spring web flow: how is a request handled?

Question

In the config file, there are lots of elements: flow-executor, flow-registry, flow-builder-services, viewFactoryCreator, FlowHandlerAdapter, FlowHandlerMapping, etc.

In what order do they work?

When a request comes in, the servelet will dispatch it to a handler, then I guess the spring web flow framework will somehow parse the flow and return a view. But how exactly does the spring web flow framework handle the request? And in what order do those elements defined in the config file work?

Answer 1

Here is a nice image of the request lifecycle taken from the link. Also here is an article giving you the life-cycle events.

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