To redirect HTTP request to another URL we can inject javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse to handler method and use the following method:
HttpServletResponse.sendRedirect(String location)
Unlike URL forward (which is entirely server internal redirect), URL redirect sends the redirect HTTP code (typically 302) to the client browser along with new 'Location' header.
The Browser re-submits the new 'Location' URL to the server.
The redirected URL can point to the same domain or to a different domain.
Other than 302 status code there are a number of other codes which can be used. Please check out our tutorials on basics of URL redirection and URL redirect in Java Servlet.
Using RedirectView
org.springframework.web.servlet.view.RedirectView is the suggested way to perform URL redirection.
We have to create and return a new instance of RedirectView from the handler method.
package com.logicbig.example;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.GetMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.ResponseBody;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.view.RedirectView;
@Controller
public class MyController {
@RequestMapping("test")
public RedirectView handleTestRequest() {
RedirectView rv = new RedirectView();
rv.setUrl("/test2");
return rv;
}
@ResponseBody
@GetMapping("test2")
public String handleTest2Request() {
return "test2 response";
}
}
In the above example handleTestRequest returns instance of RedirectView.
The RedirectView internally calls HttpServletResponse.sendRedirect() to send an HTTP redirect to the client browser.
By default, 302 (Found) status codes is sent. If we want to send HTTP 1.1 compatible 303 (See other) status code, we have to set RedirectView#setHttp10Compatible(false). We can set any 3xx status code by using RedirectView#setStatusCode(..).
Running the Example
To try examples, run embedded Jetty (configured in pom.xml of example project below):
mvn jetty:run
Enter the URL in your browser
http://localhost:8080/test
You will see that on receiving response, the URL will change in the browser automatically and will be re-submitting the redirected URL(two round trips)
To inspect 302 redirects, open the Chrome Network tab, press F12 and click on Network at the top of the panel, enter url in browser (http://localhost:8080/test) you will see the two requests:
Using curl
To handle a 302 redirect in cURL, use the -L (or --location) flag. Also use -i to see the hop history along with the final page body.
$ curl -s -iL "http://localhost:8080/test"
HTTP/1.1 302 Found
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2026 12:33:05 GMT
Content-Language: en-US
Location: http://localhost:8080/test2
Content-Length: 0
Server: Jetty(9.4.53.v20231009)
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2026 12:33:05 GMT
Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Length: 14
Server: Jetty(9.4.53.v20231009)
test2 response
The integration Test
package com.logicbig.example;
import org.junit.jupiter.api.BeforeEach;
import org.junit.jupiter.api.Test;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.test.context.junit.jupiter.web.SpringJUnitWebConfig;
import org.springframework.test.web.servlet.assertj.MockMvcTester;
import org.springframework.web.context.WebApplicationContext;
import static org.assertj.core.api.Assertions.assertThat;
@SpringJUnitWebConfig(MyWebConfig.class)
public class ControllerTest {
@Autowired
private WebApplicationContext wac;
private MockMvcTester mockMvcTester;
@BeforeEach
public void setup() {
this.mockMvcTester = MockMvcTester.from(this.wac);
}
@Test
public void testController() {
String redirectedUrl = this.mockMvcTester.get().uri("/test")
.exchange()
.getResponse()
.getRedirectedUrl();
assertThat(redirectedUrl).isEqualTo("/test2");
assertThat(this.mockMvcTester.get().uri(redirectedUrl)
.exchange())
.hasStatusOk()
.bodyText().isEqualTo("test2 response");
}
}
mvn clean test -Dtest="ControllerTest" Output$ mvn clean test -Dtest="ControllerTest"
[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[WARNING]
[WARNING] Some problems were encountered while building the effective model for com.logicbig.example:spring-redirect-view:war:1.0-SNAPSHOT
[WARNING] 'build.plugins.plugin.version' for org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-war-plugin is missing. @ line 43, column 21
[WARNING]
[WARNING] It is highly recommended to fix these problems because they threaten the stability of your build.
[WARNING]
[WARNING] For this reason, future Maven versions might no longer support building such malformed projects.
[WARNING]
[INFO]
[INFO] -------------< com.logicbig.example:spring-redirect-view >--------------
[INFO] Building spring-redirect-view 1.0-SNAPSHOT
[INFO] from pom.xml
[INFO] --------------------------------[ war ]---------------------------------
[INFO]
[INFO] --- clean:3.2.0:clean (default-clean) @ spring-redirect-view ---
[INFO] Deleting D:\example-projects\spring-mvc\spring-redirect-view\target
[INFO]
[INFO] --- resources:3.3.1:resources (default-resources) @ spring-redirect-view ---
[WARNING] Using platform encoding (UTF-8 actually) to copy filtered resources, i.e. build is platform dependent!
[INFO] skip non existing resourceDirectory D:\example-projects\spring-mvc\spring-redirect-view\src\main\resources
[INFO]
[INFO] --- compiler:3.3:compile (default-compile) @ spring-redirect-view ---
[INFO] Changes detected - recompiling the module!
[INFO] Compiling 3 source files to D:\example-projects\spring-mvc\spring-redirect-view\target\classes
[INFO]
[INFO] --- resources:3.3.1:testResources (default-testResources) @ spring-redirect-view ---
[WARNING] Using platform encoding (UTF-8 actually) to copy filtered resources, i.e. build is platform dependent!
[INFO] skip non existing resourceDirectory D:\example-projects\spring-mvc\spring-redirect-view\src\test\resources
[INFO]
[INFO] --- compiler:3.3:testCompile (default-testCompile) @ spring-redirect-view ---
[INFO] Changes detected - recompiling the module!
[INFO] Compiling 1 source file to D:\example-projects\spring-mvc\spring-redirect-view\target\test-classes
[INFO]
[INFO] --- surefire:3.2.5:test (default-test) @ spring-redirect-view ---
[INFO] Using auto detected provider org.apache.maven.surefire.junit4.JUnit4Provider
[WARNING] file.encoding cannot be set as system property, use <argLine>-Dfile.encoding=...</argLine> instead
[INFO]
[INFO] -------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] T E S T S
[INFO] -------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Running com.logicbig.example.ControllerTest
[INFO] Tests run: 1, Failures: 0, Errors: 0, Skipped: 0, Time elapsed: 0.460 s -- in com.logicbig.example.ControllerTest
[INFO]
[INFO] Results:
[INFO]
[INFO] Tests run: 1, Failures: 0, Errors: 0, Skipped: 0
[INFO]
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 2.991 s
[INFO] Finished at: 2026-07-31T20:51:35+08:00
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the next couple of tutorials we are going to explore more features regarding URL redirect and forward.
Example ProjectDependencies and Technologies Used: - spring-webmvc 7.0.6 (Spring Web MVC)
Version Compatibility: 3.2.9.RELEASE - 7.0.6 Version compatibilities of spring-webmvc with this example: Versions in green have been tested.
- jakarta.servlet-api 6.1.0 (Jakarta Servlet API documentation)
- spring-test 7.0.6 (Spring TestContext Framework)
- junit-jupiter-engine 6.0.3 (Module "junit-jupiter-engine" of JUnit)
- hamcrest 3.0 (Core API and libraries of hamcrest matcher framework)
- assertj-core 3.26.3 (Rich and fluent assertions for testing in Java)
- JDK 25
- Maven 3.9.11
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