HTML 5 Forms Validation in Spring MVC

Create Spring MVC Project

On the Eclipse, create a Spring MVC project in Spring Boot

Enter Project Information:

• Name: LearnSpringMVCWithRealApps
• Group: com.demo
• Artifact: LearnSpringMVCWithRealApps
• Description: Learn Spring MVC with Real Apps
• Package: com.demo

Select the technologies and libraries to be used:

• Web

Click Next button to show Site Information for project

Click Finish button to finish create Spring MVC project

Configure pom.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
	xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0
						http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
	<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

	<groupId>com.demo</groupId>
	<artifactId>LearnSpringMVCWithRealApps</artifactId>
	<version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
	<packaging>jar</packaging>

	<name>LearnSpringMVCWithRealApps</name>
	<description>Learn Spring MVC with Real Apps</description>

	<parent>
		<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
		<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
		<version>1.5.2.RELEASE</version>
		<relativePath /> <!-- lookup parent from repository -->
	</parent>

	<properties>
		<project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
		<project.reporting.outputEncoding>UTF-8</project.reporting.outputEncoding>
		<java.version>1.8</java.version>
	</properties>

	<dependencies>

		<!-- Spring MVC  -->
		<dependency>
			<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
			<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
		</dependency>

		<!-- JSTL tag lib -->
		<dependency>
			<groupId>javax.servlet.jsp.jstl</groupId>
			<artifactId>javax.servlet.jsp.jstl-api</artifactId>
			<version>1.2.1</version>
		</dependency>

		<dependency>
			<groupId>taglibs</groupId>
			<artifactId>standard</artifactId>
			<version>1.1.2</version>
		</dependency>

		<!-- Tomcat for JSP rendering -->
		<dependency>
			<groupId>org.apache.tomcat.embed</groupId>
			<artifactId>tomcat-embed-jasper</artifactId>
			<scope>provided</scope>
		</dependency>

		<dependency>
			<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
			<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
			<scope>test</scope>
		</dependency>
	</dependencies>

	<build>
		<plugins>
			<plugin>
				<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
				<artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
			</plugin>
		</plugins>
	</build>

</project>

Configure application.properties

spring.mvc.view.prefix = /WEB-INF/views/
spring.mvc.view.suffix = .jsp
spring.mvc.static-path-pattern=/resources/**

server.port=9596

Entities Class

Create new package, named com.demo.entities. In this package, create entities class as below:

Account Entity

Create new java class, named Account.java

package com.demo.entities;

public class Account {

	private String username;
	private String password;
	private int age;
	private String email;
	private String website;

	public String getUsername() {
		return username;
	}

	public void setUsername(String username) {
		this.username = username;
	}

	public String getPassword() {
		return password;
	}

	public void setPassword(String password) {
		this.password = password;
	}

	public int getAge() {
		return age;
	}

	public void setAge(int age) {
		this.age = age;
	}

	public String getEmail() {
		return email;
	}

	public void setEmail(String email) {
		this.email = email;
	}

	public String getWebsite() {
		return website;
	}

	public void setWebsite(String website) {
		this.website = website;
	}

}

Create Controller

Create new package named com.demo.controllers. In this package, create new controller name AccountController as below:

package com.demo.controllers;

import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.ui.ModelMap;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.ModelAttribute;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMethod;
import com.demo.entities.Account;

@Controller
@RequestMapping(value = "account")
public class AccountController {

	@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.GET)
	public String index(ModelMap modelMap) {
		modelMap.put("account", new Account());
		return "account/index";
	}

	@RequestMapping(value = "save", method = RequestMethod.POST)
	public String save(@ModelAttribute("account") Account account, ModelMap modelMap) {
		modelMap.put("account", account);
		return "account/success";
	}

}

Create View

Create new folders with path webapp\WEB-INF\views in src\main. In views folder, create new folder named account. In account folder, create new JSP Pages as below:

Index View

Create new jsp file named index.jsp. This view use HTML5 attributes validate data in form

<%@ page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
	pageEncoding="ISO-8859-1"%>
<%@ taglib prefix="s" uri="http://www.springframework.org/tags/form"%>
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
<title>Account Register</title>
</head>
<body>

	<h3>Account Register</h3>
	<s:form method="post" commandName="account"
		action="${pageContext.request.contextPath }/account/save">
		<table>
			<tr>
				<td>Username</td>
				<td><s:input required="required"
						placeholder="Input your username" minlength="3" maxlength="10"
						path="username" /></td>
			</tr>
			<tr>
				<td>Password</td>
				<td><s:password required="required"
						placeholder="Input your password"
						pattern="(?=.*\d)(?=.*[a-z])(?=.*[A-Z]).{8,}"
						title="Must contain at least one number and one
							uppercase and lowercase letter, and at least 8
							or more characters"
						path="password" /></td>
			</tr>
			<tr>
				<td>Age</td>
				<td><s:input type="number" min="18" max="50" step="1"
						required="required" placeholder="Input your age" path="age" /></td>
			</tr>
			<tr>
				<td>Email</td>
				<td><s:input type="email" required="required"
						placeholder="Input your email" path="email" /></td>
			</tr>
			<tr>
				<td>Website</td>
				<td><s:input type="url" placeholder="Input your website"
						path="website" /></td>
			</tr>
			<tr>
				<td>&nbsp;</td>
				<td><input type="submit" value="Save" /></td>
			</tr>
		</table>
	</s:form>

</body>
</html>

Success View

Create new jsp file named success.jsp

<%@ page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
	pageEncoding="ISO-8859-1"%>
<%@ taglib prefix="fmt" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/fmt"%>
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
<title>Account Info</title>
</head>
<body>

	<h3>Account Info</h3>
	<table cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" border="1">

		<tr valign="top">
			<td>Username</td>
			<td>${account.username }</td>
		</tr>

		<tr valign="top">
			<td>Password</td>
			<td>${account.password }</td>
		</tr>

		<tr valign="top">
			<td>Age</td>
			<td>${account.age }</td>
		</tr>

		<tr valign="top">
			<td>Email</td>
			<td>${account.email }</td>
		</tr>

		<tr valign="top">
			<td>Website</td>
			<td>${account.website }</td>
		</tr>

	</table>

</body>
</html>

Structure of Spring MVC Project

Run Application

Select LearnSpringMVCWithRealAppsApplication.java file in com.demo package, right click and select Run As/Spring Boot App menu

Access index method in account controller with following url: http://localhost:9596/account

Output

Click Save button submit form to save method in account controller with some instances of invalid data as below:

Case 1

Case 2

Click Save button submit form to save method in account controller with valid data

Output

References

I recommend you refer to the books below to learn more about the knowledge in this article:

• Spring MVC Beginners Guide – Second Edition
• Spring MVC Cookbook
• Spring MVC Blueprints
• Mastering Spring MVC 4
• Spring Boot in Action
• Pro Spring Boot
• HTML5: Up and Running
• The Essential Guide to HTML5: Using Games to learn HTML5 and JavaScript by Jeanine Meyer (2010-11-01)
• Introducing HTML5 (2nd Edition) (Voices That Matter)