Adding HTML Link to Spring RedirectAttribute Messages

Question

We would like to add a html clickable link to an informational message (Spring RediractAttribute/Flash Message) after an end user successfully submits a form on our website.

So, the end would see the following (flash) messages:

Success

Object updated.

Information

Remember to Edit Attribute.

Where Edit Attribute would be a clickable link in the end user's browser.

What we are having a difficult time reconciling is where does the code go to create the link html text?

We don't feel as though there should be any html in our messages.properties file and we do not feel as though there should be any html generation in our controller.

Here is our controller code:

public ModelAndView processSubmit(@Valid ObjectCommand command, BindingResult bindingResult, RedirectAttributes redirectAttributes, HttpServletRequest request) {
    if (bindingResult.hasErrors()) {
        return new ModelAndView("/form.html");
    } else {
        // Command Object successfully send to service to update database as needed.

        // First Flash Message (the success message from above).
        redirectAttributes.addFlashAttribute("successMessage", "Object updated.");

        // Second Flash Message (The informational message from above urging the user to go update something else too.
        String informationMessage = this.getInformationMessage(request, object);
        redirectAttributes.addFlashAttribute("infoMessage", informationMessage);

        return new ModelAndView("redirect:/object.html");
    }
}

private String getInformationMessage(Request request, Object object) {
     // THIS CODE HERE, FEELS SLIMY.
     String editUrl = "Remember to <a href=\"" + request.getContextPath() + "/object/" + object.getIdentifier() + "/attribute.html\" />Edit Attribute</a>";
}

Then here is our jsp tag code to display both the information messages:

<%@tag body-content="empty"%>
<%@ include file="/WEB-INF/views/html/common/include.jsp" %>
<%@ attribute name="message" required="true" type="java.lang.String" %>

<c:if test="${not empty message}">
    <div class="info_message">
        <div class="title">Information:</div> 
        <div class="body">
            ${message}
        </div>
    </div>
</c:if>

Any friendly advice on how to get the clickable link in our information message would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

1. processSubmit needs to return "redirect:/some-url" or a RedirectView

2. The value that you put in redirectAttributes should be available in the Model parameter (or via @ModelAttributes) after you redirect.

The process:

GET the form (url=/formA, method=GET)
user POSTS the form (url=/formA, method=POST)
- save/process the form data. Set redirectAttributes
- redirect somewhere (say, /formA, or /formAComplete)