Displaying and processing a form

To display a form and retrieve the data the user entered when it's submitted, use a first controller method to display the form. Use a second controller method to process the form data when the form is submitted.

How to do it…

Here are the steps to display and process a form:

1. Create a controller method to display the form:

   @RequestMapping("/addUser")
   public String addUser() {
     return "addUser";
   }

2. Create a JSP with an HTML form:

   <form method="POST">
     <input type="text" name="firstName" />
     <input type="submit" />
   </form>

3. Create another controller method to process the form when it's submitted:

   @RequestMapping(value="/addUser", method=RequestMethod.POST)
   public String addUserSubmit(HttpServletRequest request) {
     String firstName = request.getParameter("firstName");
     ...
     return "redirect:/home";
   }

How it works…

The first controller method displays the JSP containing the HTML form. For more details, refer to the Using a JSP view recipe in...