Understanding the Front Controller in Spring MVC: DispatcherServlet

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Question:

What is the front controller class of Spring MVC?

Answer:

In Spring MVC, the front controller class is DispatcherServlet. The DispatcherServlet acts as the central dispatcher for HTTP requests and is responsible for routing requests to the appropriate handlers (controllers) based on the URL patterns defined in the application.

When a request is made to a Spring MVC application, the DispatcherServlet intercepts the request and delegates it to the appropriate controller. It also handles the response by rendering the view (e.g., JSP, Thymeleaf) and returning it to the client.

To configure the DispatcherServlet, you typically define it in the web.xml file or use Java-based configuration with @ServletComponentScan or @EnableWebMvc annotations in a configuration class.

Here’s a simple example of how you might configure the DispatcherServlet in web.xml:

<servlet>
    <servlet-name>dispatcher</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
    <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>

<servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>dispatcher</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>/</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

In this configuration, the DispatcherServlet will handle all incoming requests to the application.

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