Why does Spring allow controller annotated request mappings on private methods? - spring

Just came accross this today in a Spring MVC cotnroller class,
#RequestMapping(value = { "/foo/*" }, method = { RequestMethod.GET})
private String doThing(final WebRequest request) {
...
return "jsp";
}
This is making it a bit harder to write a test, I'll probably change it to public but what's the point of allowing mappings on private methods?

Java does not provide a mechanism for limiting the target of annotations based on access modifier.

As #smp7d stated, Java does not limit the target of annotations based on access modifiers, but syntactically speaking, #RequestMapping should not work on private methods. Also we cannot limit this, since it would break the backward compatibility. So, you can either go for defining your methods as public or you can create your own custom implementation.
Take a look at this: Spring's #RequestMapping annotation works on private methods

Related

Spring inject component into non-spring managed interface/abstract class and its subclasses

TLDR: I need an interface/abstract class and all classes implementing it to have access to a Spring managed bean. Can Spring inject a bean into an interface/abstract-class and its subclasses simply via #Autowired ?
I am working on an API built with Spring Webflux + Cloud Gateway that depending on the cookie JWT authorized party, identifies the User's policy group and assign an Attribute ENUM "InterfaceID" to the ServerWebExchange via exchange.getAttribute().put("InterfaceID",InterfaceID.A) after the JWT is validated, and currently uses "InterfaceID" to represent the different groups of users/different interface the user entered from.
JWTValidationFilter.java [Current]
switch(JWTValidator.validate(jwt).get("AZP")){
//if user is from company A or its partners
case "a":
case "aa":
exchange.getAttribute().put(InterfaceID.COMPANY_A_ACCESS);
break;
case "b":
exchange.getAttribute().put(InterfaceID.NORMAL_ACCESS);
...
}
For certain API endpoints (say /api/getSessionDocument), different "InterfaceID" fetches data from different DB/apis, as well as have different permission checking on top of that.
RequestController.java [Current]
#Autowired
APICallerUtil apiCallerUtil;
switch(exchange.getAttribute.get(InterfaceID)){
case "NORMAL_ACCESS":
apiCallerUtil.getDataFromApiA();
break;
case "COMPANY_A_ACCESS":
// call api B but check for permission from api D first
...
}
The endpoint's controller now has another switch statement, and to many code analyzers this have been a code smell. I have been trying to refactor this entire bit of code to use polymorphism to handle the different "getSessionDocument" flows, but i run into issues regarding the injection of util classes that calls specific APIs.
APICallerUtil.java class, exisiting class from the project, would prefer not to refactor this.
#Component
public class APICallerUtil{
#Value("${some uri to some API}") //different by environment and therefore cant be static final
private String uri1;
#Value("${some auth to some API}") //confidential
private String uri1AuthHeader;
//...
public JSONObject getDataFromApiA(String somekey){ //cant be static since uri1 is not static
//Some code that uses uri1 and apache httpclient
return data;
}
...
}
IBaseAccess.java
interface IBaseAccess{
default Mono<JSONObject> getSesssionDocument(ServerWebExchange e){return Mono.error("not implemented");}
}
RequestController.java [new]
#Autowired
APICallerUtil apiCallerUtil;
return exchange.getAttribute.get(InterfaceID).getSessionDocument(exchange);
NormalAccess.java
public class NormalAccess implements IBaseAccess{
//can i autowire APICallerUtil here?
//use constructor to pass the Util class reference here?
Mono<JSONObject> getSesssionDocument(ServerWebExchange e){
//need to call ApiA here
//need to call ApiC here
}
}
NormalAccess needs to call APICaller.getDataFromApiA(), but it needs a reference to the Spring managed instance of APICaller. What would be the "correct" way to pass the reference/autowire API caller into NormalAccess, or even better IBaseAccess (so that the implementing classes can use the Util bean)?
JWTValidationFilter.java [new]
switch(JWTValidator.validate(jwt).get("AZP")){
//if user is from company A or its partners
case "a":
case "aa":
exchange.getAttribute().put("InterfaceID",new CompanyAAccess(/*pass the util class here?*/));
break;
case "b":
exchange.getAttribute().put("InterfaceID",new NormalAccess(/*pass the util class here?*/));
...
}
I have tried several methods, but either I lack the knowledge on the specific Spring feature, or that method is deeemed a bad design choice by some, including:
Making the methods and fields in APICallerUtil static, via suggestions from Spring: How to inject a value to static field? and Assigning private static final field member using spring injection , then the Access classes can call the static methods.
Creating a contructor for IBaseAccess that consumes the APICallerUtil reference and store it inside. The JWTfilter would hold an autowired APICallerUtil and pass it in when the attribute is assigned.
Create a static class that provides the application context and Access classes use applicationContext.getBean("APICallerUtil"); to obtain the bean.
Use the #Configurable annotation? I could not find much documentation on how this works for interfaces/abstract-class.
I understand that there might not exist an absolute answer for this question, but regardless I'd like suggestion/feedback on which of these approaches are viable/good. Especailly concerning whether the APIUtil class should be static or not.

