Thymeleaf th:object does not work with controller? - spring

Question

I am new to Thymeleaf. I am trying to create a search form but it doesn't work. But when I tried manually entering localhost:8080/searchMovies/name and it works fine, so whats wrong with my code?
MovieController.java
#GetMapping("/searchMovies/{name}")
public ModelAndView searchMoviesByNameLike(#PathVariable("name") String name) {
List<Movie> searchMovies = movieService.findMovieByNameContaining(name);
ModelAndView modelAndView = new ModelAndView("searchMovies");
modelAndView.addObject("searchMovies", searchMovies);
modelAndView.addObject("searchMoviesList", movieService.findMovieByNameContaining(name));
return modelAndView;
}
header.html
<form th:object="${searchMovies}" th:action="#{/searchMovies}" method="get" class="form-inline my-2 my-lg-0">
<input class="form-control mr-sm-2" type="text" placeholder="" aria-label="Search" th:value="${name}">
<button class="btn btn-outline-success my-2 my-sm-0" type="submit">Search</button>
</form>

Answer 1

th:object (generally) isn't used for get requests. You use th:object when you're submitting (w/POST) a form, and you want Spring to populate the properties of a Java object with the fields on that form.
Since Thymeleaf is a server side processed language, and normal html doesn't support building/forwarding to the kind of url you want you're going to have to use JavaScript to accomplish what you want.
For example, a normal GET request when submitted through a form looks like this:
/searchMovies?property1=value1&property2=value2
if you want your url to look like this:
/searchMovies/value1
then you need to use JavaScript to build that url when the user clicks the button and forward to that url.

Answer 2

you need a name at the end of url but in you didn't set it. in this case you can't set it. you must do it by a different approach. another thing is that you need an object in your form not a list. try the following code :
#GetMapping("/searchMovies")
public String sendSearchForm(Model model) {
model.addAttribute("movie", new Movie());
return "search";
}
<form th:object="${movie}" th:action="#{/searchMovies}" method="post" class="form-inline my-2 my-lg-0">
<input class="form-control mr-sm-2" type="text" placeholder="" aria-label="Search" th:field="*{name}">
<button class="btn btn-outline-success my-2 my-sm-0" type="submit">Search</button>
</form>
#PostMapping("/searchMovie")
public String searchAccounts(#ModelAttribute Movie movie) {
List<Movie> searchMovies = movieService.findMovieByNameContaining(movie.getName());
.
.
.
return modelAndView;