Pfthb

i'm new to jEE, and this is my first jEE code using spring. The code bellow is working fine. He just print the string index when i go to my localhost; and otherwise he print handling error.

My question is: Why this code isn't working anymore if I use @Controller instead of @RestController

I can't find any simple explanation in the docs from spring and I was hoping someone could explain this.

I have the feelings that a controller alone can't work without something like thymeleaf (I know if I were using thymeleaf the string index would be replaced by the index page from the ressources folder) where a RestController might be returning data as xml or json or something else.

Thanks

@RestController
public class HelloController implements ErrorController 

 @RequestMapping("/")
 public String index() 
 return "index";
 

 @RequestMapping("/error")
 public String error() 
 return "gestion erreur";
 


 @Override
 public String getErrorPath() 
 return "/error";
 

The job of @Controller is to create a Map of model object and find a view but @RestController simply return the object and object data is directly written into HTTP response as JSON or XML.

The @Controller is a common annotation which is used to mark a class as Spring MVC Controller while @RestController is a special controller used in RESTFul web services and the equivalent of @Controller + @ResponseBody.

If you want the same functionality of @RestController without using it you can use @Controller and @ResponseBody.

@Controller
public class HelloController

 @RequestMapping("/")
 @ResponseBody
 public String index() 
 return "index";