Spring Boot and Spring MVC introduction

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 Spring Boot and Spring MVC are two important components of the Spring Framework that are widely used for developing Java-based web applications. Here’s an overview of both:1. Spring Boot

Spring Boot is a framework that simplifies the setup and configuration of Spring-based applications. It helps developers create stand-alone, production-ready Spring applications with minimal configuration.

Key Features of Spring Boot:

  • Auto Configuration: Spring Boot automatically configures your application based on the libraries available in the classpath. For example, if you include a database driver, it automatically configures a datasource.
  • Embedded Web Server: Spring Boot provides built-in support for embedded web servers such as Tomcat, Jetty, or Undertow, which means you don’t need to deploy your application on an external web server.
  • Starter POMs: Spring Boot provides pre-configured templates (starter POMs) to add commonly used dependencies, such as spring-boot-starter-web, spring-boot-starter-data-jpa, etc.
  • Production-Ready Features: It includes built-in features like health checks, metrics, application monitoring, and logging that are easy to enable for production environments.

How Spring Boot Works:

  • You don't need a web.xml or configuration class to define beans in Spring Boot. It uses an @SpringBootApplication annotation, which combines @Configuration, @EnableAutoConfiguration, and @ComponentScan.
  • Spring Boot also supports externalized configuration through application properties or YAML files.

2. Spring MVC

Spring MVC (Model-View-Controller) is a web framework within the Spring ecosystem used for building web applications in a clean and maintainable way. It follows the MVC design pattern, where:

  • Model: Represents the data of the application.
  • View: Represents the user interface (UI).
  • Controller: Handles user requests and updates the model.

Key Features of Spring MVC:

  • DispatcherServlet: The central servlet in the Spring MVC architecture that handles incoming HTTP requests and routes them to appropriate controllers.
  • Controllers: Components that define methods to handle requests, annotate them with @RequestMapping (or other mapping annotations), and return views or data.
  • View Resolvers: Responsible for resolving the view to be rendered (e.g., JSP, Thymeleaf, FreeMarker).
  • ModelAndView: A return type that encapsulates both the model data and the view.
  • Form Handling: Spring MVC provides easy ways to bind data from forms to objects and validate them.

How Spring MVC Works:

  • Here’s a step-by-step explanation of how a request is processed in Spring MVC:

    1. Client Request:

      • A user sends an HTTP request (e.g., via a browser).

    2. DispatcherServlet:

      • The DispatcherServlet intercepts the request.
      • It is configured in the web.xml or via Java configuration.

    3. Handler Mapping:

      • The DispatcherServlet consults the HandlerMapping to determine which controller should handle the request based on URL patterns.

    4. Controller Execution:

      • The controller’s method is invoked.
      • It processes the request, interacts with the service layer or database if needed, and returns a ModelAndView object.

    5. ModelAndView:

      • The controller returns a ModelAndView object that contains:
        • Model: Data to be displayed.
        • View name: Logical view name (e.g., "home", "dashboard").

    6. View Resolution:

      • The DispatcherServlet consults a ViewResolver to map the logical view name to a physical view template (e.g., home.jsp or dashboard.html).

    7. Render View:

      • The selected view template is rendered with the provided model data.

    8. Response to Client:

      • The rendered view is sent back to the client as an HTTP response.

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