Spring Framework 3 and session attributes

Question

I have form object that I set to request in GET request handler in my Spring controller. First time user enters to page, a new form object should be made and set to request. If user sends form, then form object is populated from request and now form object has all user givern attributes. Then form is validated and if validation is ok, then form is saved to database. If form is not validated, I want to save form object to session and then redirect to GET request handling page. When request is redirected to GET handler, then it should check if session contains form object.

I have figured out that there is @SessionAttributes("form") annotation in Spring, but for some reason following doesnt work, because at first time, session attribute form is null and it gives error:

org.springframework.web.HttpSessionRequiredException: Session attribute 'form' required - not found in session

Here is my controller:

@RequestMapping(value="form", method=RequestMethod.GET)
public ModelAndView viewForm(@ModelAttribute("form") Form form) {
    ModelAndView mav = new ModelAndView("form");      
    if(form == null) form = new Form();
    mav.addObject("form", form);
    return mav;
}

@RequestMapping(value="form", method=RequestMethod.POST)
@Transactional(readOnly = true)
public ModelAndView saveForm(@ModelAttribute("form") Form form) {
    FormUtils.populate(form, request);
    if(form.validate())
    {
        formDao.save();         
    }
    else 
    {
        return viewForm(form);
    }
    return null;
}

Answer 1

The job of @SessionAttribute is to bind an existing model object to the session. If it doesn't yet exist, you need to define it. It's unnecessarily confusing, in my opinion, but try something like this:

@SessionAttributes({"form"})
@Controller
public class MyController {

   @RequestMapping(value="form", method=RequestMethod.GET)
   public ModelAndView viewForm(@ModelAttribute("form") Form form) {
       ModelAndView mav = new ModelAndView("form");      
       if(form == null) form = new Form();
       mav.addObject("form", form);
       return mav;
   }

   @RequestMapping(value="form", method=RequestMethod.POST)
   @Transactional(readOnly = true)
   public ModelAndView saveForm(@ModelAttribute("form") Form form) {
      // ..etc etc
   }
}

Note that the @SessionAttributes is declared on the class, rather than the method. You can put wherever you like, really, but I think it makes more sense on the class.

The documentation on this could be much clearer, in my opinion.