How Do You Configure Spring MVC @PathVariables to Accept Strings Containing Dashes?

Question

Given the following request mapping on a Spring MVC controller:

@RequestMapping(method=GET, value="/users/{name}")
ModelAndView findUser(@PathVariable String name) {
    ...
}

How can I make it accept a @PathVariable with a dash in it?

The following works, passing in fred as the name:

GET /users/fred

However the following does not work, passing in null in place of the name:

GET /users/u-fred

I would appreciate suggestions on how to define the @PathVariable so it can accept dashed strings, for example, u-fred.

Thanks.

Just curious... do you have somesort of @InitBinder that will cause this problem? A string with dash(es) in it works fine for me, I use it a lot in my projects. — limc
– limc, Commented Jan 28, 2011 at 23:57
Dashes and underscores are perfectly legal characters if URL encoding is not used. I suppose you could do {foo}-{bar} and have 2 params, but that is completely unnecessary. — hisdrewness
– hisdrewness, Commented Jan 29, 2011 at 4:43

Bozho · Accepted Answer · 2011-01-28 22:25:21Z

2

I just tested that with my spring-mvc 3.0.5 application and it works fine with a dash:

make sure you are running the latest version
make sure you are tracking the correct request (and not some fake one, for example a forgotten ajax request)

edited Jan 28, 2011 at 22:25

answered Jan 28, 2011 at 22:02

Bozho

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5 Comments

SingleShot Over a year ago

Thanks. I want a variable containing a dash ("-") not a slash ("/"). I am on the latest version of Spring and am doing straight HTTP calls (no ajax, etc.).

Bozho Over a year ago

@SingleShot - sorry, a typo - I tried with a dash and it worked.

gigadot Over a year ago

Yes, spring-mvc 3.0.5 works with dash. I have just tested it two days ago.

Caps Over a year ago

Yep I can verify that too. One of our applications uses dashes in every request.

Dawngerpony Over a year ago

This also works fine for me. I was very confused by the 404 page I was receiving until I worked out that I had forgotten to add @ResponseBody to my method signature. I was mistaking a 404 for Spring failing to find my method. Just adding this in case anyone is doing a similarly idiotic thing.

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