In Spring MVC application, MultiActionController is used to group related actions into a single controller, the method handler have to follow below signature :

	public (ModelAndView | Map | String | void) actionName(

		HttpServletRequest, HttpServletResponse [,HttpSession] [,CommandObject]);

1. MultiActionController

See a MultiActionController example.

package com.mkyong.common.controller;

import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;

import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;

import org.springframework.web.servlet.ModelAndView;

import org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.multiaction.MultiActionController;

public class CustomerController extends MultiActionController{

	public ModelAndView add(HttpServletRequest request,

		HttpServletResponse response) throws Exception {

		return new ModelAndView("CustomerPage", "msg","add() method");

	}

	public ModelAndView delete(HttpServletRequest request,

		HttpServletResponse response) throws Exception {

		return new ModelAndView("CustomerPage", "msg","delete() method");

	}

	public ModelAndView update(HttpServletRequest request,

		HttpServletResponse response) throws Exception {

		return new ModelAndView("CustomerPage", "msg","update() method");

	}

	public ModelAndView list(HttpServletRequest request,

		HttpServletResponse response) throws Exception {

		return new ModelAndView("CustomerPage", "msg","list() method");

	}

}

With ControllerClassNameHandlerMapping configured.

<beans ...>

 <bean

  class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.support.ControllerClassNameHandlerMapping" />

  <bean class="com.mkyong.common.controller.CustomerController" />

</beans>

2. Mapping Examples

Now, the reuqested URL will map to the method name in the following patterns :

    CustomerController –> /customer/*

    /customer/add.htm –> add()

    /customer/delete.htm –> delete()

    /customer/update.htm –> update()

    /customer/list.htm –> list()

3. InternalPathMethodNameResolver

The InternalPathMethodNameResolver is the default MultiActionController implementation to map URL to method name. But, you are still allow to add prefix or suffix to the method name :

<beans ...>

 <bean

  class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.support.ControllerClassNameHandlerMapping" />

  <bean class="com.mkyong.common.controller.CustomerController">

     <property name="methodNameResolver">

	<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.multiaction.InternalPathMethodNameResolver">

	   <property name="prefix" value="test" />

	   <property name="suffix" value="Customer" />

	</bean>

     </property>

   </bean>

</beans>

Now, the URL will map to the method name in the following pattern :

    CustomerController –> /customer/*

    /customer/add.htm –> testaddCustomer()

    /customer/delete.htm –> testdeleteCustomer()

    /customer/update.htm –> testupdateCustomer()

    /customer/list.htm –> testlistCustomer()