We Keep Coding

Endpoint with or without parameter in Java

I´m using Spring Boot and I have the endpoint below:
/dashboards/views/{space}/{id}/{filter}
In my context, the filter parameter can exist or can not.
I would like to know if there is some way to represent this context at the endpoint string. I know that in some languages we can do something like this:
/dashboards/views/{space}/{id}/[filter]
Does exist something similar in Java?

Spring #RequestMapping supports array of path Strings. So, it can be achieved like -
#RequestMapping(
path = {
"/dashboards/views/{space}/{id}/{filter}", //with filter
"/dashboards/views/{space}/{id}". //without filter
}
)
Additionally, mark the filter object as #Nullable
#PathVariable #Nullable String filter

Generally, filter data mapped as query parameter rather path variable. You can use an optional query parameter using #RequestParam for this case
#GetMapping("/dashboards/views/")
public String getFoos(#RequestParam(required = false) String filter) {
...
}
And then you can send/skip data
/dashboards/views?filter="data"
/dashboards/views
A good article about #RequestParam here

Spring REST - Is there a way to override the character Spring uses to separate a query parameter into a list of values?

I'm writing a REST API using Spring and have certain clients to the service that cannot or will not change how they call my service.
Normally when sending a query param with a list of values you would just comma delimit the parameter and Spring will do the rest
curl http://host.com/api/endpoint?listParam=1,2,3
And the controller
#GetMapping("/api/endpoint")
public ResponseEntity endpoint(#RequestParam("listParam" List<String> listParam){
// Here, listParam is populated with 1,2,3
}
Unfortunately my clients are going to be passing lists with the bar | delimiter and it simply isn't possible to get them to change that.
Example: curl http://host.com/api/endpoint?listParam=1%7C2%7C3%7C
I would still like to use Spring to break these calls out into lists so I don't have to clutter my code with manual String.split() calls.
What I've already tried:
I found the #InitBinder annotation and wrote the following
#InitBinder
public void initBinder(WebDataBinder dataBinder){
dataBinder.registerCustomEditor(String[].class, new StringArrayPropertyEditor("|"));
}
However, this code doesn't seem to ever be called (watching with breakpoints) and requests using the bar as the delimiter fail with a 400 BAD REQUEST.
Any suggestions would be much appreciated, thanks!

404 is coming due to URL encoding issue.
You need to encode | then it will work, but it will create another problem, params would not be split.
To work around this you need to create a custom conversion that can convert String to Collection. For the custom conversion, you can check the StringToCollectionConverter class. Once you have custom conversion then you can register that service, in any of the configuration classes add following function
#Autowired
void conversionService(GenericConversionService genericConversionService) {
genericConversionService.addConverter(myStringToCollectionConvert());
}
#Bean
public MyStringToCollectionConvert myStringToCollectionConvert() {
return new MyStringToCollectionConvert();
}
In this MyStringToCollectionConvert is class that will parse String and converts to a collection of Strings.

I've accepted Sonus21's answer since his suggestion allowed me to hunt down an example that worked, but my solution was not exactly his.
The class StringToCollectionConverter did in fact exist for me, but it wasn't accessible and I couldn't use it in any way. However, in looking at the interface it implemented (ConditionalGenericConverter) and searching for more examples with Spring converters I eventually settled on the following solution.
The listParam in my question actually refers to a set of Enum values. The first thing I did was rewrite my controller to actually use the Enum values instead of raw Integers.
#GetMapping("/api/endpoint")
public ResponseEntity endpoint(#RequestParam("listParam" List<EnumClass> listParam){
// ...
}
Next, I wrote a Spring Custom Converter (Baeldung Doc)
public class CustomStringToEnumClassListConverter implements Converter<String, List<EnumClass>> {
#Override
public List<EnumClass> convert(String str) {
return Stream.of(
str.split("\\|")) // Here is where we manually delimit the incoming string with bars instead of commas
.map(i -> EnumClass.intToValue(Integer.parseInt(i))) // intToValue is a method I wrote to get the actual Enum for a given int
.collect(Collectors.toList());
}
}
Finally, I wrote a Config Bean and registered this Custom Converter with Spring:
#Configuration
public class WebConfig implements WebMvcConfigurer {
#Override
public void addFormatters(FormatterRegistry registry){
registry.addConverter(new CustomStringToEnumClassListConverter());
}
}
Once all of this was done, Spring automatically populated the listParam list with EnumClass objects.

Spring boot exact comma next to the path variable

I have an spring boot app with 2.1.0.RELEASE version.
I have a path variable in my url like #GetMapping("/{type}/car") and I call my app with:
http://localhost:8080/BMW;AAAAAAAAAAAAA/car
But i get only BMW string. Spring skip exact comma and "AAAAAAAAAAAAA".
I apply a filter and I have a same expereince with it. I wanna get path variable like "BMW;AAAAAAAAAAAAA", but I dont get it.
The reason why I want to filter this kind of call out, because it is a security hole.

Try encoding first, the value will be this BMW%3BAAAAAAAAAAAAA, you can use UriUtils for encoding and decoding.

I find a possible solution:
#Configuration
public class SolutionConfig extends WebMvcConfigurationSupport {
#Override
protected PathMatchConfigurer getPathMatchConfigurer() {
PathMatchConfigurer pathMatchConfigurer = super.getPathMatchConfigurer();
UrlPathHelper urlPathHelper = new UrlPathHelper();
urlPathHelper.setRemoveSemicolonContent(false);
pathMatchConfigurer.setUrlPathHelper(urlPathHelper);
return pathMatchConfigurer;
}
}
Source code link: https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-framework/blob/master/spring-web/src/main/java/org/springframework/web/util/UrlPathHelper.java
Key method name is "removeSemicolonContent".

