Spring Boot controller is not returning html page

Question

I am having some issues with a controller in spring boot. Which should return an index.html file but what it doing is, returning the string "index".

Here are the things you want to look for,

pom.xml

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

    <groupId>com.earworm</groupId>
    <artifactId>earworm</artifactId>
    <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>

    <parent>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
        <version>1.5.3.RELEASE</version>
    </parent>

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-thymeleaf</artifactId>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>

    <properties>
        <java.version>1.8</java.version>
    </properties>

    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>
</project>

The controller named LoginController.java

package com.earwormproject.earwormcontrollers;

import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMethod;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.ResponseBody;

@Controller
public class LoginController {

    @RequestMapping(value = "/index", method = RequestMethod.GET)
    @ResponseBody
    public String createLoginForm(){
        return "index";
    }

    @RequestMapping(value = "/profile", method = RequestMethod.GET)
    @ResponseBody
    public String addDataToLoginForm() {
        return "profile";
    }
}

Here is the main class,

package com.earwormproject;

import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;

@SpringBootApplication
public class Earworm {
    public static void main(String[] args){
        SpringApplication.run(Earworm.class, args);
    }
}

The file structure,

Earworm is the main class.So far I know controller checks for the html templates in the src/main/resources/templates, I have put the index.html in templates, did not work.

When I am going to http://localhost:8080/index it is showing me the string index instead of the index.html page. Like this,

I have gone through almost all the similar questions here in SO, tried all those but did not work in this case. Some clue will be of great help. Thank you.

"@ResponseBody public String createLoginForm(){ return "index"; }" It can not return anything else but that — bichito
– bichito, Commented Jul 15, 2017 at 1:37
Also, why is there no application.properties file in your resources folder? Have you deleted it? Is it a valid Spring Boot application? How did you create it? — Tamas G.
– Tamas G., Commented Jul 17, 2017 at 18:13

Ivan Lynch · Accepted Answer · 2017-07-14 21:41:22Z

1

Remove response body from you controller and try again please.

answered Jul 14, 2017 at 21:41

Ivan Lynch

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1 Comment

KayKay Over a year ago

I tried too, but it throws an exception saying that "NumberFormatException" for input string "index".

RazvanParautiu · Accepted Answer · 2017-07-15 14:02:35Z

1

Set the content type in the header, delete the annotation @ResponseBody and change the "index" to "index.html"

 @RequestMapping(value = "/index", method = RequestMethod.GET)
 public String createLoginForm(HttpServletResponse response){
   response.setHeader("Content-Type","text/html");
    return "index";
}

Also the classpath of the static resources(your files from templates) must be in the next locations: /static or /public or /resources or /META-INF/resources because only this locations the spring know to bind by default

edited Jul 15, 2017 at 14:02

answered Jul 15, 2017 at 8:28

RazvanParautiu

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3 Comments

fg78nc Over a year ago

There is no need to add .html. It is the logical view, which has to be resolved by view resolver.

RazvanParautiu Over a year ago

Without .html will return the string...with Spring MVC maybe there is no need to add the html suffix

Ratnadeep Chakraborty Over a year ago

Thanks for your answer, but I didn`t get the thing of static resources being in the next locations. As far I know it looks in the src/main/resources/templates by default. Confused a bit, :-)

Rouzip · Accepted Answer · 2017-11-08 07:30:47Z

1

I met the same question,but my problem is JDK9. When I try to use JDK1.8, everything become fine.

answered Nov 8, 2017 at 7:30

Rouzip

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Comments

Grégori Fernandes de Lima · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-23 13:17:33Z

1

I had this same problem. There was no way to return an html just by returning a String with the name of the html file. For me, it only worked using ModelAndView:

@RequestMapping("/")
public ModelAndView index () {
    ModelAndView modelAndView = new ModelAndView();
    modelAndView.setViewName("index");
    return modelAndView;
}

Some people say that problems like this occurs because the jdk version. I use jdk14.

answered Jun 23, 2020 at 13:17

Grégori Fernandes de Lima

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Comments

Akshaya Kumar T · Accepted Answer · 2018-07-24 18:13:43Z

0

There are three steps to solve this
1. Remove @RequestBody annotation as we are returning a HTML file.
2. Add a dependency from maven repository corresponding to the tomcat server you are using.
https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.apache.tomcat/tomcat-jasper
3. Close all html tags. Thymleaf expects the html file to be a valid xml file.

answered Jul 24, 2018 at 18:13

Akshaya Kumar T

1

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