How to access proprietary .js file in Spring MVC?

Question

Hi guys,

I am newby in Spring, but have a task, and I am learning on the fly. I used Roo to generates for me part of the code, but now I have to make some dynamic list binding, which is done with form, popping-up in new window, and when the submit button is pushed I have to insert the new values in the parent window.

For the purpose I wrote a .js file, which hooks the values to the parent DOM tree, but the point is that I can't configure Spring to deliver the required .js file to the browser. The browser, doesn't recognize my function. Even when I try to access the .js file via the browser, I receive error that the file couldn't not be found.

I've tried to configure the web.xml, but it didn't work...

Any ideas, how I can configure the access to a .js file in a Spring MVC application?

Thanks a lot!

P.S. Respectively, I'll need to grant access for a static .htm(l) file... I suppose the principle for configuration of the access of static html files is the same..., right?

Answer 1

You just need to get the path to the file right. Assuming you have a Maven-like set-up (I assume you do because you're using Roo), then your script belongs under src/main/webapp - probably in something like a scripts folder.

Let's assume that your file is at src/main/webapp/scripts/myscript.js

You can create a URL reference for your script by adding the following Spring tag:

<spring:url value="/scripts/myscript.js" var="script_url"/>

This should give you the right path to your script, regardless of the context in which you later decide to publish your webapp.

After that, it's just a matter of using that reference:

<script type="text/javascript" src="${script_url}"></script>