Is it possible to configure JAX-RS method with variable number of URI parameters?

is it possible to configure GET method to read variable number of URI parameters and interpret them either as variable argument (array) or collection? I know query parameters can be read as list/set but I can't go for them in my case.
E.g.:
#GET
#Produces("text/xml")
#Path("list/{taskId}")
public String getTaskCheckLists(#PathParam("taskId") int... taskId) {
return Arrays.toString(taskId);
}
Thanks in advance

If I understand your question correctly, the #Path annotation can take a regular expression to specify a list of path components. For example, something like:
#GET
#Path("/list/{taskid:.+}")
public String getTaskCheckLists(#PathParam("taskid") List<PathSegment> taskIdList) {
......
}
There's a more extensive example here.

I am not submitting this as an answer as it is merely an edge case on the currently accepted answer which is what I've also used.
In my case (Jersey 1.19) /list/{taskid:.+} would not work for the edge case of zero variable parameters. Changing the RegEx to /list/{taskid:.*} took care of that. See also this article (which seems to be applicable).
Moreover, upon changing the regexp to cardinality indicator to * (instead of +) I also had to deal programmatically with the case of empty strings as I would translate the List<PathSegment> into a List<String> (to pass it into my DB-access code).
The reason I am translating from PathSegment to String is that I didn't want a class from the javax.ws.rs.core package to pollute my Data Access Layer code.
Here's a complete example:
#Path("/listDirs/{dirs:.*}")
#GET
#Produces(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON)
public Response listDirs(#PathParam("dirs") List<PathSegment> pathSegments) {
List<String> dirs = new ArrayList<>();
for (PathSegment pathSegment: pathSegments) {
String path = pathSegment.getPath();
if ((path!=null) && (!path.trim().equals("")))
dirs.add(pathSegment.getPath());
}
List<String> valueFromDB = db.doSomeQuery(dirs);
// construct JSON response object ...
}

can we use spring expressions (spel) in other annotations?

I want to be able to do this:
#Controller
#RequestMapping("/#{handlerMappingPaths.security}/*")
public class SecurityController {
etc
//for instance, to resuse the value as a base for the folder resolution
#Value("#{handlerMappingPaths.security}/")
public String RESOURCE_FOLDER;
#RequestMapping(value="/signin-again", method = RequestMethod.GET)
public String signinAgainHandler() {
return RESOURCE_FOLDER + "signin_again";
}
}
this doesn't appear to work now, am I missing something?

One way you can find out things like this is to have a look yourself. This is an example for eclipse, but it should work similarly for other IDEs:
First of all, make sure you have the sources of the spring libraries you are using. This is easiest if you use maven, using the maven-eclipse-plugin or using m2eclipse.
Then, in Eclipse select Navigate -> Open Type.... Enter the type you are looking for (something like RequestMa* should do for lazy typers like myself). Enter / OK. Now right-click the class name in the source file and select References -> Project. In the search view, all uses of this class or annotation will appear.
One of them is DefaultAnnotationHandlerMapping.determineUrlsForHandlerMethods(Class, boolean), where this code snippet will tell you that expression language is not evaluated:
ReflectionUtils.doWithMethods(currentHandlerType, new ReflectionUtils.MethodCallback() {
public void doWith(Method method) {
RequestMapping mapping = AnnotationUtils.findAnnotation(
method, RequestMapping.class);
if (mapping != null) {
String[] mappedPatterns = mapping.value();
if (mappedPatterns.length > 0) {
for (String mappedPattern : mappedPatterns) {
// this is where Expression Language would be parsed
// but it isn't, as you can see
if (!hasTypeLevelMapping && !mappedPattern.startsWith("/")) {
mappedPattern = "/" + mappedPattern;
}
addUrlsForPath(urls, mappedPattern);
}
}
else if (hasTypeLevelMapping) {
urls.add(null);
}
}
}
}, ReflectionUtils.USER_DECLARED_METHODS);
Remember, it's called Open Source. There's no point in using Open Source Software if you don't try to understand what you are using.

Answering in 2020: with current Spring versions, SpEL expressions can be used in #RquestMappning annotations.
They are correctly parsed.
Inner details:
Spring's RequestMappingHandlerMapping calls embeddedValueResolver#resolveStringValue.
JavaDoc of EmbeddedValueResolver states the following:
StringValueResolver adapter for resolving placeholders and expressions
against a ConfigurableBeanFactory. Note that this adapter resolves
expressions as well, in contrast to the
ConfigurableBeanFactory.resolveEmbeddedValue method. The
BeanExpressionContext used is for the plain bean factory, with no
scope specified for any contextual objects to access.
Since: 4.3
This means both regular placeholders (e.g. ${my.property}) and SpEL expressions will be parsed.
Note that because regular placeholders are parsed first and SpEL expressions are parsed later, it's even possible to set the value of a property to a SpEL expression. Spring will first replace the placeholder with the property value (SpEL expression) and then parse the SpEL expression.

#Sean answered the question of whether spring supported this, but I also wanted to answer the question of just generally how not to duplicate configuration when using annotations. Turns out this is possible using static imports, as in:
import static com.test.util.RequestMappingConstants.SECURITY_CONTROLLER_PATH
#Controller
#RequestMapping("/" + SECURITY_CONTROLLER_PATH + "/*")
public class SecurityController {
etc
//for instance, to resuse the value as a base for the folder resolution
public String RESOURCE_FOLDER = SECURITY_CONTROLLER_PATH + "/";
#RequestMapping(value="/signin-again", method = RequestMethod.GET)
public String signinAgainHandler() {
return RESOURCE_FOLDER + "signin_again";
}
}