Unable to configure rest in spring (no springboot, please)

Question

I'm struggling to configure rest in spring. Springboot magic configuration works, but I'm not asking about that. I thought I have to add:

<dependency>
      <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
      <artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
    </dependency>

anotate configuration with @EnableWebMvc and done. In most 'tutorials' it's like that. But that does not work. It fails on missing javax.servlet.ServletContext. I add it (no tutorial does that), and it fails on "no servlet context set".

What is wrong here? App even fails to boot.

maven:

<dependencyManagement>
    <dependencies>

      <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-framework-bom</artifactId>
        <version>4.3.14.RELEASE</version>
        <type>pom</type>
        <scope>import</scope>
      </dependency>



      <dependency>
        <groupId>org.apache.logging.log4j</groupId>
        <artifactId>log4j-core</artifactId>
        <version>2.10.0</version>
      </dependency>

      <dependency>
        <groupId>org.apache.logging.log4j</groupId>
        <artifactId>log4j-jcl</artifactId>
        <version>2.10.0</version>
      </dependency>

    </dependencies>
  </dependencyManagement>

  <dependencies>

    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
      <artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
      <artifactId>spring-context</artifactId>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
      <artifactId>spring-context-support</artifactId>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
      <artifactId>spring-web</artifactId>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
      <artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
      <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
      <artifactId>javax.servlet-api</artifactId>
      <version>3.1.0</version>
      <!--<scope>provided</scope>-->
    </dependency>

  </dependencies>

  <build>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>2.3.2</version>
        <configuration>
          <source>${java.version}</source>
          <target>${java.version}</target>
        </configuration>
      </plugin>

      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-jar-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>3.0.2</version>
        <configuration>
          <finalName>${finalName}-notShaded</finalName>
        </configuration>

      </plugin>

      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-shade-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>3.1.0</version>
        <executions>
          <!-- Run shade goal on package phase -->
          <execution>
            <phase>package</phase>
            <goals>
              <goal>shade</goal>
            </goals>
            <configuration>
              <finalName>${finalName}</finalName>
              <transformers>
                <!-- add Main-Class to manifest file -->
                <transformer implementation="org.apache.maven.plugins.shade.resource.ManifestResourceTransformer">
                  <mainClass>Main</mainClass>
                </transformer>
              </transformers>
            </configuration>
          </execution>
        </executions>
      </plugin>

    </plugins>
  </build>

main:

try (AnnotationConfigApplicationContext ctx = new AnnotationConfigApplicationContext()) {
            SimpleCommandLinePropertySource sclps = new SimpleCommandLinePropertySource(args);
            ctx.getEnvironment().getPropertySources().addFirst(sclps);
            ctx.register(Configuration.class);
            ctx.refresh();
            ctx.start();
        } catch (Exception e) {
            throw new SdpException("Error initializing spring", e);
        }

configuration:

@org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration
@ComponentScan(basePackages = {"..."})
@EnableWebMvc
public class Configuration {
}

Answer 1

If you want to create a Spring webapp in a self-contained app manually, you can:

• Use an embedded container (Tomcat, Jetty) and initialize it manually (in your main method. This will allow you to have your webapp executable as a jar).
• Create a class that implements WebApplicationInitializer which will be responsible to create and initialize the Spring context

In your custom WebApplicationinitializer class, you juste have to tell explicitely what are your configuration classes or scan a package you choose to find all @Configuration classes.

I made a POC on Github based on this very good article. I hope this will help you.