JSP - AJAX and Controller gets the Object but does not update modelAttriibute

Question

When the page loads, it populate the table.

@RequestMapping(value = { "/access" }, method = RequestMethod.GET)
public String access(ModelMap model) {

    List<UserDTO> users = userService.findAllUsers();
    model.addAttribute("users", users);

    UserDTO user = new UserDTO();
    model.addAttribute("user", user);

    return "access";
}

When the user clicks Edit on one row, ajax will be called.

function getDetails(id) {
    $.ajax({
        type : "get",
        data : {id: id},
        url : "get-details",
        cache : false,
        success : function(response) {
            // code here
        },
    });
}

On the controller, it will get the UserDTO with the id provided.

@RequestMapping(value = { "/get-details" }, method = RequestMethod.GET)
@ResponseBody
public String getDetails(@RequestParam("id") String id, ModelMap model) {
    UserDTO user = userService.findById(id);
    model.addAttribute("user", user);

    return access; //'access' is the current page
}

In my jsp I have...

<form:form method="POST" modelAttribute="user" class="form-horizontal">

My problem is that the attributes of "user" remains null and not updated. Note that after calling ajax that calls controller, userService.findById has result. What am I missing?

Thanks.

UPDATE

I think I really need to update modelAttribute="user" in my jsp using the response after ajax call. Because I am using the "user" attribute and binding it to fields and errors

<form:form method="POST" modelAttribute="user" class="form-horizontal">
        <div class="modal-content">
            <div class="modal-body">
                <!-- Default panel contents -->
                <form:input type="hidden" path="id" id="id" />

                <div class="row">
                    <div class="form-group col-md-14">
                        <label class="col-md-3 control-label" for="firstName">First
                            Name</label>
                        <div class="col-md-7">
                            <form:input type="text" path="firstName" id="firstName"
                                class="form-control input-sm" />
                            <div class="has-error">
                                <form:errors path="firstName" class="help-inline" />
                            </div>
                        </div>
                    </div>
                </div>
            </div>
        </div>
    </form:form>

If I will set directly the input field, I am having an error if the form is submitted with error (e.g. empty fields)

SEVERE: Servlet.service() for servlet [dispatcher] in context with path [/SSSBackEnd] threw exception [java.lang.IllegalStateException: Neither BindingResult nor plain target object for bean name 'user' available as request attribute] with root cause java.lang.IllegalStateException: Neither BindingResult nor plain target object for bean name 'user' available as request attribute at org.springframework.web.servlet.support.BindStatus.(BindStatus.java:144) at org.springframework.web.servlet.tags.form.AbstractDataBoundFormElementTag.getBindStatus(AbstractDataBoundFormElementTag.java:168) at org.springframework.web.servlet.tags.form.AbstractDataBoundFormElementTag.getPropertyPath(AbstractDataBoundFormElementTag.java:188) at org.springframework.web.servlet.tags.form.AbstractDataBoundFormElementTag.getName(AbstractDataBoundFormElementTag.java:154) at org.springframework.web.servlet.tags.form.AbstractDataBoundFormElementTag.writeDefaultAttributes(AbstractDataBoundFormElementTag.java:117) at org.springframework.web.servlet.tags.form.AbstractHtmlElementTag.writeDefaultAttributes(AbstractHtmlElementTag.java:422)

Answer 1

What I did is to set model attribute in controller and let it return the jsp name itself (access). (no changes made)

Then on Ajax response, I added an update to access html using this code.

$('#accessid').html(response);