Where to validate uniqueness of field in Spring/Hibernate

I am building a REST API using spring and hibernate. I have come across the issue where I want to create a user and want to know the best practice on how to validate that the user can be created.
My controller has the #Valid annotation on the User object that gets passed into the method, and this checks for valid structure, however there is no #Unique property that gets picked up by #Valid.
I am using the #Column(unique = true) but this throws an error at the persistence level and I feel like that is quite low level and makes it difficult to throw a custom UsernameAlreadyExistsException().
My question here is what is the best practice in terms of preforming this type of validation. I thought about creating a custom annotation but it seems quite messy especially because as the project grows I would need multiple validators for different fields and it also seems to be closley related to tying the service layer to the annotation which seems messy
In my opinion, using custom annotation is the best approach to do stuff like this, you can inject some bean in ConstraintValidator and perform validation. However you can try one of the below unusual approaches, maybe it will fit your requirements.
Spring AOP
Spring Handler Interceptor
JPA Event Listeners
It's just my opinion about this, in most cases I think I will create custom annotations to handle it.
A good practice would be to put validation both on the database (which we know nothing about, but it is not complicated really) and on the Spring's side.
As #kamil-w already said, a good is to write custom constraint validator, see here for an example.
Keep in mind that you can always pass parameters like to constraint annotation, and then access them in your ConstraintValidator, for example.:
#Entity
public class Member {
// ...
#UniqueField(fieldName = "login", context = Member.class)
private String login;
}
#Component
public class UniqueFieldValidator implements ConstraintValidator<UniqueField, Object> {
#PersistenceUnit
private EntityManagerFactory emf;
private Class validationContext;
private String fieldName;
#Override
public void initialize(UniqueField uniqueField) {
this.validationContext = uniqueField.validationContext();
this.fieldName = uniqueField.fieldName();
}
#Override
public boolean isValid(Object value, ConstraintValidatorContext cxt) {
// use value, this.validationContext, this.fieldName and entity manager to check uniqueness
}
}

Configuring Spring MockMvc to use custom argument resolver before built-in ones

I have a straightforward test case. I have a controller which has a parameter of a type Spring doesn't support by default, so I wrote a custom resolver.
I create the mock mvc instance I'm using like so:
mvc = MockMvcBuilders.standaloneSetup(controller).setCustomArgumentResolvers(new GoogleOAuthUserResolver()).build();
However, Spring is also registering almost 30 other argument resolvers, one of which is general enough that it is getting used to resolve the argument before mine. How can I set or sort the resolvers so that mine is invoked first?
This worked for me without reflection:
#RequiredArgsConstructor
#Configuration
public class CustomerNumberArgumentResolverRegistration {
private final RequestMappingHandlerAdapter requestMappingHandlerAdapter;
#PostConstruct
public void prioritizeCustomArgumentResolver () {
final List<HandlerMethodArgumentResolver> argumentResolvers = new ArrayList<>(Objects.requireNonNull(requestMappingHandlerAdapter.getArgumentResolvers()));
argumentResolvers.add(0, new CustomerNumberArgumentResolver());
requestMappingHandlerAdapter.setArgumentResolvers(argumentResolvers);
}
}
The issue was that the People class the Google OAuth library I am using extends Map and the mock servlet API provides no way to manipulate the order in which the handlers are registered.
I ended up using reflection to reach into the mocks guts and remove the offending handler.

Spring data rest - Is there a way to restrict the supported operations?

