Spring @RequestMapping

http://www.baeldung.com/spring-requestmapping

1. Overview

In this article, we’ll focus on one of the main annotations in Spring MVC –@RequestMapping.

Simply put, the annotation is used to map web requests to Spring Controller methods.

2. @RequestMapping Basics

Let’s start with a simple example – mapping an HTTP request to a method using some basic criteria.

2.1. @RequestMapping – by Path

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@RequestMapping(value = "/ex/foos", method = RequestMethod.GET) @ResponseBody public String getFoosBySimplePath() {     return "Get some Foos"; }

To test out this mapping with a simple curl command, run:

1	curl -i http://localhost:8080/spring-rest/ex/foos

2.2. @RequestMapping – the HTTP Method

The HTTP method parameter has no default – so if we don’t specify a value, it’s going to map to any HTTP request.

Here’s a simple example, similar to the previous one – but this time mapped to an HTTP POST request:

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@RequestMapping(value = "/ex/foos", method = POST) @ResponseBody public String postFoos() {     return "Post some Foos"; }

To test the POST via a curl command:

1	curl -i -X POST http://localhost:8080/spring-rest/ex/foos

3. RequestMapping and HTTP Headers

3.1. @RequestMapping with the headers Attribute

The mapping can be narrowed even further by specifying a header for the request:

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@RequestMapping(value = "/ex/foos", headers = "key=val", method = GET) @ResponseBody public String getFoosWithHeader() {     return "Get some Foos with Header"; }

And even multiple headers via the header attribute of @RequestMapping:

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@RequestMapping(   value = "/ex/foos",   headers = { "key1=val1", "key2=val2" }, method = GET) @ResponseBody public String getFoosWithHeaders() {     return "Get some Foos with Header"; }

To test the operation, we’re going to use the curl header support:

1	curl -i -H "key:val" http://localhost:8080/spring-rest/ex/foos

Note that for the curl syntax for separating the header key and the header value is a colon, same as in the HTTP spec, while in Spring the equals sign is used.

3.2. @RequestMapping Consumes and Produces

Mapping media types produced by a controller method is worth special attention – we can map a request based on its Accept header via the@RequestMapping headers attribute introduced above:

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@RequestMapping(   value = "/ex/foos",   method = GET,   headers = "Accept=application/json") @ResponseBody public String getFoosAsJsonFromBrowser() {     return "Get some Foos with Header Old"; }

The matching for this way of defining the Accept header is flexible – it uses contains instead of equals, so a request such as the following would still map correctly:

1 2	curl -H "Accept:application/json,text/html"   http://localhost:8080/spring-rest/ex/foos

Starting with Spring 3.1, the @RequestMapping annotation now has the producesand the consumes attributes, specifically for this purpose:

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@RequestMapping(   value = "/ex/foos",   method = RequestMethod.GET,   produces = "application/json" ) @ResponseBody public String getFoosAsJsonFromREST() {     return "Get some Foos with Header New"; }

Also, the old type of mapping with the headers attribute will automatically be converted to the new produces mechanism starting with Spring 3.1, so the results will be identical.

This is consumed via curl in the same way:

1 2	curl -H "Accept:application/json"   http://localhost:8080/spring-rest/ex/foos

Additionally, produces support multiple values as well:

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@RequestMapping(   value = "/ex/foos",   method = GET,   produces = { "application/json", "application/xml" } )

Keep in mind that these – the old way and the new way of specifying the acceptheader – are basically the same mapping, so Spring won’t allow them together – having both these methods active would result in:

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Caused by: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Ambiguous mapping found. Cannot map 'fooController' bean method java.lang.String org.baeldung.spring.web.controller   .FooController.getFoosAsJsonFromREST() to { [/ex/foos],   methods=[GET],params=[],headers=[],   consumes=[],produces=[application/json],custom=[] }: There is already 'fooController' bean method java.lang.String org.baeldung.spring.web.controller   .FooController.getFoosAsJsonFromBrowser() mapped.

A final note on the new produces and consumes mechanism – these behave differently from most other annotations: when specified at the type level, the method level annotations do not complement but override the type level information.

And of course, if you want to dig deeper into building a REST API with Spring –check out the new REST with Spring course.

4. RequestMapping with Path Variables

Parts of the mapping URI can be bound to variables via the @PathVariableannotation.

