spring - how to use spring4 @RestController to return a jsp page?

Question

When I use spring3 @Controller like this:

@RequestMapping("/userCenter")

@Controller
public class LoginCtrl {
    @RequestMapping("/loginPage")
    public String login(HttpServletRequest request,HttpServletResponse response,Model model) throws Exception { 
        return "userCenter/loginPage";
    }
}

It is ok, I get the the loginPage.jsp right content in browser.

but when I change @Controller to @RestController

the localhost:8080//userCenter/loginPage return a page with the string "userCenter/loginPage"

So,how could I use @RestController to get jsp pages like @Controller?

Answer 1

You shouldn't. A @RestController is not meant to return view names through a String return type/value. It's meant to return something that will be written to the response body directly.

More concretely (in the general configuration case), Spring MVC configures its return value handlers in RequestMappingHandlerAdapter#getDefaultReturnValueHandlers(). If you look at that implementation, the handler for String view names, ViewNameMethodReturnValueHandler, is registered after the handler for @RestController (really @ResponseBody), RequestResponseBodyMethodProcessor.

If you really have to, you can declare your method to have a return type of View or ModelAndView (the handlers for these, ViewMethodReturnValueHandler and ModelAndViewMethodReturnValueHandler, are registered before RequestResponseBodyMethodProcessor) and return the appropriate object, with an identifying view name.