Spring @PostMapping

last modified October 18, 2023

Spring @PostMapping tutorial shows how to use @PostMapping annotation to map HTTP POST requests onto specific handler methods.

Spring is a popular Java application framework for creating enterprise applications.

@PostMapping

@PostMapping annotation maps HTTP POST requests onto specific handler methods. It is a composed annotation that acts as a shortcut for @RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.POST).

Spring @PostMapping example

The following application uses @PostMapping to create a new resource. In this example, we use annotations to set up a Spring web application.

pom.xml
src
├───main
│   ├───java
│   │   └───com
│   │       └───zetcode
│   │           ├───config
│   │           │       MyWebInitializer.java
│   │           │       WebConfig.java
│   │           ├───controller
│   │           │       MyController.java
│   │           ├───model
│   │           │       Post.java
│   │           └───service
│   │                   PostService.java
│   └───resources
│           logback.xml
└───test
    └───java

This is the project structure.

pom.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0
         http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

    <groupId>com.zetcode</groupId>
    <artifactId>postmappingex</artifactId>
    <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <packaging>war</packaging>

    <properties>
        <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
        <maven.compiler.source>17</maven.compiler.source>
        <maven.compiler.target>17</maven.compiler.target>
        <spring-version>5.3.23</spring-version>
    </properties>

    <dependencies>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
            <artifactId>javax.servlet-api</artifactId>
            <version>4.0.1</version>
            <scope>provided</scope>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
            <version>${spring-version}</version>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.core</groupId>
            <artifactId>jackson-databind</artifactId>
            <version>2.13.4</version>
        </dependency>

    </dependencies>

    <build>
        <plugins>

            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>3.3.2</version>
            </plugin>

            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.eclipse.jetty</groupId>
                <artifactId>jetty-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>9.4.49.v20220914</version>
            </plugin>

        </plugins>
    </build>
</project>

In the pom.xml file we have the project dependencies.

resources/logback.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<configuration>
    <logger name="org.springframework" level="ERROR"/>
    <logger name="com.zetcode" level="INFO"/>

    <appender name="consoleAppender" class="ch.qos.logback.core.ConsoleAppender">
        <encoder>
            <Pattern>%d{HH:mm:ss.SSS} %blue(%-5level) %magenta(%logger{36}) - %msg %n
            </Pattern>
        </encoder>
    </appender>

    <root>
        <level value="INFO" />
        <appender-ref ref="consoleAppender" />
    </root>
</configuration>

The logback.xml is a configuration file for the Logback logging library.

com/zetcode/config/MyWebInitializer.java

package com.zetcode.config;

import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.support.AbstractAnnotationConfigDispatcherServletInitializer;

@Configuration
public class MyWebInitializer extends
        AbstractAnnotationConfigDispatcherServletInitializer {

    @Override
    protected Class<?>[] getRootConfigClasses() {
        return null;
    }

    @Override
    protected Class<?>[] getServletConfigClasses() {

        return new Class[]{WebConfig.class};
    }

    @Override
    protected String[] getServletMappings() {

        return new String[]{"/"};
    }
}

MyWebInitializer registers the Spring DispatcherServlet, which is a front controller for a Spring web application.

@Override
protected Class<?>[] getServletConfigClasses() {

    return new Class[]{WebConfig.class};
}

The getServletConfigClasses returns a web configuration class.

com/zetcode/config/WebConfig.java

package com.zetcode.config;

import org.springframework.context.annotation.ComponentScan;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.config.annotation.EnableWebMvc;

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
@ComponentScan(basePackages = {"com.zetcode"})
public class WebConfig {

}

The WebConfig enables Spring MVC annotations with @EnableWebMvc and configures component scanning for the com.zetcode package.

com/zetcode/controller/MyController.java

package com.zetcode.controller;

import com.zetcode.model.Post;
import com.zetcode.service.PostService;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.http.ResponseEntity;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.GetMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.PostMapping;
import org.springframework.web.util.UriComponents;
import org.springframework.web.util.UriComponentsBuilder;

import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import java.util.Set;

import static org.springframework.http.ResponseEntity.ok;

