Java Spring - IllegalStateException when retrieving data from jsp form

[A Misa]

Hello!

I have a pretty nasty and frustrating problem with a Maven Web Application, holding me back for some time.
Apparently, from my previous google searches, this is a common Spring MVC error, but i am not able to find the solution i need among the ones offered on the internet so far. Note that i am a beginner in Spring and in MVC concepts in general.

I have a web application which is supposed to manage a building administration (inhabitants, rent calculations, etc). I use Spring MVC, Hibernate, Java 1.8, Tomcat 8 server container, and SQL Server 2014.
Firstly, this is my POJO for the bulding residents, a type called Inhabitant:

@Entity
@Table (name = "INHABITANT")
public class Inhabitant {

	@Id
	@GeneratedValue(strategy=GenerationType.AUTO)
	@Column(name = "ID")
	private long id;
	
	@Column(name = "FIRSTNAME")
	private String firstName;
	
	@Column(name = "LASTNAME")
	private String lastName;
	
	@Column(name = "APARTAMENT_NUMBER")
	private String apartamentNumber;
	
	@Column(name = "APARTAMENT_OWNER")
	private String apartamentOwner;
	
	@Column(name = "TELEPHONE_NUMBER")
	private String telephoneNumber;
	
	@Column(name = "EMAIL_ADDRESS")
	private String emailAddress;

	public long getId() {
		return id;
	}

	public void setId(long id) {
		this.id = id;
	}

	public String getFirstName() {
		return firstName;
	}

	public void setFirstName(String firstName) {
		this.firstName = firstName;
	}

	public String getLastName() {
		return lastName;
	}

	public void setLastName(String lastName) {
		this.lastName = lastName;
	}

	public String getApartamentNumber() {
		return apartamentNumber;
	}

	public void setApartamentNumber(String apartamentNumber) {
		this.apartamentNumber = apartamentNumber;
	}

	public String getApartamentOwner() {
		return apartamentOwner;
	}

	public void setApartamentOwner(String apartamentOwner) {
		this.apartamentOwner = apartamentOwner;
	}

	public String getTelephoneNumber() {
		return telephoneNumber;
	}

	public void setTelephoneNumber(String telephoneNumber) {
		this.telephoneNumber = telephoneNumber;
	}

	public String getEmailAddress() {
		return emailAddress;
	}

	public void setEmailAddress(String emailAddress) {
		this.emailAddress = emailAddress;
	}
}

This is my dispatcher-servlet.xml:

<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans" xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="   http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans       http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd   http://www.springframework.org/schema/context   http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context.xsd"> <context:component-scan base-package="laura.bachelordegree.controller" /> <bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver"> <property name="prefix" value="/WEB-INF/jsp/" /> <property name="suffix" value=".jsp" /> </bean> </beans>

This is my web.xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <web-app xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee"> <!-- xsi:schemaLocation="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_1.xsd" version="3.1" --> <display-name>BuildingAdministration</display-name> <welcome-file-list> <welcome-file>login/index.jsp</welcome-file> </welcome-file-list> <context-param> <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name> <param-value>/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml</param-value> </context-param> <listener> <listener-class>org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener </listener-class> </listener> <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>/login</url-pattern> </servlet-mapping> </web-app>