4.1. Single @PathVariable

A simple example with a single path variable:

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@RequestMapping(value = "/ex/foos/{id}", method = GET) @ResponseBody public String getFoosBySimplePathWithPathVariable(   @PathVariable("id") long id) {     return "Get a specific Foo with id=" + id; }

This can be tested with curl:

1	curl http://localhost:8080/spring-rest/ex/foos/1

If the name of the method argument matches the name of the path variable exactly, then this can be simplified by using @PathVariable with no value:

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@RequestMapping(value = "/ex/foos/{id}", method = GET) @ResponseBody public String getFoosBySimplePathWithPathVariable(   @PathVariable String id) {     return "Get a specific Foo with id=" + id; }

Note that @PathVariable benefits from automatic type conversion, so we could have also declared the id as:

1	@PathVariable long id

4.2. Multiple @PathVariable

More complex URI may need to map multiple parts of the URI to multiple values:

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@RequestMapping(value = "/ex/foos/{fooid}/bar/{barid}", method = GET) @ResponseBody public String getFoosBySimplePathWithPathVariables   (@PathVariable long fooid, @PathVariable long barid) {     return "Get a specific Bar with id=" + barid +       " from a Foo with id=" + fooid; }

This is easily tested with a curl in the same way:

1	curl http://localhost:8080/spring-rest/ex/foos/1/bar/2

4.3. @PathVariable with RegEx

Regular expressions can also be used when mapping the @PathVariable; for example, we will restrict the mapping to only accept numerical values for the id:

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@RequestMapping(value = "/ex/bars/{numericId:[\\d]+}", method = GET) @ResponseBody public String getBarsBySimplePathWithPathVariable(   @PathVariable long numericId) {     return "Get a specific Bar with id=" + numericId; }

This will mean that the following URIs will match:

1	http://localhost:8080/spring-rest/ex/bars/1

But this will not:

1	http://localhost:8080/spring-rest/ex/bars/abc

Further reading:

Serve Static Resources with Spring

How to map and handle static resources with Spring MVC - use the simple configuration, then the 3.1 more flexible one and finally the new 4.1 resource resolvers.

Read more →

Getting Started with Forms in Spring MVC

Learn how to work with forms using Spring MVC - mapping a basic entity, submit, displaying errors.

Read more →

Http Message Converters with the Spring Framework

How to configure HttpMessageConverters for a REST API with Spring, and how to use these converters with the RestTemplate.

Read more →

5. RequestMapping with Request Parameters

@RequestMapping allows easy mapping of URL parameters with the@RequestParam annotation. 

We are now mapping a request to a URI such as:

1	http://localhost:8080/spring-rest/ex/bars?id=100

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@RequestMapping(value = "/ex/bars", method = GET) @ResponseBody public String getBarBySimplePathWithRequestParam(   @RequestParam("id") long id) {     return "Get a specific Bar with id=" + id; }

We are then extracting the value of the id parameter using the@RequestParam(“id”) annotation in the controller method signature.

The send a request with the id parameter, we’ll use the parameter support incurl:

1	curl -i -d id=100 http://localhost:8080/spring-rest/ex/bars

In this example, the parameter was bound directly without having been declared first.

For more advanced scenarios, @RequestMapping can optionally define the parameters – as yet another way of narrowing the request mapping:

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@RequestMapping(value = "/ex/bars", params = "id", method = GET) @ResponseBody public String getBarBySimplePathWithExplicitRequestParam(   @RequestParam("id") long id) {     return "Get a specific Bar with id=" + id; }

Even more flexible mappings are allowed – multiple params values can be set, and not all of them have to be used:

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@RequestMapping(   value = "/ex/bars",   params = { "id", "second" },   method = GET) @ResponseBody public String getBarBySimplePathWithExplicitRequestParams(   @RequestParam("id") long id) {     return "Narrow Get a specific Bar with id=" + id; }

And of course, a request to a URI such as:

1	http://localhost:8080/spring-rest/ex/bars?id=100&second=something

Will always be mapped to the best match – which is the narrower match, which defines both the id and the second parameter.

6. RequestMapping Corner Cases

6.1. @RequestMapping – multiple paths mapped to the same controller method

Although a single @RequestMapping path value is usually used for a single controller method, this is just good practice, not a hard and fast rule – there are some cases where mapping multiple requests to the same method may be necessary. For that case, the value attribute of @RequestMapping does accept multiple mappings, not just a single one:

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@RequestMapping(   value = { "/ex/advanced/bars", "/ex/advanced/foos" },   method = GET) @ResponseBody public String getFoosOrBarsByPath() {     return "Advanced - Get some Foos or Bars"; }

Now, both of these curl commands should hit the same method:

1 2	curl -i http://localhost:8080/spring-rest/ex/advanced/foos curl -i http://localhost:8080/spring-rest/ex/advanced/bars

6.2. @RequestMapping – multiple HTTP request methods to the same controller method

Multiple requests using different HTTP verbs can be mapped to the same controller method:

