Let’s create a simple excel exporter report using SpringMVC.
Im integrating JXLS library with SpringMVC framework. I prefer using JXLS compared to JasperReport or other java-to-excel-library due to its easy templating, so i dont need to create excel formatting from java code.
Let’s start with pom.xml :
<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.edw</groupId>
<artifactId>JXLSSpringMVC</artifactId>
<version>1.0</version>
<packaging>war</packaging>
<name>JXLSSpringMVC</name>
<properties>
<endorsed.dir>${project.build.directory}/endorsed</endorsed.dir>
<project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
</properties>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>javax</groupId>
<artifactId>javaee-web-api</artifactId>
<version>6.0</version>
<scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>
<!-- Spring 3 dependencies -->
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
<version>3.1.1.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-web</artifactId>
<version>3.1.1.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
<version>3.1.1.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-tx</artifactId>
<version>3.1.1.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-orm</artifactId>
<version>3.1.1.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>cglib</groupId>
<artifactId>cglib</artifactId>
<version>2.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>commons-codec</groupId>
<artifactId>commons-codec</artifactId>
<version>1.9</version>
</dependency>
<!-- jxls -->
<dependency>
<groupId>net.sf.jxls</groupId>
<artifactId>jxls-core</artifactId>
<version>0.9.9</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.3.2</version>
<configuration>
<source>1.6</source>
<target>1.6</target>
<compilerArguments>
<endorseddirs>${endorsed.dir}</endorseddirs>
</compilerArguments>
</configuration>
</plugin>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.1.1</version>
<configuration>
<failOnMissingWebXml>false</failOnMissingWebXml>
</configuration>
</plugin>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-dependency-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.1</version>
<executions>
<execution>
<phase>validate</phase>
<goals>
<goal>copy</goal>
</goals>
<configuration>
<outputDirectory>${endorsed.dir}</outputDirectory>
<silent>true</silent>
<artifactItems>
<artifactItem>
<groupId>javax</groupId>
<artifactId>javaee-endorsed-api</artifactId>
<version>6.0</version>
<type>jar</type>
</artifactItem>
</artifactItems>
</configuration>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
</project>
web.xml file :
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app version="3.0" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_0.xsd">
<context-param>
<param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
<param-value>/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml</param-value>
</context-param>
<listener>
<listener-class>org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener</listener-class>
</listener>
<servlet>
<servlet-name>dispatcher</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
<load-on-startup>2</load-on-startup>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>dispatcher</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
<session-config>
<session-timeout>
30
</session-timeout>
</session-config>
</web-app>
2 SpringMVC configuration files –
1. applicationContext.xml :
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:p="http://www.springframework.org/schema/p"
xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
xmlns:tx="http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop/spring-aop-3.0.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/context http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.0.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/jee http://www.springframework.org/schema/jee/spring-jee-3.0.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx/spring-tx-3.0.xsd">
<context:annotation-config/>
<tx:annotation-driven/>
<context:component-scan base-package="com.edw.jxlsspringmvc"/>
</beans>
2. dispatcher-servlet.xml :
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:p="http://www.springframework.org/schema/p"
xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
xmlns:mvc="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc-3.0.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/context http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.0.xsd">
<context:component-scan base-package="com.edw.jxlsspringmvc.controller" />
<mvc:annotation-driven />
<bean id="viewResolver"
class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver"
p:prefix="/WEB-INF/jsp/"
p:suffix=".jsp" />
</beans>
Simple excel file as template :
Jjava controller file:
package com.edw.jxlsspringmvc.controller;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;
import javax.servlet.ServletContext;
import javax.servlet.ServletOutputStream;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;
import net.sf.jxls.transformer.XLSTransformer;
import org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.Workbook;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMethod;
@Controller
public class IndexController {
@Autowired
private ServletContext context;
@RequestMapping(value = "/", method = RequestMethod.GET)
public String index() {
return "index";
}
@RequestMapping(value = "/export", method = RequestMethod.GET)
public String export(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) {
try {
// set output header
ServletOutputStream os = response.getOutputStream();
response.setContentType("application/vnd.ms-excel");
response.setHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=\"myexcel.xls\"");
String reportLocation = context.getRealPath("WEB-INF");
Map beans = new HashMap();
beans.put("name", "Edwin");
beans.put("address", "Jakarta, Indonesia");
XLSTransformer transformer = new XLSTransformer();
Workbook workbook = transformer.transformXLS(new FileInputStream(reportLocation + "/myexcel.xls"), beans);
workbook.write(os);
os.flush();
return null;
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
return null;
}
}
index.jsp file :
<html>
<head>
<title>Download Excel</title>
</head>
<body>
<a href="${pageContext.request.contextPath}/export">download excel</a>
</body>
</html>
Netbeans project structure :
And this is the result on clicking on the website’s download url :


