Spring FreeMarker

last modified October 18, 2023

Spring FreeMarker tutorial shows how to use FreeMarker template engine in a classic Spring application.

Spring is a popular Java application framework for creating enterprise applications.

FreeMarker

FreeMarker is a server-side Java template engine for both web and standalone environments. Templates are written in the FreeMarker Template Language (FTL), which is a simple, specialized language. FreeMarker templates have .ftlh extension.

Spring FreeMarker example

The following application uses FreeMarker to generate views.

pom.xml
src
├───main
│ ├───java
│ │ └───com
│ │ └───zetcode
│ │ ├───config
│ │ │ MyWebInitializer.java
│ │ │ WebConfig.java
│ │ ├───controller
│ │ │ MyController.java
│ │ └───service
│ │ WordService.java
│ └───resources
│ │ logback.xml
│ └───templates
│ index.ftlh
│ showWords.ftlh
└───test
 └───java

This is the project structure.

<?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.zetcode</groupId>
 <artifactId>springfreemarkerex</artifactId>
 <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
 <packaging>war</packaging>
 <properties>
 <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
 <maven.compiler.source>17</maven.compiler.source>
 <maven.compiler.target>17</maven.compiler.target>
 <spring-version>5.3.23</spring-version>
 </properties>
 <dependencies>
 <dependency>
 <groupId>ch.qos.logback</groupId>
 <artifactId>logback-classic</artifactId>
 <version>1.4.0</version>
 </dependency>
 <dependency>
 <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
 <artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
 <version>${spring-version}</version>
 </dependency>
 <dependency>
 <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
 <artifactId>javax.servlet-api</artifactId>
 <version>4.0.1</version>
 <scope>provided</scope>
 </dependency>
 <dependency>
 <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
 <artifactId>spring-context-support</artifactId>
 <version>${spring-version}</version>
 </dependency>
 <dependency>
 <groupId>org.freemarker</groupId>
 <artifactId>freemarker</artifactId>
 <version>2.3.31</version>
 </dependency>
 </dependencies>
 <build>
 <plugins>
 <plugin>
 <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
 <artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
 <version>3.3.2</version>
 </plugin>
 <plugin>
 <groupId>org.eclipse.jetty</groupId>
 <artifactId>jetty-maven-plugin</artifactId>
 <version>9.4.49.v20220914</version>
 </plugin>
 </plugins>
 </build>
</project>

In the pom.xml we have the necessary dependencies.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<configuration>
 <logger name="org.springframework" level="ERROR"/>
 <logger name="com.zetcode" level="INFO"/>
 <appender name="consoleAppender" class="ch.qos.logback.core.ConsoleAppender">
 <encoder>
 <Pattern>%d{HH:mm:ss.SSS} %blue(%-5level) %magenta(%logger{36}) - %msg %n
 </Pattern>
 </encoder>
 </appender>
 <root>
 <level value="INFO" />
 <appender-ref ref="consoleAppender" />
 </root>
</configuration>

The logback.xml is a configuration file for the Logback logging library.

package com.zetcode.config;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.support.AbstractAnnotationConfigDispatcherServletInitializer;
@Configuration
public class MyWebInitializer extends
 AbstractAnnotationConfigDispatcherServletInitializer {
 @Override
 protected Class<?>[] getRootConfigClasses() {
 return null;
 }
 @Override
 protected Class<?>[] getServletConfigClasses() {
 return new Class[]{WebConfig.class};
 }
 @Override
 protected String[] getServletMappings() {
 return new String[]{"/"};
 }
}

MyWebInitializer registers the Spring DispatcherServlet, which is a front controller for a Spring web application.

@Override
protected Class<?>[] getServletConfigClasses() {
 return new Class[]{WebConfig.class};
}

The getServletConfigClasses returns a web configuration class.

package com.zetcode.config;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.ComponentScan;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.config.annotation.EnableWebMvc;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.config.annotation.WebMvcConfigurer;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.view.freemarker.FreeMarkerConfigurer;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.view.freemarker.FreeMarkerViewResolver;
@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
@ComponentScan(basePackages = {"com.zetcode"})
public class WebConfig implements WebMvcConfigurer {
 @Bean
 public FreeMarkerViewResolver freemarkerViewResolver() {
 var resolver = new FreeMarkerViewResolver();
 resolver.setCache(true);
 resolver.setSuffix(".ftlh");
 return resolver;
 }
 @Bean
 public FreeMarkerConfigurer freemarkerConfig() {
 var freeMarkerConfigurer = new FreeMarkerConfigurer();
 freeMarkerConfigurer.setTemplateLoaderPath("classpath:/templates/");
 return freeMarkerConfigurer;
 }
}

WebConfig configures FreeMarker template engine. We set the template files location to templates directory on the classpath. (The resources is on the classpath.)

package com.zetcode.service;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Service;
import java.util.List;
@Service
public class WordService {
 private final List<String> words = List.of("pen", "sky",
 "rock", "forest", "falcon", "eagle");
 public List<String> all() {
 return words;
 }
}

The WordService returns a few words.

package com.zetcode.controller;
import com.zetcode.service.WordService;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.ui.Model;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.GetMapping;
@Controller
public class MyController {
 @GetMapping(value = "/")
 public String home() {
 return "index";
 }
 @GetMapping(value = "/words")
 public String showWords(Model model, WordService wordService) {
 var words = wordService.all();
 model.addAttribute("words", words);
 return "showWords";
 }
}

MyController provides mappings between request paths and handler methods. We have two mappings: the home page and the showWords page.

var words = wordService.all();
model.addAttribute("words", words);

We retrieve all the words using the wordService and put it into the model. The model is passed to FreeMarker which will process the data in the template.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
 <meta charset="UTF-8">
 <title>Home page</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>
 <a href="words">Show words</a>
</p>
</body>
</html>

The home page contains the anchor which shows all words.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
 <meta charset="UTF-8">
 <title>Show words</title>
</head>
<body>
<h2>List of words</h2>
<ul>
<#list words as word>
 <li>${word}</li>
</#list>
</ul>
</body>
</html>

With the FreeMarker's list directive, we show all the words in an HTML list.

$ mvn jetty:run

We run the server and locate to localhost:8080 to get the home page, which has the anchor.

In this article we have worked with the FreeMarker template engine in a classic Spring application.

Author

My name is Jan Bodnar, and I am a passionate programmer with extensive programming experience. I have been writing programming articles since 2007. To date, I have authored over 1,400 articles and 8 e-books. I possess more than ten years of experience in teaching programming.

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