Problems sending multiple objects through POST and SPRING-MVC

Question

I'm developing REST services which have to receive multiple info. In this case, two objects and an attribute.

This is the javascript where I'm testing the POST request

    var user = {
        username: "admin",
        password: "admin"
    };
    var userToSubscribe = {
        username: "newuser",
        password: "newpassword",
        email: "[email protected]"
    };

    var openid = "myopenid";

    $.ajax({
        url: '/myportal/rest/subscribeUser.json',
        type: 'POST',
        dataType: 'json',
        contentType: 'application/json',
        mimeType: 'application/json',
        data: JSON.stringify({ user: user, userToSubscribe: userToSubscribe, openid: openid})    
    });

The POST request:

    JSON


    openid
        "myopenid"

    user
        Object { username="admin", password="admin"}

    userToSubscribe
        Object { username="newuser", password="newpassword", email="[email protected]"}
    Source
    {"user":{"username":"admin","password":"admin"},"userToSubscribe":{"username":"newuser","password":"newpassword","email":"[email protected]"},"openid":"myopenid"}

And the controller which handles the POST:

    @RequestMapping(method=RequestMethod.POST, value="/subscribeUser.json")
public @ResponseBody Message subscribeUser(@RequestBody("user") User user, @RequestBody("userToSubscribe") User userToSubscribe, @RequestParam String openid){
    ...
}

And the error is

POST subscribeUser.json 400 Incorrect request localhost:8080 990 B [::1]:8080

What am i doing wrong?

Thank you

Thanks for answering me @Jk1. There is no exception in the logs. It seems that the POST is malformed and does not reach the controller :/ but i don't know what i'm doing wrong. — mannuk
– mannuk, Commented Oct 29, 2013 at 9:50
Even if request is rejected before reaching the controller exception is usualy logged. In case of Tomcat (for example) it will go in catalina.out by default. I suggest to look for the server side exception. It may also be some intermediate network agent, like proxy, which is rejecting the request long before the target server. — Jk1
– Jk1, Commented Oct 29, 2013 at 9:56
If I simplify the method only including the user and the post instead of doing Json.Stringfy including in the data directly: '{"user":{"username":"john","password":"johnjohn"}}' the controller is reached but the object User is not filled. — mannuk
– mannuk, Commented Oct 29, 2013 at 10:06

Chinmay · Accepted Answer · 2015-01-09 13:58:49Z

13

The request body will contain the entire JSON content. So when you want to map the JSON, you use only one RequestBody annotated-parameter. You will have to do something like this:

public @ResponseBody Message subscribeUser(@RequestBody String str)
ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
JsonNode node = mapper.readTree(str);

And then use the convertValue method of the mapper to get your different objects from the string.

JsonNode node = mapper.readTree(str);
User theUser = mapper.convertValue(node.get("user"), User.class);

Similarly for the other objects

edited Jan 9, 2015 at 13:58

answered Oct 30, 2013 at 8:56

Chinmay

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2 Comments

Don Cheadle Over a year ago

I don't understand why Jackson can't do this when it's mapping the JSON to the controller parameter. It does it in other cases when you have a single model - what's preventing it from doing it here? How come it can handle other @RequestParam's, but not one that's a model if there's any other @RequestParam's?

btiernay Over a year ago

No need to create an ObjectMapper each time as it is threadsafe. Better to store an ObjectReader in a static variable as a final field.

CodeChimp · Accepted Answer · 2013-10-29 14:01:21Z

2

You cannot use @ModelAttributes in a RESTful method that accepts JSON. I believe the proper method is to use @RequestBody, as done here. You will most likely need to wrap the objects in some wrapper class, but I could be wrong there as I have never personally tried to pass multiple JSON objects in one request before.

That said, I think it would be a good idea if you rethought your REST api, removing the JSON arguments and instead passing them in as part of the URI path, if possible. I would suggest reading through this blog post.

answered Oct 29, 2013 at 14:01

CodeChimp

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3 Comments

mannuk Over a year ago

Yes, I realised that ModelAttribute was not correct. I replaced ModelAttribute by RequestBody but it doesn't work as expected. I realised that i can't send multiple objects of different classes with JSON as i want with getElements(RequestBody ObjectType1, RequestBody ObjectType2..). It's possible send a list of the same object or sending different objects but you have to receive them as Map<String,Object>

CodeChimp Over a year ago

You can receive it as a String, then parse the JSON on your own. However, I still think you should consider simplifying the API and using the URI path as part of the input.

mannuk Over a year ago

Would you mind to explain more details about what you are talking about? Thank you

Matthias Wünsch · Accepted Answer · 2017-10-05 13:26:23Z

0

You can create a java bean(POJO) containing all the objects like..

class JavaBean{
    private User user;
    private UserTOSubscribe  userToSubscribe;
    private Long openId;

    // getter and setter
}

and pass this bean in to the Web service. so web service looks like..

@RequestMapping(method=RequestMethod.POST, value="/subscribeUser.json")
public @ResponseBody Message subscribeUser(@RequestBody JavaBean javaBean) {
    ...
}

edited Oct 5, 2017 at 13:26

Matthias Wünsch

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answered Oct 5, 2017 at 12:09

Harish Bagora

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