Spring 3 Annotated Configuration Picks up @Configuration and @Component but not @Controller

Question

So I'm trying to configure my web app without XML and go the all annotated route. I have a few classes annotated with @Configuration and @Component that are getting picked up automatically, but for some reason my @Controller annotations aren't being recognized and mapped to their corresponding @RequestMapping values.

My web.xml file looks like so:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app id="com-timbuk2-webapp-compositor" 
         version="3.0"
         xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" 
         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
         xmlns:web="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_0.xsd" 
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_0.xsd" >

    <display-name>timbuk2-webapp-Compositor</display-name>

    <!-- Context Parameters -->
    <context-param>
        <param-name>log4jConfigLocation</param-name>
        <param-value>/WEB-INF/conf/log4j-config.xml</param-value>
    </context-param>

    <context-param>
        <param-name>contextClass</param-name>
        <param-value>org.springframework.web.context.support.AnnotationConfigWebApplicationContext</param-value>
    </context-param>

    <context-param>
       <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
       <param-value>com.company.webapp</param-value>
    </context-param>

    <!-- Listeners -->
    <listener>
        <listener-class>org.springframework.web.util.Log4jConfigListener</listener-class>
    </listener>

    <listener>
        <listener-class>org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener</listener-class>
    </listener>

    <!-- Filters -->
    <filter>
        <filter-name>characterEncodingFilter</filter-name>
        <filter-class>org.springframework.web.filter.CharacterEncodingFilter</filter-class>
        <init-param>
            <param-name>encoding</param-name>
            <param-value>UTF-8</param-value>
        </init-param>
        <init-param>
            <param-name>forceEncoding</param-name>
            <param-value>true</param-value>
        </init-param>
    </filter>

    <filter>
        <filter-name>urlRewriteFilter</filter-name>
        <filter-class>org.tuckey.web.filters.urlrewrite.UrlRewriteFilter</filter-class>
        <init-param>
            <param-name>logLevel</param-name>
            <param-value>commons</param-value>
        </init-param>
        <init-param>
            <param-name>confPath</param-name>
            <param-value>/WEB-INF/conf/urlrewrite-config.xml</param-value>
        </init-param>
    </filter>

    <!-- Filter Mappings -->
    <filter-mapping>
        <filter-name>characterEncodingFilter</filter-name>
        <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
    </filter-mapping>

    <filter-mapping>
        <filter-name>urlRewriteFilter</filter-name>
        <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
    </filter-mapping>

    <!-- Servlets -->
    <servlet>
        <servlet-name>dispatcher</servlet-name>
        <servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
    </servlet>

    <!-- Servlet mappings -->
    <servlet-mapping>
        <servlet-name>dispatcher</servlet-name>
        <url-pattern>/app/*</url-pattern>
    </servlet-mapping>


</web-app>

My main @Configuration class looks like so:

package com.company.webapp.config;

import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;
import org.springframework.context.support.ReloadableResourceBundleMessageSource;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.view.JstlView;

@Configuration
public class ApplicationConfiguration
{    
    @Bean
    public ReloadableResourceBundleMessageSource messageSource()
    {
        ReloadableResourceBundleMessageSource messageSource = new ReloadableResourceBundleMessageSource();
        messageSource.setBasename( "/WEB-INF/resources/messages" );
        messageSource.setCacheSeconds( 0 );
        return messageSource;
    }

    @Bean
    public InternalResourceViewResolver viewResolver()
    {
        InternalResourceViewResolver viewResolver = new InternalResourceViewResolver();
        viewResolver.setViewClass( JstlView.class );
        viewResolver.setPrefix( "/WEB-INF/views/" );
        viewResolver.setSuffix( ".jsp" );
        return viewResolver;
    }
}

My @Controller and @Component classes all live under the same package. For instance, here's a @Controller class from my app:

package com.company.webapp.controller;

import org.slf4j.Logger;
import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.validation.BindingResult;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMethod;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.ModelAndView;

@Controller
@RequestMapping( value = "/render" )
public class RenderController
{
    private final Logger logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger( getClass() );

    @RequestMapping( method = RequestMethod.GET )
    public ModelAndView handleGet( BindingResult bindingResult )
    {
        ... eventually return a ModelAndView object...
    }
}

So to reiterate, my @Controller classes aren't being mapped to the URLs I'm specifying. When the app starts up or reloads in my local tomcat environment I'm not seeing the usual "Mapped URL "/render" to..." console output.

Can anyone tell me what I'm missing that might prevent my @Controller annotated classes not to be found and registered?

Answer 1

I guess this happens because @Controllers should be picked by DispatcherServlet from its own application context (which is loaded from <servletname>-servlet.xml by default), when your contextClass and contextConfigLocation are applied to the root context (the ContextLoaderListener's one, which is loaded from applicationContext.xml by default).

To configure DispatcherServlets application context, you should set contextClass and contextConfigLocation as the servlet's init-params.

EDIT: This behaviour is controlled by the property detectHandlersInAncestorContexts of DefaultAnnotationHandlerMapping, so the alternative approach is to set it to true during configuration:

@Bean
public DefaultAnnotationHandlerMapping mapping() {
    DefaultAnnotationHandlerMapping m = new DefaultAnnotationHandlerMapping();
    m.setDetectHandlersInAncestorContexts(true);
    return m;
}