Serving static content in Spring MVC (3.1.1)

1
votes

My dispatcher servlet maps to the root of the app.

<servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>dispatcher</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>/</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

I have a folder called 'static' in my webroot. It contains CSS, JS and image files. However, because of the dispatcher servlet mapping, the requests for static contents end up in 404s.

I know the solutions lying around to address this.

  1. Make dispatcher map to a more specific URL, say :context:/app/, and then write a filter to intercept requests, and map conditionally to the default servlet, or else delegate to the spring dispatcher.

  2. The URL rewrite trick.

  3. using <mvc:resources />

Problem is, my mappings are XML based, and I will absolutely not scatter my mappings config all over the place in the name of using annotations. So if I use <mvc:resources />, my xml based mappings break, and all url mappings to different controllers are lost.

This is becase <mvc:resources /> overrides some settings and applies its own. But it is also the cleanest solution for static content.

Any way available to tell <mvc:resources /> to not override my xml based mappings?

4
springspring-mvc

4 Answers

1
votes

<mvc:resources /> appears to be a perfect fit for your problem.

From what I understand, your DispatcherServlet is handling all requests to your server. So the resource tag should return the files at the location specified in the mvc:resources location attribute. It should not be catching anything other than what's mapped.

Are you using something along the lines of 

<mvc:resources mapping="/static/**" location="/static/"/>

If it is overriding settings that aren't configurable in the tag consider instantiating your own org.springframework.web.servlet.resource.ResourceHttpRequestHandler

1
votes

I do have this in the web.xml

    <servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>default</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>/resources/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
<servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>default</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>*.png</url-pattern>
    <url-pattern>*.js</url-pattern>
    <url-pattern>*.css</url-pattern>
    <url-pattern>*.jpg</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
0
votes

You can provide a file extention for your controllers, e.g.

<servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>dispatcher</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>*.do</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

Then all URLs ending in .do will go through springs DispatcherServlet.

0
votes

add <mvc:default-servlet-handler/> towards the top of your web.xml file

or if you are you using annotations

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
public class MVCConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

    @Override
    public void configureDefaultServletHandling(
            DefaultServletHandlerConfigurer configurer) {
        configurer.enable("default");
    }
}