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@RequestMapping(   value = "/ex/foos/multiple",   method = { RequestMethod.PUT, RequestMethod.POST } ) @ResponseBody public String putAndPostFoos() {     return "Advanced - PUT and POST within single method"; }

With curl, both of these will now hit the same method:

1 2	curl -i -X POST http://localhost:8080/spring-rest/ex/foos/multiple curl -i -X PUT http://localhost:8080/spring-rest/ex/foos/multiple

6.3. @RequestMapping – a fallback for all requests

To implement a simple fallback for all requests using a particular HTTP method – for example, for a GET:

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@RequestMapping(value = "*", method = RequestMethod.GET) @ResponseBody public String getFallback() {     return "Fallback for GET Requests"; }

Or even for all requests:

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@RequestMapping(   value = "*",   method = { RequestMethod.GET, RequestMethod.POST ... }) @ResponseBody public String allFallback() {     return "Fallback for All Requests"; }

7. New Request Mapping Shortcuts

Spring Framework 4.3 introduced a few new HTTP mapping annotations, all based on @RequestMapping:

• @GetMapping
• @PostMapping
• @PutMapping
• @DeleteMapping
• @PatchMapping

These new annotations can improve the readability and reduce the verbosity of the code. Let us look at these new annotations in action by creating a RESTful API that supports CRUD operations:

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@GetMapping("/{id}") public ResponseEntity<?> getBazz(@PathVariable String id){     return new ResponseEntity<>(new Bazz(id, "Bazz"+id), HttpStatus.OK); }   @PostMapping public ResponseEntity<?> newBazz(@RequestParam("name") String name){     return new ResponseEntity<>(new Bazz("5", name), HttpStatus.OK); }   @PutMapping("/{id}") public ResponseEntity<?> updateBazz(   @PathVariable String id,   @RequestParam("name") String name) {     return new ResponseEntity<>(new Bazz(id, name), HttpStatus.OK); }   @DeleteMapping("/{id}") public ResponseEntity<?> deleteBazz(@PathVariable String id){     return new ResponseEntity<>(new Bazz(id), HttpStatus.OK); }

A deep dive into these can be found here.

8. Spring Configuration

The Spring MVC Configuration is simple enough – considering that ourFooController is defined in the following package:

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package org.baeldung.spring.web.controller;   @Controller public class FooController { ... }

We simply need a @Configuration class to enable the full MVC support and configure classpath scanning for the controller:

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@Configuration @EnableWebMvc @ComponentScan({ "org.baeldung.spring.web.controller" }) public class MvcConfig {     // }

9. Conclusion

This article focus on the @RequestMapping annotation in Spring – discussing a simple use case, the mapping of HTTP headers, binding parts of the URI with@PathVariable and working with URI parameters and the @RequestParamannotation.

If you’d like to learn how to use another core annotation in Spring MVC, you can explore the @ModelAttribute annotation here.

The full code from the article is available on Github. This is a Maven project, so it should be easy to import and run as it is.

• Pham Vu Minh Hoang

  sorry, how i can get source code from git, i have try but i cann’t

  • Eugen Paraschiv

    The link goes into the relevant submodule of the project – you need
    to go back one level (click on tutorials) and you’ll see the git access
    URI – wich you can use to clone the project:
    https://github.com/eugenp/tutorials

• Cody Burleson

  I really love the way you structured this post. It is extremely informative in a way that’s very easy to scan. I learned a few things I didn’t know about Spring, which I’ve been using for quite a long time now, in just minutes. Thanks for taking the time to share!

  • Eugen Paraschiv

    I’m glad you found the article helpful.

  • Lajos Incze

    +1

  • Jonathan Gibran Hernandez Antu

    I think the same

• grooha

  OK, but what’s about multiple values pass in a 1 param, e.g.? http://…/age=23&fav=12&fav=15

  As you can see, we have two parameters: age, and fav. The fav param. has two values: 12, and 15. Suppose, that there is a class:

  public class MyClass {
  private int age;
  private int fav;
  …

  }

  No problem with a single value for fav – it will be binded to int fav in the MyClass class. But in that case we have two values… I suppose, Spring MVC will bind only the first value (12) to fav, right? What should I do to make this code working?

  • Eugen Paraschiv

    Interesting question – if you have a choice, I would suggest keeping the parameter names unique (you can have the values as comma separated and then parse them out). If that’s not an option, I would try to map it to an array – and if Spring isn’t able to do so, you can always open a JIRA.
    You can always go lower level and simply inject into your controller method the http request, and parse out the parameters yourself.
    Cheers,
    Eugen.

