6 Essential Ways to Read Request Parameters in Spring Boot

When developing APIs with Spring Boot, reading request parameters is a fundamental operation. Spring Boot provides multiple mechanisms to satisfy different API design requirements. This article summarizes six common ways to read request parameters.

@RequestParam

This is the most frequently used annotation for loading parameters that appear after the ? in a URL query string.

@GetMapping("/user")
@ResponseBody()
public User findUserByName(@RequestParam("name") String name) {
    return userRepo.findByName(name);
}

@PathVariable

Common in RESTful APIs, this annotation loads parameters embedded in the URL path.

@GetMapping("/user/{id}")
@ResponseBody()
public User findUserById(@PathVariable("id") String id) {
    return userRepo.findById(id);
}

@MatrixVariable

Less common, this handles parameters separated by semicolons in the URL, as some foreign systems provide.

@GetMapping("/books/reviews")
@ResponseBody()
public List<BookReview> getBookReviews(@MatrixVariable String isbn, @MatrixVariable Integer topN) {
    return bookReviewsLogic.getTopNReviewsByIsbn(isbn, topN);
}

@RequestBody

Used for loading complex request bodies (payload) in POST/PUT requests.

@PostMapping("/add")
public boolean addAccounts(@RequestBody List<Account> accounts) throws SQLException {
    accounts.stream().forEach(a -> {
        a.setCreatedOn(Timestamp.from(Instant.now()));
        a.setLastLogin(Timestamp.from(Instant.now()));
    });
    return notificationLogic.addAccounts(accounts);
}

@RequestHeader

This annotation loads data from request headers, useful for infrastructure concerns such as passing a TraceID.

@GetMapping("/user")
@ResponseBody()
public List<User> getUserList(@RequestHeader("Authorization") String authToken) {
    return userRepo.findAll();
}

@CookieValue

When stateful interaction with the client is needed, this annotation reads cookie values, such as a SessionId.

@GetMapping("/user")
@ResponseBody()
public List<User> getUserList(@CookieValue(name = "SessionId") String sessionId) {
    return userRepo.findAll();
}