Spring MVC Project Structure

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In this article, we will discuss the recommended way to structure your Spring MVC web application projects. Here we will also discuss the packaging structure and where to keep JSP files etc.

Spring MVC Project Structure

In a typical Spring MVC web application, the web application packaging structure may look:

── pom.xml
└── src
    ├── main
    │   ├── java
    │   │   └── com
    │   │       └── companyname
    │   │           └── projectname
    │   │               ├── domain
    │   │               │   └── MyDomain.java
    │   │               ├── repository
    │   │               │   └── MyDomainRepository.java
    │   │               ├── service
    │   │               │   ├── MyDomainService.java
    │   │               │   └── internal
    │   │               │       └── MyDomainServiceImpl.java
    │   │               └── web
    │   │                   └── MyDomainController.java
    │   ├── resources
    │   │   ├── META-INF
    │   │   │   └── spring
    │   │   │       ├── applicationContext.xml
    │   │   │       └── database.properties
    │   │   ├── logback-access.xml
    │   │   └── logback.xml
    │   └── webapp
    │       ├── WEB-INF
    │       │   ├── classes
    │       │   ├── i18n
    │       │   ├── layouts
    │       │   ├── spring
    │       │   │   └── webmvc-config.xml
    │       │   ├── views
    │       │   │   ├── myDomain
    │       │   │   │   ├── create.jsp
    │       │   │   │   ├── list.jsp
    │       │   │   │   ├── show.jsp
    │       │   │   │   └── update.jsp
    │       │   │   ├── dataAccessFailure.jsp
    │       │   │   ├── index.jsp
    │       │   │   ├── resourceNotFound.jsp
    │       │   │   ├── uncaughtException.jsp
    │       │   │   └── views.xml
    │       │   └── web.xml
    │       ├── images
    │       └── styles
    ├── site
    │   ├── apt
    │   ├── fml
    │   ├── site.xml
    │   └── xdoc
    └── test
        ├── java
        │   └── com
        │       └── companyname
        │           └── projectname
        │               └── service
        │                   └── MyDomainServiceTests.java
        └── resources
            ├── com
            │   └── companyname
            │       └── projectname
            │           └── service
            │               └── MyDomainServiceTests-context.xml
            └── logback-test.xml

Production

• src/main/java – Java Source code packages and classes
• src/main/resources – NON-Java Resources, such as property files and Spring configuration
• src/main/webapp - deployment descriptor(web.xml), WEB-INF, JSP views under WEB-INF folder, static resources.

Test

• src/test/java – Test Source code packages and classes
• src/test/resources – NON-Java Resources, such as property files and Spring configuration

Spring MVC - placing your JSP files in a directory under the 'WEB-INF' directory

As a best practice, we strongly encourage placing your JSP files in a directory under the 'WEB-INF' directory so there can be no direct access by clients. 

Example:

    │   └── webapp
    │       ├── WEB-INF
    │       │   ├── classes
    │       │   ├── i18n
    │       │   ├── layouts
    │       │   ├── spring
    │       │   │   └── webmvc-config.xml
    │       │   ├── views
    │       │   │   ├── myDomain
    │       │   │   │   ├── create.jsp
    │       │   │   │   ├── list.jsp
    │       │   │   │   ├── show.jsp
    │       │   │   │   └── update.jsp
    │       │   │   ├── dataAccessFailure.jsp
    │       │   │   ├── index.jsp
    │       │   │   ├── resourceNotFound.jsp
    │       │   │   ├── uncaughtException.jsp
    │       │   │   └── views.xml
    │       │   └── web.xml

There can be different approach as per organization but above approach is typical Spring MVC project structure.

Spring MVC Project Structure Example

I have created a spring MVC Todo Management web application using Spring Boot, Spring MVC, Spring Security, JSP, JPA and MySQL as a database. Here is standard project structure I have created:

To know how to create step-by-step SpringMVCc web application at Mini Todo Management Project using Spring Boot + Spring MVC + Spring Security + JSP + Hibernate + MySQL.

One more approach: you take a look at Spring's Project Sagan. It's the source code for their current website (http://spring.io). This site was written by the Spring team the way they would use their own tools and released as a reference application to answer questions just like this. I encourage you to take a look here: https://github.com/RameshMF/sagan.

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