I want to expose data from a database as Restful APIs in a Spring(SpringBoot) application. Spring Data Rest appears to be an exact fit for purpose for this activity.
This database is read-only for my application needs. The default provides all the HTTP methods. Is there a configuration that I can use to restrict (in fact prevent) the other methods from being exposed?
From the Spring docs on Hiding repository CRUD methods:
16.2.3. Hiding repository CRUD methods
If you don’t want to expose a save or delete method on your
CrudRepository, you can use the #RestResource(exported = false)
setting by overriding the method you want to turn off and placing the
annotation on the overriden version. For example, to prevent HTTP
users from invoking the delete methods of CrudRepository, override all
of them and add the annotation to the overriden methods.
#RepositoryRestResource(path = "people", rel = "people")
interface PersonRepository extends CrudRepository<Person, Long> {
#Override
#RestResource(exported = false)
void delete(Long id);
#Override
#RestResource(exported = false)
void delete(Person entity);
}
It is important that you override both delete methods as the exporter
currently uses a somewhat naive algorithm for determing which CRUD
method to use in the interest of faster runtime performance. It’s not
currently possible to turn off the version of delete which takes an ID
but leave exported the version that takes an entity instance. For the
time being, you can either export the delete methods or not. If you
want turn them off, then just keep in mind you have to annotate both
versions with exported = false.
As of early 2018, there is now the ability to only expose repository methods explicitly declared for exposure (DATAREST-1176)
See RepositoryRestConfiguration
A Export false at Type level does not allow overriding with export true at Method level ticket (DATAREST-1034) was opened, but closed as a duplicate of DATAREST-1176. Oliver Gierke stated:
I'll resolve this as fixed against the version of DATAREST-1176 for
now but feel free to reopen in case there's anything else you need.
They are not exact duplicates and the functionality described in 1034 would have been more user friendly, but there are at least some options now.
By default, Spring boot exposes all methods to REST. You can set that to false.
config.setExposeRepositoryMethodsByDefault(false);
For more information, you can refer org.springframework.data.rest.core.config.RepositoryRestConfiguration.
Sample code snippet to do this:
#Configuration
public class ApplicationRepositoryConfig implements RepositoryRestConfigurer {
#Override
public void configureRepositoryRestConfiguration(RepositoryRestConfiguration config, CorsRegistry cors) {
..........
config.setExposeRepositoryMethodsByDefault(false);
}
}
Since Spring Data REST 3.1, we can configure exposure per HTTP method. I used the following snippet to disable exposure of PUT, PATCH, POST and DELETE methods for items and collections:
#Component
public class SpringDataRestCustomization implements RepositoryRestConfigurer {
#Override
public void configureRepositoryRestConfiguration(RepositoryRestConfiguration config, CorsRegistry cors) {
ExposureConfiguration exposureConfiguration = config.getExposureConfiguration();
exposureConfiguration.withItemExposure((metadata, httpMethods) -> httpMethods.disable(HttpMethod.PUT)
.disable(HttpMethod.PATCH).disable(HttpMethod.POST).disable(HttpMethod.DELETE))
.withCollectionExposure((metadata, httpMethods) -> httpMethods.disable(HttpMethod.PUT)
.disable(HttpMethod.PATCH).disable(HttpMethod.POST).disable(HttpMethod.DELETE));
}
}

Custom #RequestMapping annotation

I have few methods in my spring controllers which are mapped on the same path, example.
#RequestMapping(value = "/{id}", method = RequestMethod.GET)
protected ResourceDTO getById(#PathVariable int id) {
return super.getById(id);
}
I was wondering if there is a way to create an annotation that will automatically have set value and method, to have something like this:
#RequestMappingGetByID
protected ResourceDTO getById(#PathVariable int id) {
return super.getById(id);
}
Have a nice day everyone
Update
The goal of this is the following
all my controllers (eg. user, order, client) extends a parametrized BaseController that includes a base set of function (get by id, save, update, delete, etc) All the logic is on the BaseController, but in order to map the value I have to add the annotation on the specific controller.
Instead of writing all the time {id} and post I would like to annotate the methods with a custom interface that already includes those values
The following works for Spring 4.1.x that I tested:
#Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
#Target(ElementType.METHOD)
#RequestMapping(value = "/{id}", method = RequestMethod.GET)
#interface RequestMappingGetByID {
}
Then you can use
#RequestMappingGetByID
protected ResourceDTO getById(#PathVariable int id) {
return super.getById(id);
}
like you mention.
This kind of annotation is was Spring calls a meta-annotation. Check out this part of the documentation
I am not sure if this meta-annotation would work in versions of Spring prior to 4.x, but it's definitely possible since Spring had some meta-annotation handling capabilities in the 3.x line
If you where using Groovy, you could also take advantage of the #AnnotationCollector AST, which in effect would keep the duplication out of your source code, but would push the regular #RequestMapping annotation into the produced bytecode. Check out this for more details.
The benefit in this case would be that Spring need not have to be equipped with the meta-annotation reading capabilities, and there for the solution possibly works on older Spring versions

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