spring 2.5 jstl view error
frameworks, java, spring
Solution
The cause of your exception is that instances of `JstlView` need to be injected with certain things before they can be used, for example the current `WebApplicationContext`. Normally, this is transparent to you, because Spring instantiates and prepares `JstlView` for you. It's only when you do it yourself, that you see what's involved.
Now, you could call `setApplicationContext` on the `JstlView` that you instantiate, but you don't want your controllers getting involved in that sort of thing. You really want to keep Spring doing the work.
Now, since you're using `views.properties`, it follows that you're also using `ResourceBundleViewResolver` to resolve your views. The trick here is to realise that Spring can handle multiple view resolvers in the same context, it'll simply ask them one after the other, until one of them resolves the view name.
So my suggestion would be to add another resolver to your context, this time an `InternalResourceViewResolver` (this is actually the default resolver, but that default is suppressed when you specified your `ResourceBundleViewResolver`).
Now, when you return a view name that the `ResourceBundleViewResolver` can't resolve, the `InternalResourceViewResolver` will be consulted.
`InternalResourceViewResolver` just takes the view name as the actual JSP path (e.g. return `/WEB-INF/page.jsp` directly from your controller method). It also lets you use syntax like `redirect:/path/to/my/url`.
So yours other controllers can keep on returning view names as specified in `views.properties`, but now in addition you can return dynamically-assembled `redirect:x/y/` view names, which will be translated by `InternalResourceViewResolver` into a `RedirectView`. No need to construct these views yourself.
One last point to note: the view resolvers are consulted in the order in which they appear in the beans file, and `InternalResourceViewResolver` must come last in that list.
Problem
I have the following controller ``` @Controller @RequestMapping("/project/view.html") public class ProjectViewController { private static final String viewName = "projectView"; @RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.GET) public String showPage(Model model, @RequestParam(value="id",required=false) Long id) { //code..... return viewName; } } ``` My views.properties contains ``` projectView.(class)=org.springframework.web.servlet.view.JstlView projectView.url=/WEB-INF/jsp/project/view.jsp ``` Everything works as expected. But I needed to change the method to return a View(), cause I have to return a RedirectView() to some error page if something fails. So I've changed the method to: ``` @Controller @RequestMapping("/project/view.html") public class ProjectViewController { private static final String viewName = "projectView"; @RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.GET) public View showPage(Model model, @RequestParam(value="id",required=false) Long id) { //code..... return new JstlView(viewName); } } ``` But in this case I get a NPE : ``` java.lang.NullPointerException at org.springframework.web.context.support.WebApplicationObjectSupport.getServletContext(WebApplicationObjectSupport.java:121) at org.springframework.web.servlet.view.JstlView.exposeHelpers(JstlView.java:133) at org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceView.renderMergedOutputModel(InternalResourceView.java:209) at org.springframework.web.servlet.view.AbstractView.render(AbstractView.java:257) at org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.render(DispatcherServlet.java:1183) at org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doDispatch(DispatcherServlet.java:902) at org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doService(DispatcherServlet.java:807) at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.processRequest(FrameworkServlet.java:571) at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.doGet(FrameworkServlet.java:501) at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:617) at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:717) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:290) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:206) at com.opensymphony.sitemesh.webapp.SiteMeshFilter.obtainContent(SiteMeshFilter.java:129) at com.opensymphony.sitemesh.webapp.SiteMeshFilter.doFilter(SiteMeshFilter.java:77) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:235) at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:206) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:233) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:191) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:128) at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:102) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:109) at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:286) at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.process(Http11Processor.java:845) at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol$Http11ConnectionHandler.process(Http11Protocol.java:583) at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.JIoEndpoint$Worker.run(JIoEndpoint.java:447) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619) ``` I've debugged and it seems that getWebApplicationContext() returns null. Any help appreciated. Thanks.