Today im trying to 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.

I start with my 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>

And a simple 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>

And 2 SpringMVC configuration file, 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>

and 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>

And a simple excel file,

A java 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;

/**
 *
 * @author edwin < edwinkun at gmail dot com >
 */
@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;
    }    
}

And my index.jsp file

<html>
    <head>
        <title>Download Excel</title>
    </head>
    <body>
        <a href="${pageContext.request.contextPath}/export">download excel</a>
    </body>
</html>

My Netbeans project structure is like this,

And this is the result when im clicking on the website’s download url,

Have fun with JXLS 🙂