Problem with Velocity - ResourceNotFoundException when using with Spring MVC

Question

I am using Spring MVC for my web application and I am integrating Velocity for templating my emails.

I am getting the following 500 error when It attempts to send my email.

org.apache.velocity.exception.ResourceNotFoundException: 
Unable to find resource '/WEB-INF/velocity/registrationEmail.vm'

I am aware of what this means and what I need to do, but I know that I must be doing something wrong and I cant figure out why it cant find my .vm files.

I have configured velocity in my applicationContext.xml file as below, but I believe I might be leaving necessary properties out that Velocity needs to find the file.

<bean id="velocityEngine" 
    class="org.springframework.ui.velocity.VelocityEngineFactoryBean">
        <property name="velocityProperties">
             <value>
              resource.loader=class
               class.resource.loader.class=
               org.apache.velocity.runtime.resource.loader.ClasspathResourceLoader
             </value>
        </property>
    </bean>
    <bean id="velocityConfig" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.velocity.VelocityConfigurer">
     <property name="resourceLoaderPath" value="/WEB-INF/velocity/"/>
    </bean>

I believe this might be where I need to make some changes/additions but I am not sure.

The path to my template files is WEB-INF/velocity/templateName.vm

I specify this when using the velocityEngine bean in my controller as well such as the following

String text = VelocityEngineUtils.mergeTemplateIntoString(
                       velocityEngine, "/WEB-INF/velocity/registrationEmail.vm", test);

Is there something I need to do in my build.xml file to make sure that it is able to find my template files?

Answer 1

I have experienced a similar problem and there the root cause turned out to be the usage of absolute path. So try it without the leading '/':

String text = VelocityEngineUtils.mergeTemplateIntoString(
        velocityEngine, "WEB-INF/velocity/registrationEmail.vm", test);

Answer 2

I think the problem is that WEB-INF is not part of CLASSPATH. You can't expect the ClasspathResourceLoader to find something that isn't in the CLASSPATH.

WEB-INF/classes and all the JARs in WEB-INF/lib are in the CLASSPATH. Try moving your folder with the .vm files under WEB-INF/classes and see if that helps.

Best idea of all is to follow the Spring docs:

http://static.springsource.org/spring/docs/2.5.x/reference/view.html#view-velocity