    • grooha

      Thanks for your answer. I’ve considered parsing out all needed params in my controller, maybe it will be the best choice. I will let you know and publish a working solution – maybe it will help someone in the future. Thanks again!

• Manish Sahni

  Hi Eugen,
  Nice informative artice on Rest .How can we pass a Object from the client and handle it in the Rest using Spring.I am new to Rest and seen some articles hat describes we can send it as a JSON string or XML.
  Is thier any other way to achieve this other than these ?

  • Eugen Paraschiv

    Hey Manish – sure, you can map an object passed in the body of the request in your controller layer – you’ll need to use the @RequestBody annotation for that. You can check out this introductory article to see how that works. Hope it helps. Cheers,
    Eugen.

• Tobi Bod

  Great article and summary of RequestMapping! Thanks for your effort!

  • Eugen Paraschiv

    Hey Tobi – glad you found it useful. Cheers,
    Eugen.

• Sanjay Patel

  As I just tested, the default method, when you don’t provide anything, seems to be not only GET as you mention in 2.2, but all. (It always confuses me, and spring documentation seems to be silent on it, so I just thought checked it out.)

  • Eugen Paraschiv

    You’re right – it has no default – nice catch. I’ll update that section. Cheers,
    Eugen.

    • Rubén Pahíno Verdugo

      given that, is 6.3 correct? I mean… you say this:

      To implement a simple fallback for all requests using a SPECIFIC HTTP method:
      @RequestMapping(value = “*”)

      but I understand that that’s the mapping for all methods. Am I wrong?

      Cheers,
      Rubén

      • Eugen Paraschiv

        Same situation – it was missing the method as well – fixed. Thanks for the to the point feedback. Cheers,
        Eugen.

• venkat

  PathVariable with ReqEx syntax seems to be incorrect.

  @RequestMapping(value = “/ex/bars/{numericId:[d]+} , it should be @RequestMapping(value = “/ex/bars/{numericId:[\d]+}

  • Eugen Paraschiv

    Hey Venkat – yes it should. It is like that in the code, but for some reason, the article wasn’t matching that – thanks for pointing it out. Updated.

    • Kisna

      For some reason, few request patterns/paths are being suppressed by Tomcat itself from even before being handled by application. It is easy to reproduce, here is an example: just add /%%test%%/ to path:
      endpoint/api/path/%%blah%%/some.gif

      • Eugen Paraschiv

        Yes, definitely – the request needs to actually make it through Tomcat and hit the servlet in order to even consider the Spring mappings.

• Kisna

  Shouldn’t the fallback suppose to handle all other requests that are not mapped? Don’t see it being handled by debugging, instead get 404 and a “No mapping found” in the logs.

  @RequestMapping(value = “*”, method = RequestMethod.GET)
  public @ResponseBody String getFallback(HttpServletRequest req, Exception exception)
  throws Exception {
  logger.error(“Request=” + req.getRequestURI() + ” not mapped, returning empty “);
  return REDIRECT + “”;
  }

  • Eugen Paraschiv

    Hey Kisna – I wasn’t able to replicate the problem – basically, I couldn’t find any example where the fallback didn’t work. So – if you have an example, open up an issue over on github with the details of that example and I’d be happy to take a look. Cheers,
    Eugen.

• Grant Lay

  Nice article. A question, what is the best way to map a delete function that returns void?

  • Eugen Paraschiv

    A couple of things. First – of course use the DELETE verb, second – return a 204 No Content. Alternatively you can simply return a 200 and tell the client what to do next (if the API is more advanced), but the 204 is a solid simple way to go. Hope it helps. Cheers,
    Eugen.

• Grant Lay

  Handy tips on the params attribute, I was previously using if else statements within a single controller method. Now I can separate into multiple controller methods and it seems much cleaner now.

  Is there a way to achieve the same thing (multiple controller methods) using different @RequestBody types?

• Scott Stanlick

  Great job. Specifying @RequestParam on a controller argument is by default required. It has an attribute you can optionally switch to false. Therefore, specifying the parms again on the @RequestMapping is superflous. Also the @Configuration will automatically scan for components rooted in the same package as the type annotated with @Configuration. I only mention this because less code is better code!

  • Eugen Paraschiv

    Hey Scott – first off, thanks for the feedback – definitely helpful. So – on the fact that the params are optional for the @RequestMapping – yes, pretty much. The only usecase (I’m aware of) for still doing that is to help the handler resolution process by basically narrowing the mapping.
    Now – about the @Configuration scanning its own package – that’s cool, I didn’t know that. In this case however, I’m not sure if that necessarily helps, because the config class may not be in the same package with the controller (it usually isn’t).
    Thanks again for the feedback, and if you notice anything else – keep that coming