Handling of pre-slash in #RequestMapping - spring

Imagine that I have a Spring MVC controller something like this:
#Controller
#RequestMapping("/base-url")
public class MyController{
//..snip
#RequestMapping(method=RequestMethod.GET, value="/edit/{id}")
public String edit(Model model, HttpServletRequest request, Authentication authentication){
//..snip
}
}
My question is regarding the inner value parameter to the #RequestMapping annotation at the function level. Is the pre-slash on /edit/{id} required, or does edit/{id} do the job just as well? I would have imagined that the pre-slash would set the request to be absolute, regardless of the class level mapping, but it seems to be ignored.
Is one or the other considered better practice?
In the Spring documentation, they seem to always use the pre-slash. Are there any practical benefits to doing that?
Thanks,
idb.

According to the spring documentation, having a class level #RequestMapping annotation implies that all method level #RequestMappings will be relative to that of the class'.
It might be nice however, to have the ability to override the relative mappings in some rare cases.

I personally prefer to add pre-slash in value of #RequestMapping. In code level you can see: If the value does not start with an / then Spring (DefaultAnnotationHandlerMapping) will add it. Details answer you can visit: Use or not leading slash in value for #RequestMapping. Need official docs or point to Spring source?

Related

How to map a path to multiple controllers?

I'm currently working on a spring based web application and have a special requirement that seems not (at least not out of the box) be provided by spring MVC. The application serves data for multiple users each organized in their own "company". Once a user has logged in, I'm able to identify to which company he belongs to.
The application itself is built with multiple "modules", each with it's own domain objects, DAO, Service and Controller classes. The idea behind this concept is that I can for example extend a certain controller class (let's say to use a different service class) based upon the user and here is my problem.
Since i do not want to change my request paths for certain users, I'm currently looking for a way how to serve a request issued on a certain request path with different instances of a controller based upon the user issuing the request.
I came up with the idea to attach a HTTP Header Field for the company
Example:
X-Company:12345
and have my controllers configured like this:
#Controller
#RequestMapping(value="/foo/")
public class FooController {
// ...
}
#Controller
#RequestMapping(value="/foo" headers="X-Company=12345")
public class SpecialFooController extends FooController {
// ...
}
However this is not possible, since spring MVC treats each header (except Content-Type and Accept) as a kind of restriction, so in my case it would handle all requests with the FooController instead of the SpecialFooController unless i add a "headers" restriction on the FooController as well, which is not practicable.
Is there some way how to customize this behaviour or some direction one could point me to look for? Or maybe someone has another idea how to achieve this. It'll be highly appreciated.
Thanks!
I'am not sure but I think you can do this with HandlerMapping. Have a look at the documentation
To take your own suggestion, you can use the #RequestHeader annotation in your controller methods:
#Controller
public class MyController {
#RequestMapping("/someAction")
public void myControllerMethod(#RequestHeader('X-Company-Id') String companyId) {
}
}
Or you could use #PathVariable:
#Controller
public class MyController {
#RequestMapping("/{companyId}/someAction")
public void myControllerMethod(#PathVariable("companyId") String companyId) {
}
}
Using this approach would mean that it is in fact different URLs for each company, but if you can set the company id header, I guess you also can suffix the URLs with the company id.
But there are also other possibilities. You could write an interceptor that puts the company id in a session or request variable. Then you wouldn't have to add the annotation to every controller method. You could also use a subdomain for each company, but that wouldn't look too pretty if the company id is a random alphanumeric string. E.g: companyone.mydomain.com, companytwo.mydomain.com
Edit
#RequestMapping can be added to the controller level as you know, so you should be able to do
#Controller
#RequestMapping("/controller/{companyId}")
as the base url, if that's a better option.
I was able to meet the requirement by making usage of a customized RequestCondition. By defining your own annotation that can be placed at the type and method level of a controller. Extending the RequestMappingHandlerMapping by your own implementation and overriding the getCustomTypeCondition() and getCustomMethodCondition() methods translates a controller annotation into your own RequestCondition.
When a request comes in, the custom RequestCondition will be evaluated and the annotated controller(method) will then be called to serve the request. However this has the downside, that one needs to remove a servlet-context.xml file and switch to the WebMvcConfigurationSupport class instead in order to be able to use your customized RequestMappingHandlerMapping class.
This question was also discussed here.
Edit:
A pretty good example using this can be found here.