@Controller
public class MyController {

    @Autowired
    private PostService postService;

    @GetMapping(value="/posts")
    public ResponseEntity<Set<Post>> all() {
        return ok().body(postService.all());
    }

    @PostMapping(value = "/posts")
    public ResponseEntity<Post> createPost(HttpServletRequest request,
                                        UriComponentsBuilder uriComponentsBuilder) {

        var content = request.getParameter("content");

        var post = new Post();
        post.setContent(content);

        post = postService.save(post);

        UriComponents uriComponents =
                uriComponentsBuilder.path("/posts/{id}").buildAndExpand(post.getId());
        var location = uriComponents.toUri();

        return ResponseEntity.created(location).build();
    }
}

MyController provides mappings between request paths and handler methods.

Note: it is a good practice to return the location of the newly created resource in the response header.

@PostMapping(value = "/posts")
public ResponseEntity<Post> createPost(HttpServletRequest request,
                                    UriComponentsBuilder uriComponentsBuilder) {

The @PostMapping maps the createPost method to the /posts URL.

var content = request.getParameter("content");

We get the content parameter of the POST request.

var post = new Post();
post.setContent(content);

post = postService.save(post);

A new post is created and saved with a post service.

UriComponents uriComponents =
    uriComponentsBuilder.path("/posts/{id}").buildAndExpand(post.getId());
var location = uriComponents.toUri();

With UriComponentsBuilder we build the location URI.

return ResponseEntity.created(location).build();

A response entity with the location URI is returned.

com/zetcode/model/Post.java

package com.zetcode.model;

import java.util.Objects;

public class Post {

    private Long id;
    private String content;

    public Post() {

    }

    public Post(Long id, String content) {
        this.id = id;
        this.content = content;
    }

    public Long getId() {
        return id;
    }

    public void setId(Long id) {
        this.id = id;
    }

    public String getContent() {
        return content;
    }

    public void setContent(String content) {
        this.content = content;
    }

    @Override
    public boolean equals(Object o) {
        if (this == o) return true;
        if (o == null || getClass() != o.getClass()) return false;
        Post post = (Post) o;
        return Objects.equals(id, post.id) &&
                Objects.equals(content, post.content);
    }

    @Override
    public int hashCode() {
        return Objects.hash(id, content);
    }
}

This is a simple Post bean. It has two attributes: id and content.

com/zetcode/service/PostService.java

package com.zetcode.service;

import com.zetcode.model.Post;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Service;

import java.util.HashSet;
import java.util.Set;
import java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicLong;

@Service
public class PostService {

    private final AtomicLong counter = new AtomicLong();

    private final Set<Post> posts = new HashSet<>(Set.of(new Post(counter.incrementAndGet(), "Post one"),
            new Post(counter.incrementAndGet(), "Post two"), new Post(counter.incrementAndGet(), "Post three"),
            new Post(counter.incrementAndGet(), "Post four")));


    public Post save(Post p) {

        var post = new Post(counter.incrementAndGet(), p.getContent());
        this.posts.add(post);

        return post;
    }

    public Set<Post> all() {

        return this.posts;
    }
}

A PostService has methods to save a post and return all posts. We do not implement a database layer; instead we use a simple in-memory collection.

$ mvn jetty:run

We run the Jetty server.

$ curl -i -d "content=Post five" -X POST http://localhost:8080/posts
HTTP/1.1 201 Created
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2022 09:10:11 GMT
Location: http://localhost:8080/posts/5
Content-Length: 0
Server: Jetty(9.4.49.v20220914)

A new post is created. Notice the location header.

$ curl localhost:8080/posts
[{"id":3,"content":"Post three"},{"id":4,"content":"Post four"},
{"id":1,"content":"Post one"},{"id":5,"content":"Post five"},{"id":2,"content":"Post two"}]

We get all posts.

In this article we have presented the @PostMapping annotation.

Author

My name is Jan Bodnar and I am a passionate programmer with many years of programming experience. I have been writing programming articles since 2007. So far, I have written over 1400 articles and 8 e-books. I have over eight years of experience in teaching programming.

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