Get Parameter Encoding - spring

Question

I have a problem using spring mvc and special chars in a GET request. Consider the following method:
#RequestMapping("/update")
public Object testMethod(#RequestParam String name) throws IOException {
}
to which I send a GET request with name containing an "ä" (german umlaut), for instance. It results in spring receiving "ä" because the browser maps "ä" to %C3%A4.
So, how can I get the correct encoded string my controller?
Thanks for your help!

Answer 1

You're having this problem, because the request differentiates between body encoding and URI encoding. A CharacterEncodingFilter sets the body encoding, but not the URI encoding.
You need to set URIEncoding="UTF-8" as an attribute in all your connectors in your Tomcat server.xml. See here: http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-6.0-doc/config/ajp.html
Or, alternatively, you can set useBodyEncodingForURI="True".
If you're using the maven tomcat plugin, just add this parameter:
mvn -Dmaven.tomcat.uriEncoding=UTF-8 tomcat:run

Answer 2

What about this? Could it help?
In your web.xml:
<filter>
<filter-name>CharacterEncodingFilter</filter-name>
<filter-class>com.example.CharacterEncodingFilter</filter-class>
<init-param>
<param-name>encoding</param-name>
<param-value>UTF-8</param-value>
</init-param>
</filter>
<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>CharacterEncodingFilter</filter-name>
<servlet-name>dispatcher</servlet-name>
</filter-mapping>
com.example.CharacterEncodingFilter:
public class CharacterEncodingFilter implements Filter {
protected String encoding;
public void init(FilterConfig filterConfig) throws ServletException {
encoding = filterConfig.getInitParameter("encoding");
}
public void doFilter(ServletRequest servletRequest, ServletResponse servletResponse,
FilterChain filterChain) throws IOException, ServletException {
HttpServletRequest request = (HttpServletRequest) servletRequest;
request.setCharacterEncoding(encoding);
filterChain.doFilter(servletRequest, servletResponse);
}
public void destroy() {
encoding = null;
}
}