Spring MVC internationalization not working

Question

I'm tring to make my webapp display different labels according to the user's language of choice, but I can't seem to make it work properly. It does read the messages_en.properties and messages_de.properties files whenever I change the "defaultLocale" in the servlet xml file. ...?lang=en and ...?lang=de are not working at all though.

<property name="defaultLocale" value="de" />

My xml files are as follows:

web.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app 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" version="3.0" metadata-complete="true">

    <display-name>SpringTest3</display-name>

    <servlet>
        <servlet-name>SpringTest3</servlet-name>
        <servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
        <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
    </servlet>
    <servlet-mapping>
        <servlet-name>SpringTest3</servlet-name>
        <url-pattern>/</url-pattern>
    </servlet-mapping>

    <listener>
        <listener-class>org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener</listener-class>
    </listener>

    <context-param>
        <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
        <param-value>
        /WEB-INF/application-context.xml
    </param-value>
    </context-param>
</web-app>

application-context.xml

<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 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-3.1.xsd
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc-3.1.xsd
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/context
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.1.xsd
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/security
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/security/spring-security-3.1.xsd">

    <context:component-scan base-package="com.qwerty.controllers" />
    <mvc:annotation-driven />

    <import resource="spring-datasource.xml" />
</beans>

SpringTest3-sevlet.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:mvc="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc"
    xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc-3.1.xsd
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.1.xsd
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/context http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.1.xsd">

    <mvc:resources mapping="/resources/**" location="/resources/" />

    <bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver">
        <property name="prefix" value="/WEB-INF/views/" />
        <property name="suffix" value=".jsp" />
    </bean>

    <bean id="messageSource" class="org.springframework.context.support.ResourceBundleMessageSource">
        <property name="basename" value="messages" />
    </bean>

    <bean id="localeResolver" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.i18n.SessionLocaleResolver">
        <property name="defaultLocale" value="de" />
    </bean>

    <bean id="localeChangeInterceptor" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.i18n.LocaleChangeInterceptor">
        <property name="paramName" value="lang" />
    </bean>

    <bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.support.ControllerClassNameHandlerMapping">
        <property name="interceptors">
            <list>
                <ref bean="localeChangeInterceptor" />
            </list>
        </property>
    </bean>
</beans>

You are incorrectly defining MVC handling in your root context (`` on controllers and `` inside *application-context.xml*). Move that to the servlet context (*SpringTest3-sevlet.xml*) and initialize locale interceptor via `` and drop your unnecessary handler mapping definition (`ControllerClassNameHandlerMapping`). — Pavel Horal, Jan 24 '14 at 19:09
I've still got ways to go with Spring but I followed your steps exactly and it works perfectly. Thank you very much :) — Rikku121, Jan 24 '14 at 19:31

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:51

You are incorrectly defining MVC handling in your root context (<context:component-scan> on controllers and <mvc:annotation-driven> inside application-context.xml). Move that to the servlet context (SpringTest3-sevlet.xml) and initialize locale interceptor via :

<mvc:interceptors>
    <bean id="localeChangeInterceptor" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.i18n.LocaleChangeInterceptor">
        <property name="paramName" value="lang" />
    </bean>
</mvc:interceptors>

Also drop your unnecessary handler mapping definition (ControllerClassNameHandlerMapping).

If you are not sure what are the differences between root and servlet contexts, check other answers on this topic (e.g. Difference between applicationContext.xml and spring-servlet.xml in Spring Framework ).

Spring MVC internationalization not working

1 Answers1