Spring controller, why is the returned view ignored? - spring

Question

So, say I have an existing, working page Display Cashier, which displays information about a cashier in a shop. Now, I add a button to this page that looks like:
Manager
The request-mapping for this URL maps it (successfully) to a controller: HandleGetManager
the HandleGetManager controller looks like this:
#Controller
public class HandleGetManager{
private employeeBO employeeBO; //BO handles all business logic
//spring hooks
public HandleGetManager(){}
public void setemployeeBo(employeeBO employeeBO){
this.employeeBO = employeeBO;
}
//get controller
#RequestMapping(method=RequestMethod.GET)
public String getManager(#RequestParam String cashierId){
Long managerId = employeeBO.getManagerByCashierId(cashierId);
String redirectUrl = "/displayManager.ctl?managerId=" + managerId.toString();
return redirectUrl;
}
}
Here's what happens when I try it:
I hit the new button on the Display Cashier page, I expect the following to happen:
The browser sends a get request to the indicated URL
The spring request-mapping ensures that the flow of control is passed to this class.
the #RequestMapping(method=RequestMethod.GET) piece ensures that this method is evoked
The #RequestParam String cashierId instructs Spring to parse the URL and pass the cashierId value into this method as a parameter.
The EmployeeBo has been injected into the controller via spring.
The Business logic takes place, envoking the BO and the managerId var is populated with the correct value.
The method returns the name of a different view, with a new managerId URL arg appended
Now, up until this point, everything goes to plan. What I expect to happen next is:
the browsers is directed to that URL
whereupon it will send a get request to that url,
the whole process will start again in another controller, with a different URL and a different URL arg.
instead what happens is:
this controller returns the name of a different view
The browser is redirected to a half-right, half wrong URL: handleGetManager.ctl?managerId=12345
The URL argument changes, but the name of the controller does not, despite my explicitly returning it
I get an error
What am I doing wrong? Have I missed something?

Answer 1

Assuming you have a UrlBasedViewResolver in your MVC configuration, the String value you return is a View name. The ViewResolver will take that name and try to resolve a View for it.
What you seem to want to do is to have a 301 response with a redirect. With view names, you do that by specifying a redirect: prefix in your view name. It's described in the documentation, here.
Here's a question/answer explaining all the (default) ways you can perform a redirect:
How can I prevent Spring MVC from doing a redirect?