JSP file is not rendering in Spring-Boot after included dependencies - spring-boot

Question

I am creating simple demo Spring boot application. I have included all required dependencies in pom.xml file for jsp and set in application.properties as well but still not working.
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 https://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<parent>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
<version>2.4.1</version>
<relativePath/> <!-- lookup parent from repository -->
</parent>
<groupId>com.example</groupId>
<artifactId>demo</artifactId>
<version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
<name>demo</name>
<description>Demo project for Spring Boot</description>
<properties>
<java.version>11</java.version>
</properties>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
<scope>test</scope>
</dependency>
<!-- JSTL -->
<dependency>
<groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
<artifactId>jstl</artifactId>
</dependency>
<!-- To compile JSP files -->
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.tomcat.embed</groupId>
<artifactId>tomcat-embed-jasper</artifactId>
<scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
</project
controller.java
package com.example.demoController;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RestController;
#RestController
public class controller {
#RequestMapping("/")
String first() {
return "index";
}
}
here is the project directory tree
please suggest something to resolve this problem.

Answer 1

Your JSP file should be in by default "src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/jsp" directory and right now it seems to be in wrong location.
UPDATE:- Looking at your shared code - the reason you are facing this problem is that you have annotated your Controller with #RestController instead of #Controller because of which the String you are returning from your controller is being written directly on the output stream instead of framework first checking the view name against a JSP template and then rendering it. If you change the annotation to #Controller it works fine