This is my jsp registration form, which should map to the Inhabitant object:
<!DOCTYPE html> <%@taglib prefix="c" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" %> <%@taglib prefix="form" uri="http://www.springframework.org/tags/form" %> <%@taglib prefix="spring" uri="http://www.springframework.org/tags" %> <%@page session="false" %> <html> <head>    <meta charset="utf-8" />    <title>Registration</title>    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" />    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="login/bootstrap/css/bootstrap.min.css" />    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="login/font-awesome/css/font-awesome.min.css" />    <script type="text/javascript" src="login/js/jquery-1.10.2.min.js"></script>    <script type="text/javascript" src="login/bootstrap/js/bootstrap.min.js"></script> </head> <body> <!-- Registration form - START --> <div class="container">    <div class="row">       <%--  <form role="form"> --%>        <form:form method="post" modelAttribute="inhabitant" role="form" action="BuildingAdministration/src/main/webapp/login/result">            <div class="col-lg-6">                <div class="well well-sm"><strong><span class="glyphicon glyphicon-asterisk"></span>Required Field</strong></div>               <div class="form-group">                    <label for="InputFirstName">Enter First Name</label>                    <div class="input-group">                        <form:input path="firstName" type="text" cssClass="form-control" id="InputFirstName" />                        <span class="input-group-addon"><span class="glyphicon glyphicon-asterisk"></span></span>                    </div>                </div>                <div class="form-group">                    <label for="InputLastName">Enter Last Name</label>                    <div class="input-group">                        <form:input path="lastName" type="text" cssClass="form-control" id="InputLastName" />                        <span class="input-group-addon"><span class="glyphicon glyphicon-asterisk"></span></span>                    </div>                </div>                <div class="form-group">                    <label for="InputApartmentNumber">Enter Apartment Number</label>                    <div class="input-group">                        <form:input path="apartmentNumber" type="text" cssClass="form-control" id="InputApartmentNumber" />                        <span class="input-group-addon"><span class="glyphicon glyphicon-asterisk"></span></span>                    </div>                </div>                <div class="form-group">                    <label for="InputApartmentOwner">Enter Apartment Owner</label>                    <div class="input-group">                        <form:input path="apartmentOwner" type="text" cssClass="form-control" id="InputApartmentOwner" />                        <span class="input-group-addon"><span class="glyphicon glyphicon-asterisk"></span></span>                    </div>                </div>                <div class="form-group">                    <label for="InputTelephoneNumber">Enter Telephone Number</label>                    <div class="input-group">                        <form:input path="telephoneNumber" type="text" cssClass="form-control" id="InputTelephoneNumber" />                        <span class="input-group-addon"><span class="glyphicon glyphicon-asterisk"></span></span>                    </div>                </div>                <div class="form-group">                    <label for="InputEmail">Enter Email</label>                    <div class="input-group">                        <form:input path="emailAddress" type="email" cssClass="form-control" id="InputEmailFirst" />                        <span class="input-group-addon"><span class="glyphicon glyphicon-asterisk"></span></span>                    </div>                </div>                <div class="form-group">                    <label for="InputEmail">Confirm Email</label>                    <div class="input-group">                        <form:input path="emailAddress" type="email" cssClass="form-control" id="InputEmailSecond" />                        <span class="input-group-addon"><span class="glyphicon glyphicon-asterisk"></span></span>                    </div>                </div>                <input type="submit" name="submit" id="submit" value="Submit" class="btn btn-info pull-right">            </div>          </form:form>        <%-- </form> --%>        <div class="col-lg-5 col-md-push-1">            <div class="col-md-12">                <div class="alert alert-success">                    <strong><span class="glyphicon glyphicon-ok"></span> Success! Message sent.</strong>                </div>                <div class="alert alert-danger">                    <span class="glyphicon glyphicon-remove"></span><strong> Error! Please check all page inputs.</strong>                </div>            </div>        </div>    </div> </div> <!-- Registration form - END --> </body> </html>

And finally, the controller class, which should effectively map the data from the jsp form with the java entity, Inhabitant:

@RequestMapping(value = "/index", method = RequestMethod.GET)
	public String loadInhabitant(@ModelAttribute("inhabitant")Inhabitant inhabitant, 
			   ModelMap model) {
	      model.addAttribute("firstName", inhabitant.getFirstName());
	      model.addAttribute("lastName", inhabitant.getLastName());
	      model.addAttribute("apartmentNumber", inhabitant.getApartamentNumber());
	      model.addAttribute("apartmentOwner", inhabitant.getApartamentOwner());
	      model.addAttribute("apartmentNumber", inhabitant.getApartamentNumber());
	      model.addAttribute("telephoneNumber", inhabitant.getTelephoneNumber());
	      model.addAttribute("emailAddress", inhabitant.getEmailAddress());
		return "result";
	}

