java.lang.IllegalStateException: Neither BindingResult nor plain target object for bean name 'search' available as request attribute - spring

Question

I'm new to Spring MVC and I have an error with a form validation and I don't know why.
This is the model:
import java.io.Serializable;
import java.util.Date;
import javax.persistence.Temporal;
import javax.persistence.TemporalType;
import javax.validation.constraints.Size;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Component;
#Component
public class Search implements Serializable {
#Size(max = 20)
private String userInput;
#Size(max = 10)
private String ascending;
#Size(max = 10)
private String descending;
#Temporal(TemporalType.DATE)
private Date fromDate;
#Temporal(TemporalType.DATE)
private Date toDate;
#Size(max=100)
private String genres;
public String getGenres() {
return genres;
}
public void setGenres(String genres) {
this.genres = genres;
}
public String getUserInput() {
return userInput;
}
public void setUserInput(String userInput) {
this.userInput = userInput;
}
public Date getFromDate() {
return fromDate;
}
public void setFromDate(Date fromDate) {
this.fromDate = fromDate;
}
public Date getToDate() {
return toDate;
}
public void setToDate(Date toDate) {
this.toDate = toDate;
}
}
Here is the form:
<%# taglib prefix="sf" uri="http://www.springframework.org/tags/form"%>
<sf:form action="/newSearch" method="post" modelAttribute="search">
<sf:input path="userInput" type="text" class="input_style" id="userInput" />
<button class="search_button"><img class="search_icon" src="resources/img/search/search_icon.png" /></button>
<sf:select id="genres" path="genres" multiple="multiple">
</sf:select>
<sf:input id="fromDate" path="fromDate" />
<sf:input id="toDate" path="toDate" type="text" />
<sf:input id="ascending" path="ascending" type="radio" checked="checked" />
<sf:input id="descending" path="descending" type="radio" />
</sf:form>
and here is the Controller:
#RequestMapping(value = "/newSearch", method = RequestMethod.POST)
public String getSearch(#Valid Search search, BindingResult result, Model m) {
if(result.hasErrors()) {
return "home";
}
System.out.println("----------------Search--------------------");
System.out.println(search.getGenres());
System.out.println(search.getUserInput());
return "search";
}
The error is:
java.lang.IllegalStateException: Neither BindingResult nor plain target object for bean name 'search' available as request attribute

Answer 1

Add #ModelAttribute("search") before #Valid making the method's signature look like
public String getSearch(#ModelAttribute("search") #Valid Search search, BindingResult result, Model m)
Also try
<sf:form action="/newSearch" method="post" commandName="search">
instead of
<sf:form action="/newSearch" method="post" modelAttribute="search">