+ The configuration of every Spring web application starts in web.xml. + There, a Spring MVC DispatcherServlet is defined to process all requests into the application. + The DispatcherServlet itself is configured using a Spring container. + It is responsible for routing web requests to the proper application controllers, such as your Spring MVC @Controllers and web flows. + A typical DispatcherServlet declaration is shown below: +
++ <!-- The front controller of this Spring MVC application, responsible for handling all application requests --> + <servlet> + <servlet-name>Spring MVC Dispatcher Servlet</servlet-name> + <servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class> + <init-param> + <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name> + <param-value> + /WEB-INF/spring/*.xml + </param-value> + </init-param> + <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup> + </servlet> + + <!-- Map all /app requests to the DispatcherServlet for handling --> + <servlet-mapping> + <servlet-name>Spring MVC Dispatcher Servlet</servlet-name> + <url-pattern>/app/*</url-pattern> + </servlet-mapping> ++
+ This DispatcherServlet is configured to process requests into /app/*. + The servlet's configuration is defined in the .xml files in /WEB-INF/spring. +
++ Inside /WEB-INF/spring, we generally recommend defining a configuration file for your application logic, + and separate configuration files for framework infrastructure. For example: +
++ /webapp + /WEB-INF + /spring + app-config.xml + mvc-config.xml + webflow-config.xml ++
+ The example above shows the configuration for a Spring web application spread across three files. + app-config.xml configures your components that carry out application-specific controller, business, and data access logic. + mvc-config.xml configures the Spring MVC framework infrastructure, including the properties of the DispatcherServlet. + webflow-config configures the Spring Web Flow infrastructure, which plugs into Spring MVC.
+ In webflow-config.xml, first define a flow-registry to register the flows you have defined in your application:
-+ <!-- Registers the web flows that can be executed --> + <webflow:flow-registry id="flowRegistry" base-path="/WEB-INF/"> + <webflow:flow-location-pattern value="**/*-flow.xml" /> + </webflow:flow-registry> +
+ The example above scans /WEB-INF looking for -flow.xml files and registers them.
++ Then, define a flow-executor that uses this registry to execute your flows: +
++ <!-- Configures the engine that executes web flows in this application --> + <webflow:flow-executor id="flowExecutor" flow-registry="flowRegistry" /> ++
+ Finally, in mvc-config.xml plug in adapters to hook the flow-executor into the Spring MVC DispatcherServlet request processing pipeline: +
++ <!-- Maps requests to flows in the flowRegistry --> + <bean id="flowMappings" class="org.springframework.webflow.mvc.servlet.FlowHandlerMapping"> + <property name="order" value="0" /> + <property name="flowRegistry" ref="flowRegistry" /> + </bean> + + <!-- Enables Spring Web Flow as a Spring MVC request handler --> + <bean class="org.springframework.webflow.mvc.servlet.FlowHandlerAdapter"> + <property name="flowExecutor" ref="flowExecutor" /> + </bean> ++
+ We also recommend you turn on development mode while developing so you never have to redeploy your application to test changes: +
++ <webflow:flow-builder-services id="flowBuilderServices" development="true" /> +