- Set up URL mapping for Spring MVC Dispatcher Servlet in this example -->
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>dispatcher</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
</web-app>
→ This file is created in the WEB-INF directory in this application.
6. Add configuration to file
dispatcher-servlet.xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
xmlns:mvc="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/context
http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc
http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc.xsd">
<!-- Add support for component scanning -->
<context:component-scan base-package="com.poc" />
<!-- Add support for conversion, formatting and validation support -->
<mvc:annotation-driven/>
<!-- Define Spring MVC view resolver -->
<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver">
<property name="prefix" value="/WEB-INF/view/" />
<property name="suffix" value=".jsp" />
</bean>
</beans>
7. Create Bean Class
User.java:
package com.poc.controller.bean;
public class User {
private String firstName;
private String lastName;
public User() {
}
public String getFirstName() {
return firstName;
}
public void setFirstName(String firstName) {
this.firstName = firstName;
}
public String getLastName() {
return lastName;
}
public void setLastName(String lastName) {
this.lastName = lastName;
}
}
8. Create Controller Class
HomeController.java:
package com.poc.controller;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
@Controller
public class HomeController {
@RequestMapping("/")
public String showPage() {
return "home";
}
}
UserController.java:
package com.poc.controller;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.ui.Model;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.ModelAttribute;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import com.poc.controller.bean.User;
@Controller
@RequestMapping("/user")
public class UserController{
@RequestMapping("/showForm")
public String showForm(Model theModel) {
// create a User object
User user=new User();
// add user object to the model
theModel.addAttribute("user",user);
return "user-form";
}
@RequestMapping("/processForm")
public String processForm(@ModelAttribute("user") User user) {
return "user-detail";
}
}
→ Model is used to move data between controllers and views.
→ “theModel.addAttribute(“attribute_name”, “value”)” is used for data wrapping to the view form.
→ <form:form modelAttribute=”attribute_name”> in this we can use attribute name that we added Model attribute name like theModel.addAttribute(“user”,user).
→ @ModelAttribute is wrapping form data to object.
9. Run the App
![text_field_spring_mvc_form_tag](https://springjava.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/image-174.png)
![text_field_spring_mvc_form_tag](https://springjava.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/image-176.png)
![text_field_spring_mvc_form_tag](https://springjava.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/image-172.png)
Conclusion:
This example explains How to use the <form:input/> tag. How to bind data in the Spring MVC form tag? What is the use of the Model? What is the use of @ModelAttribute?