Spring Web Flow and Url Rewrite Filter - cleaning URLs - spring

Question

I'm working on Spring MVC + Web Flow web application. I have mapped /home to MVC Controller and /test to Flow Controller. To remove /app from URLs i'm trying to use Url Rewrite Filter.
Mappings in MVC Controllers (#Controller) works good with that:
http://localhost:8080/spring/home -> render home view.
But when a request goes to WebFlow Controller something is wrong resulting in Error 404:
http://localhost:8080/spring/test -> redirect to http://localhost:8080/spring/app/test?execution=e1s1 -> page not found.
How to remove /app from URLs and got everything working ?
urlrewrite.xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE urlrewrite PUBLIC "-//tuckey.org//DTD UrlRewrite 3.0//EN" "urlrewrite3.0.dtd">
<urlrewrite default-match-type="wildcard">
<!-- to remove /app -->
<rule>
<from>/**</from>
<to>/app/$1</to>
</rule>
<outbound-rule>
<from>/app/**</from>
<to>/$1</to>
</outbound-rule>
</urlrewrite>
Dispatcher servlet mapping:
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>spring</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/app/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>UrlRewriteFilter</filter-name>
<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>
Simple controller:
#Controller
public class MainController {
#RequestMapping(value={"/home", "/"})
public String index(Model model) {
return "index";
}
}
Some logs:
DEBUG [FlowHandlerMapping:108] : Mapping request with URI '/spring/app/test' to flow with id 'test'
DEBUG [FlowExecutorImpl:135] : Launching new execution of flow 'test' with input null
DEBUG [FlowDefinitionRegistryImpl:59] : Getting FlowDefinition with id 'test'
DEBUG [FlowExecutionImplFactory:78] : Creating new execution of 'test'
...
DEBUG [FlowExecutionImpl:417] : Assigned key e2s1
DEBUG [FlowHandlerAdapter:367] : Sending flow execution redirect to '/spring/app/test?execution=e2s1'
DEBUG [DispatcherServlet:824] : Null ModelAndView returned to DispatcherServlet with name 'spring': assuming HandlerAdapter completed request handling
DEBUG [DispatcherServlet:674] : Successfully completed request
DEBUG [DispatcherServlet:693] : DispatcherServlet with name 'spring' processing GET request for [/spring/app/app/test]
DEBUG [FlowHandlerMapping:114] : No flow mapping found for request with URI '/spring/app/app/test'
WARN [PageNotFound:947] : No mapping found for HTTP request with URI [/spring/app/app/test] in DispatcherServlet with name 'spring'

Answer 1

Temporarily i did it as here using customized FlowHandler. It works, but i think it must be a simpler solution...
package utils;
public class PrettyFlowUrlHandler extends DefaultFlowUrlHandler {
#Override
public String createFlowDefinitionUrl(String flowId, AttributeMap input, HttpServletRequest request) {
return cleanUrl(super.createFlowDefinitionUrl(flowId, input, request), request);
}
#Override
public String createFlowExecutionUrl(String flowId, String flowExecutionKey, HttpServletRequest request) {
return cleanUrl(super.createFlowExecutionUrl(flowId, flowExecutionKey, request), request);
}
protected String cleanUrl(String url, HttpServletRequest request) {
String pattern = request.getServletPath().substring(1) + "/";
return url.replaceFirst(pattern, "");
}
}
config:
<bean id="flowMappings" class="org.springframework.webflow.mvc.servlet.FlowHandlerMapping">
<property name="flowRegistry" ref="flowRegistry"/>
<property name="flowUrlHandler">
<bean class="utils.PrettyFlowUrlHandler"/>
</property>
<property name="order" value="0" />
</bean>
<bean class="org.springframework.webflow.mvc.servlet.FlowHandlerAdapter">
<property name="flowExecutor" ref="flowExecutor"/>
<property name="flowUrlHandler">
<bean class="utils.PrettyFlowUrlHandler"/>
</property>
</bean>
Edit
Not working with custom flow handler like below:
#Component("test")
public class DataHandler extends AbstractFlowHandler {
#Override
public String handleExecutionOutcome(FlowExecutionOutcome outcome,
HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) {
// ... checking outcome ...
return "/home"; // redirect to '404 page not found', because of rewrite to `/app/app/home`
}
}

Answer 2

Are you you trying to remove app from your url for eg
http://www.mydomain.com/app/home.html and change it to
http://www.mydomain.com/home.html
If yes then you should be configuring server.xml and your application should be deployed as ROOT instead of app in public_html/ or your tomcat directory.
This will work for you