Question
Using HTTP dev client with Post request and Content-Type application/x-www- form-urlencoded
1) Only @RequestBody
URL: localhost:8080/SpringMVC/welcome
Body: name=abc
@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.POST)
public String printWelcome(@RequestBody String body, Model model) {
model.addAttribute("message", body);
return "hello";
}
// Gives body as 'name=abc' as expected
2) Only @RequestParam
URL: localhost:8080/SpringMVC/welcome
In Body - name=abc
@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.POST)
public String printWelcome(@RequestParam String name, Model model) {
model.addAttribute("name", name);
return "hello";
}
// Gives name as 'abc' as expected
3) Both together
URL: localhost:8080/SpringMVC/welcome
Body: name=abc
@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.POST)
public String printWelcome(
@RequestBody String body,
@RequestParam String name, Model model)
{
model.addAttribute("name", name);
model.addAttribute("message", body);
return "hello";
}
// HTTP Error Code 400 - The request sent by the client was syntactically incorrect.
4) Above with params position changed
URL: localhost:8080/SpringMVC/welcome
Body: name=abc
@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.POST)
public String printWelcome(
@RequestParam String name,
@RequestBody String body, Model model)
{
model.addAttribute("name", name);
model.addAttribute("message", body);
return "hello";
}
// No Error. Name is 'abc'. body is empty
5) Together but get type url parameters
URL: localhost:8080/SpringMVC/welcome?name=xyz
Body: name=abc
@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.POST)
public String printWelcome(
@RequestBody String body,
@RequestParam String name, Model model)
{
model.addAttribute("name", name);
model.addAttribute("message", body);
return "hello";
}
// name is 'xyz' and body is 'name=abc'
6) Same as 5) but with parameters position changed
@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.POST)
public String printWelcome(
@RequestParam String name,
@RequestBody String body, Model model)
{
model.addAttribute("name", name);
model.addAttribute("message", body);
return "hello";
}
// name = 'xyz,abc' body is empty
Can someone explain this behaviour?
Answer
The @RequestBody
javadoc states
Annotation indicating a method parameter should be bound to the body of the web request.
It uses registered instances of HttpMessageConverter
to deserialize the
request body into an object of the annotated parameter type.
And the @RequestParam
javadoc states
Annotation which indicates that a method parameter should be bound to a web request parameter.
-
Spring binds the body of the request to the parameter annotated with
@RequestBody
. -
Spring binds request parameters from the request body (url-encoded parameters) to your method parameter. Spring will use the name of the parameter, ie.
name
, to map the parameter. -
Parameters are resolved in order. The
@RequestBody
is processed first. Spring will consume all theHttpServletRequest
InputStream
. When it then tries to resolve the@RequestParam
, which is by defaultrequired
, there is no request parameter in the query string or what remains of the request body, ie. nothing. So it fails with 400 because the request can't be correctly handled by the handler method. -
The handler for
@RequestParam
acts first, reading what it can of theHttpServletRequest
InputStream
to map the request parameter, ie. the whole query string/url-encoded parameters. It does so and gets the valueabc
mapped to the parametername
. When the handler for@RequestBody
runs, there's nothing left in the request body, so the argument used is the empty string. -
The handler for
@RequestBody
reads the body and binds it to the parameter. The handler for@RequestParam
can then get the request parameter from the URL query string. -
The handler for
@RequestParam
reads from both the body and the URL query String. It would usually put them in aMap
, but since the parameter is of typeString
, Spring will serialize theMap
as comma separated values. The handler for@RequestBody
then, again, has nothing left to read from the body.