How to return a html page from a restful controller in spring boot?

Question

I want to return a simple html page from controller, but I get only the name of the file not its content. Why?

This is my controller code:

@RestController
public class HomeController {

    @RequestMapping("/")
    public String welcome() {
        return "login";
    }
}

This is my project structure:

[

Answer 1

When using @RestController like this:

@RestController
public class HomeController {

    @RequestMapping("/")
    public String welcome() {
        return "login";
    }
}

This is the same as you do like this in a normal controller:

@Controller
public class HomeController {

    @RequestMapping("/")
    @ResponseBody
    public String welcome() {
        return "login";
    }
}

Using @ResponseBody returns return "login"; as a String object. Any object you return will be attached as payload in the HTTP body as JSON.

This is why you are getting just login in the response.