spring mvc - RequestMapping in xml

Question

I am new to Spring MVC 3.0, I have a background of struts 2.0. I am comfortable with configuration in xml.

So, I am looking for a way to represent to @RequestMapping in the springdispatcher-servlet.xml or any other dependent xml.

Is there a way to move the @RequestMapping annotations to xml file?

As a side question,

what is the benefit of @RequestMapping on individual methods over struts single point of entry per Action?

Below is a sample class:

@Controller
public class ContentController {

    @RequestMapping(value="/content", method=RequestMethod.GET)
    public ModelAndView getContent() {
        // do something
    }

    @RequestMapping(value="/savecontent", method=RequestMethod.GET)
    public ModelAndView getSaveContent() {
        // do something
    }
}

Regards.

Answer 1

Not only is this possible, it was the only way to do it pre-Spring 2.5. Rather bizarrely, pretty much all mention of this has been removed from the Spring ref manual, even though it's still a perfectly valid way of mapping your requests. The only mention of it I can stil lfind is section 15.4.1.

A simple example is:

<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.handler.SimpleUrlHandlerMapping">
   <property name="mappings">
      <map>
         <entry key="/doSomething/**" value-ref="controllerA"/>
         <entry key="/other Thing/**" value-ref="controllerB"/>
      </map>
   </property>
</bean>