Could Spring MVC call @ModelAttribute after @RequestMapping?

Question

I have a controller like this:

@Controller
public class HomeController {

    @RequestMapping(value = "/update", method = RequestMethod.POST)
    public String update(@RequestParam("user") User user, ModelMap model){
        SaveUserToDatabase(user);
        return "index";
    }

    @ModelAttribute("user")
    String getUser() {
        return LoadCurrentUserFromDataBase();
    }
}

In short, my views would render user in almost every actions in HomeController, but I don't want to code:

model.addAttribute("user", LoadCurrentUserFromDataBase())

in every actions, instead I'm seeking a way like @ModelAttribute to expose user to all my views.

However, according to the docs, @ModelAttribute methods in a controller are invoked before @RequestMapping methods, within the same controller.

As to my code, getUser is called before update, but i'd like to get the updated user.

Is there a way to expose the user attribute after actions without explicitly call model.addAttribute in every actions?

Answer 1

Each time you do a POST, make a redirection. That way, your POST method will only be responsible for updating the data, and the updated data will be loaded by the target controller.

So in this case, the update() method would redirect to another controller which would call the getUser() method before its GET method.