A Spring controller that can render views to a string (useful for PDF generation, for instance)

StringRenderableController.java

public abstract class StringRenderableController
{
	@Autowired
	ViewResolver viewResolver;

	protected String renderViewToString(Model model, HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse httpServletResponse, final String viewName)
	{
	    final StringWriter html = new StringWriter();
	    View renderView = new View()
	    {
	        @Override
	        public String getContentType() {
	            return "text/html";
	        }
	
	        @Override
	        public void render(Map<String, ?> modelMap, HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws Exception
	        {
	            HttpServletResponseWrapper wrapper = new HttpServletResponseWrapper(response)
	            {
	                @Override
	                public PrintWriter getWriter() throws IOException {
	                    return new PrintWriter(html);
	                }
	            };
	            View realView = viewResolver.resolveViewName(viewName, Locale.US);
	            realView.render(modelMap, request, wrapper);
	        }
	    };
	    try
	    {
	    	renderView.render(model.asMap(), request, httpServletResponse);
	    }
	    catch (Exception e)
	    {
        	throw new Exception("Error rendering view: " + e);
	    }
	    return html.toString();
	}

}