implement AOP for Controllers in Spring 3 - spring

Question

How do I implement AOP with an annotated Controller?
I've search and found two previous posts regarding the problem, but can't seem to get the solutions to work.
posted solution 1
posted solution 2
Here's what I have:
Dispatch Servlet:
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:p="http://www.springframework.org/schema/p"
xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
xmlns:mvc="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc"
xmlns:aop="http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop"
xsi:schemaLocation="
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/context http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.0.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc-3.0.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop/spring-aop-3.0.xsd">
<context:annotation-config/>
<context:component-scan base-package="com.foo.controller"/>
<bean id="fooAspect" class="com.foo.aop.FooAspect" />
<aop:aspectj-autoproxy>
<aop:include name="fooAspect" />
</aop:aspectj-autoproxy>
</beans>
Controller:
#Controller
public class FooController {
#RequestMapping(value="/index.htm", method=RequestMethod.GET)
public String showIndex(Model model){
return "index";
}
}
Aspect:
#Aspect
public class FooAspect {
#Pointcut("#target(org.springframework.stereotype.Controller)")
public void controllerPointcutter() {}
#Pointcut("execution(* *(..))")
public void methodPointcutter() {}
#Before("controllerPointcutter()")
public void beforeMethodInController(JoinPoint jp){
System.out.println("### before controller call...");
}
#AfterReturning("controllerPointcutter() && methodPointcutter() ")
public void afterMethodInController(JoinPoin jp) {
System.out.println("### after returning...");
}
#Before("methodPointcutter()")
public void beforeAnyMethod(JoinPoint jp){
System.out.println("### before any call...");
}
}
The beforeAnyMethod() works for methods NOT in a controller; I cannot get anything to execute on calls to controllers. Am I missing something?

Answer 1

In order to put an aspect on a HandlerMethod in a class annotated with #Controller in Spring 3.1 you need to have the proxy-target-class="true" attribute on the aspectj-autoproxy element. You also need to have the CGLIB and the ASM libraries as a dependency in your WAR/EAR file. You can either specify your annotated aspect class as a bean and use the aop:include as stated above or you can leave the aop:include out and add a filter similar to this in your component scan element:
<context:component-scan>
<context:include-filter type="aspectj"
expression="com.your.aspect.class.Here"/>
</context:component-scan>
I do not know if this is a requirement as a result of Spring 3.1 only but I know that without this, you will not be able to put an aspect on your controller HandlerMethod. You would get an error similar to:
Caused by: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: object is not an instance of declaring class
HandlerMethod details:
Controller [$Proxy82]
Method [public void com.test.TestController.testMethod(java.security.Principal,javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse) throws javax.servlet.ServletException]
Resolved arguments:
[0] [null]
[1] [type=com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.srt.SRTServletResponse] [value=com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.srt.SRTServletResponse#dcd0dcd]
This is not required if your aspect is on a method in a class that is not a controller

Answer 2

I am going to state an alternative solution (sorry not a direct answer) but what you wanting to do is probably best done via interceptors and filters.