Now, this is the error i get whenever i try to run my application on the server:

message java.lang.IllegalStateException: Neither BindingResult nor plain target object for bean name 'inhabitant' available as request attribute

description The server encountered an internal error that prevented it from fulfilling this request.

exception
org.apache.jasper.JasperException: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Neither BindingResult nor plain target object for bean name 'inhabitant' available as request attribute
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.handleJspException(JspServletWrapper.java:555)
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.service(JspServletWrapper.java:471)
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.serviceJspFile(JspServlet.java:396)
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.service(JspServlet.java:340)
javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:729)
org.apache.tomcat.websocket.server.WsFilter.doFilter(WsFilter.java:52)


root cause
java.lang.IllegalStateException: Neither BindingResult nor plain target object for bean name 'inhabitant' available as request attribute
org.springframework.web.servlet.support.BindStatus.<init>(BindStatus.java:144)
org.springframework.web.servlet.tags.form.AbstractDataBoundFormElementTag.getBindStatus(AbstractDataBoundFormElementTag.java:168)
org.springframework.web.servlet.tags.form.AbstractDataBoundFormElementTag.getPropertyPath(AbstractDataBoundFormElementTag.java:188)
org.springframework.web.servlet.tags.form.AbstractDataBoundFormElementTag.getName(AbstractDataBoundFormElementTag.java:154)
org.springframework.web.servlet.tags.form.AbstractDataBoundFormElementTag.writeDefaultAttributes(AbstractDataBoundFormElementTag.java:117)
org.springframework.web.servlet.tags.form.AbstractHtmlElementTag.writeDefaultAttributes(AbstractHtmlElementTag.java:422)
org.springframework.web.servlet.tags.form.InputTag.writeTagContent(InputTag.java:142)
org.springframework.web.servlet.tags.form.AbstractFormTag.doStartTagInternal(AbstractFormTag.java:84)
org.springframework.web.servlet.tags.RequestContextAwareTag.doStartTag(RequestContextAwareTag.java:80)
org.apache.jsp.login.index_jsp._jspx_meth_form_005finput_005f0(index_jsp.java:322)
org.apache.jsp.login.index_jsp._jspx_meth_form_005fform_005f0(index_jsp.java:216)
org.apache.jsp.login.index_jsp._jspService(index_jsp.java:148)
org.apache.jasper.runtime.HttpJspBase.service(HttpJspBase.java:70)
javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:729)
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.service(JspServletWrapper.java:438)
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.serviceJspFile(JspServlet.java:396)
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.service(JspServlet.java:340)
javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:729)
org.apache.tomcat.websocket.server.WsFilter.doFilter(WsFilter.java:52)


I have tried a thousand things, but i just can't get it to work. So, please, can someone point out what i'm doing wrong? How can i correctly build the java object based on the information from the jsp form?

Thanks in advance!

[A Misa]

Helloa again! Any idea, anyone?

[Matt Keller]

The pattern you are using is not really correct.  Here is an example controller.

@RequestMapping("/test1")
public ModelAndView test1(@ModelAttribute("notReallyUsed") final UserProfile userProfile) throws Exception {        
        // put code here that saves the VO userProfile to the DB
       // put code here that retrieves a new VO from the DB using id from incoming value object as userProfileFromDB
        return new ModelAndView("viewUserProfile", "myValueObjectName", userProfileFromDB);       
    }   

Here is an example jsp being used along with it, that displays and submits to the same bean.  Notice that in the example, the field is actually inside another value object inside of the bean.    This is just to show that any level of VO embedding can be done.  I like JSTL better than the Spring tags.

viewUserProfile.jsp

<form name=”myForm” action="test1.do">
	<input type=”text” name=”anotherValueObject.myField” value=”${myValueObjectName.anotherValueObject.myField}”/>
</form>

You don't need to use ModelMap.  I just use that for getting stuff out of session.  Your params will land in that first param in the controller which will live only as long as the request.  You have no need for the session unless you want something to persist longer.  In that case you need to annotate a bean as being session scoped up above the controller.

[Matt Keller]

Also, as far as I know, you don't need any of those annotations on the bean.