Question

I am learning Spring MVC 3 and am not a Java expert in general. I have a few questions

1. From what I can tell ModelAndView is not used anymore. I also see these two:
   • org.springframework.ui.Model
   • org.springframework.ui.ModelMap

What’s the difference between ModelMap and Model? Is one of them old style like ModelAndView?

1. How can I pass form data back to the controller? Here’s what I have so far:

VIEW

<form action="/KSC/users/update" method="POST" class="form-horizontal" id="fEdit">

                            <input type="hidden" id="id" name="id" value="${record.id}" />

                            <div class="control-group">
                                <label for="userName" class="control-label"></label>
                                <div class="controls">
                                    <input type="text" id="userName" name="userName" value="${record.userName}" data-validation-engine="validate[required]" />
                                </div>
                            </div>

                            <div class="control-group">
                                <label for="email" class="control-label"></label>
                                <div class="controls">
                                    <input type="text" id="email" name="email" value="${record.email}" data-validation-engine="validate[required,custom[email]]" />
                                </div>
                            </div>

                            <div class="control-group">
                                <div class="controls">
                                    <input type="submit" value="Save" class="btn btn-primary" />
                                    <a href="/KSC/users" class="btn">Cancel</a>
                                </div>
                            </div>
                        </form>

EDIT ACTION

Here’s what I originally passed to the above View from the Edit action:

@RequestMapping(value = "/users/edit/{id}")
    public String edit(ModelMap model, @PathVariable("id") int userId) {
        KCSUser user = service.find(userId);
        model.addAttribute("record", user);
        return "user/edit";
    }

CONTROLLER UPDATE ACTION

@RequestMapping(value = "/users/update")
    public String update(ModelMap model) {
        //TODO
    }

I need to access the updated model data so i can save it to my DB. Ideally if it could map directly to a KSCUser object that would be nice.. but if not, then a Model or ModelMap would be fine too. How can I do this?

Answer 1

This seems to work:

@RequestMapping(value = "/users/update")
    public String update(ModelMap model, @ModelAttribute("record") KCSUser record) {

        if (record.getId() == 0) {
            service.insert(record);
        }
        else {
            KCSUser existing = service.find(record.getId());
            existing.setUserName(record.getUserName());
            existing.setEmail(record.getEmail());
            //etc...
            service.update(existing);
        }

        return index(model);
    }