How to set url mapping in Spring MVC for not existing resources?

Question

What I want to do is that when user enters url which leads nowhere, I mean there is no resources by this url than special mapping should work.

For example, I have next controller:

@Controller
public class LoginController {

    @RequestMapping(value = {"/", "/login"}, method = RequestMethod.GET)
    public ModelAndView welcome() {
        return new ModelAndView("mainPage");
    }
}

This mapping works when when user enters {contextPath}/ or {contextPath}/login Now i want to map all other urls, I do like this:

@Controller
public class LoginController {

    @RequestMapping(value = {"/", "/login"}, method = RequestMethod.GET)
    public ModelAndView welcome() {
        return new ModelAndView("mainPage");
    }

    @RequestMapping(value = {"/**"}, method = RequestMethod.GET)
    public ModelAndView notFound() {
        return new ModelAndView("customized404Page");
    }
}

Now when user enters invalid path for example {contextPath}/sdfsdf customized404Page is shown to him

But last mapping is more general and and it works always and that is why first mapping doesn`t work.

Question: How to map all invalid urls? Or maybe there is some simplier way to to this in Spring?

Answer 1

The easiest way to have a customized 404 Page is to configure them in the web.xml

<error-page>
  <error-code>404</error-code>
  <location>/error404.jsp</location>
</error-page>

---

When a simple jsp is not enough, because you need a full fledged Spring controller, then you can map the location to the controller`s mapping:

@Controller
public class HttpErrorController {

    @RequestMapping(value="/error404")
    public String error404() {
        ...
        return "error404.jsp";
    }
}

<error-page>
  <error-code>404</error-code>
  <location>/error404</location>
</error-page>