springmvc cannot call controller's method - spring

Question

Currently I got a problem when I configure my springmvc web project.
Below is my web.xml
<servlet>
<servlet-name>dispatcher</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
<load-on-startup>0</load-on-startup>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>dispatcher</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/api/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
And I defined my dispatcher-servlet.xml like this
<context:component-scan base-package="xxx.controller"
<mvc:annotation-driven />
And in package xxx.controller I define a class TestController
#Controller
#RequestMapping(value="/api")
public class TestController {
#RequestMapping(value = "/hello")
#ResponseBody
public String hello(){
System.out.println("comming hello");
return "hello world";
}
}
Now when I start tomcat, and want to access to localhost:8080/testproject/api/hello, The spring informs me
[10:10:58|WARN |(org.springframework.web.servlet.PageNotFound)]=[No mapping found for HTTP request with URI [/testproject/api/hello] in DispatcherServlet with name 'dispatcher']
But if I modify the url-pattern in web.xml to
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>dispatcher</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
It is ok to access to localhost:8080/testproject/api/hello. I do not know why this happens. I do want to use /api/* rather than /.
Could anyone helps me configure the controller path mapping? Many thanks!

Answer 1

You are telling your application to run in /api context when you define the following:
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>dispatcher</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/api/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
so to access your controller the URL would have to be localhost:8080/api/api/hello
Just get rid of the /api from your dispatcher as you have and then your mapping should automatically default to localhost:8080/api/hello and work.
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>dispatcher</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
Otherwise if you want to run your application in /api context always you have the option of removing #RequestMapping(value="/api") from your controller.
That way it only recognises the mapping on method.