Bean Validation for POST requisition in JAX-RS with Jersey implementation

I'm using the Jersey implementation for JAX-RS, and I was looking for an example where I can use the Bean Validation in POST requisitions. I have this operation, for example:
#POST
#Path("document/annotations/save")
#Produces("application/json")
#Consumes(MediaType.APPLICATION_FORM_URLENCODED)
public Map<String, Object> saveAnnotation(
#FormParam("user") String userStr,
#FormParam("documentId") String documentId,
#FormParam("documentPage") Integer documentPage,
#FormParam("annotationContent") String annotationContent,
#FormParam("annotationId") Long annotationId,
#FormParam("isMobile") Boolean isMobile) { // the code... }
I wanna use validations constraints (#NotNull, #Pattern, etc) for each method param. I saw this doc where they're using the Seam Framework to do that.
Currently, I'm trying to use the javax.validation implementation to validate my requests, but it doesn't working.
Is there a way to use the JSR-303 specification with JAX-RS?
Tnks.
This is currently not possible using Jersey; one possible alternative is to write a customer resource filter and bind to the #NotNull, etc. annotations.
It would be simpler if it was encapsulated in a resource class because you could then bind to a #Valid annotation on your method and validate the bean in one shot.
Because JSR-303 is designed to deal with beans and not a collection of parameters then it ends up being very verbose when you try to bend it to your will.
IMHO it's better not to keep validation inside your class anyway and to either use the pipes and filters pattern, i.e. ContainerRequestFilter, or to use something like AspectJ as #Willy suggested.
It's possible. See docs for latest Jersey
https://jersey.java.net/documentation/latest/bean-validation.html#d0e9380
https://jersey.java.net/documentation/latest/bean-validation.html

Accessing Spring Controller Name from View

With Spring, how can i retrieve the following Controller attributes in the view?
Controller name
Controller's #RequestMapping URI
Action method name
Action method's #RequestMapping URI
One approach which i have tried is by creating a subclass of HandlerInterceptorAdapter and overriding postHandle. I register my subclass as an mvc:interceptor for a list of given paths - which is clunky to maintain but was the only way to avoid my interceptor being called for ResourceHandler requests (which i don't want). In my postHandle i can easily add the 2 name attributes, but not the URIs...
Parsing from the HttpRequest object requires constraints on all Controller RequestMappings. I.e. i must always map /Controller/Action or equiv scheme. Quite limiting.
Creating an ApplicationContext and querying that with the requestURI is too long-winded.
I am thinking about dropping the HandlerInterceptorAdapter and instead defining a BaseController for all my controllers to extend.
I wanted to ask before i do this, is there a better approach?
You haven't stated why you need to do this (it sometimes helps to include your motivation, as others can suggest alternative approaches).
But I'm guessing that the Spring 3.1 features loosely termed "end point documentation" may do what you are asking... See RequestMappingHandlerMapping in the Spring documentation which doesn't provide a lot of detail, so this example project is the best place to see it in action:
Spring MVC 3.1 Demo App
example controller
example JSP page

Spring 3.1.RC1 and PATH_WITHIN_HANDLER_MAPPING_ATTRIBUTE

Posted in spring forum with no response.
I have the following code snippet (from here), which is part of my pet project.
#Controller
#RequestMapping("/browse")
public class MediaBrowser {
...
#RequestMapping("/**")
public final ModelAndView listContents(final HttpServletRequest request) {
String folder = (String) request.getAttribute(
HandlerMapping.PATH_WITHIN_HANDLER_MAPPING_ATTRIBUTE);
...
}
I access the following url:
http://localhost:8080/myapp/browse
In spring 3.0.6.RELEASE, I got the folder variable as null, which is the expected value.
In spring 3.1.RC1, the folder variable is /browse.
Is this a bug or has something changed in spring-3.1?
As skaffman said, you probably shouldn't use PATH_WITHIN_HANDLER_MAPPING_ATTRIBUTE. Take a look at How to match a Spring #RequestMapping having a #pathVariable containing "/"? for an example of using AntPathMatcher to accomplish what you are trying
This looks very much like an internal implementation detail of the framework, one that you should not be relying on.
The javadoc for PATH_WITHIN_HANDLER_MAPPING_ATTRIBUTE says:
Note: This attribute is not required to be supported by all HandlerMapping implementations. URL-based HandlerMappings will typically support it, but handlers should not necessarily expect this request attribute to be present in all scenarios.
I wouldn't be surprised if the behaviour changed slightly between 3.0 and 3.1.

Spring: controller inheritance using #Controller annotation

I'd like to be able to create a base controller in my Spring app that, among other things, determines if a user is a registered user or not. This base controller, following the template design pattern, would contain an abstract protected method that controller subclasses would implement.
The abstract method would have passed to it an instance of User, registered or otherwise. However, I have no idea how I would do this since it seems that by using controllers purely using the #Controller annotation each controller is free to define their request handling method however they like.
Would creating some sort of user service class that is injected into each controller and used to validate a user be one way to get around this? This begs the question (at least for me) how does such a controller get a hold of a HttpServletRequest or the Session object?
Thanks.
Define an abstract BaseController, with no annotations
Define concrete and abstract methods
Call these methods from subclasses (which are annotated with #Controller) whenever needed.
I think the Base Controller is not a good idea if the only code it is to have is for UserAuthentication...instead use Spring security. This is the best option.
Alternatively, you can have methods like this...take a look at the Spring reference..
#Controller("loginController")
public class LoginController {
#RequestMapping(value="/login.do", method=RequestMethod.POST)
public String login(Model model, HttpServletRequest request) {
String userIdFromRequest = (String)request.getParameter("userId");
String password = (String)request.getParameter("password");
boolean verified = ...send userIdFromRequest and password to the user service for
verification...
if (verified){
request.getSession().setAttribute("userId", userIdFromRequest);
}
}
//More Methods
}
Did it help?
-SB
The basic problem is that annotational bootstrapping is not polymorphic. I found this paper useful: http://sanguinecomputing.com/design-pattern-for-hierarchical-controller-organization-with-annotational-configuration-spring-mvc-3/

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