How do you set cache headers in Spring MVC?

Question

In an annotation-based Spring MVC controller, what is the preferred way to set cache headers for a specific path?

Answer 1

I just encountered the same problem, and found a good solution already provided by the framework. The org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.WebContentInterceptor class allows you to define default caching behaviour, plus path-specific overrides (with the same path-matcher behaviour used elsewhere). The steps for me were:

1. Ensure my instance of org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.annotation.AnnotationMethodHandlerAdapter does not have the "cacheSeconds" property set.

2. Add an instance of WebContentInterceptor:

   <mvc:interceptors> ... <bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.WebContentInterceptor" p:cacheSeconds="0" p:alwaysUseFullPath="true" >     <property name="cacheMappings">         <props>             <!-- cache for one month -->             <prop key="/cache/me/**">2592000</prop>             <!-- don't set cache headers -->             <prop key="/cache/agnostic/**">-1</prop>         </props>     </property> </bean> ... </mvc:interceptors> 

After these changes, responses under /foo included headers to discourage caching, responses under /cache/me included headers to encourage caching, and responses under /cache/agnostic included no cache-related headers.

---

If using a pure Java configuration:

@EnableWebMvc @Configuration public class WebMvcConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {   /* Time, in seconds, to have the browser cache static resources (one week). */   private static final int BROWSER_CACHE_CONTROL = 604800;    @Override   public void addResourceHandlers(ResourceHandlerRegistry registry) {     registry      .addResourceHandler("/images/**")      .addResourceLocations("/images/")      .setCachePeriod(BROWSER_CACHE_CONTROL);   } } 

See also: http://docs.spring.io/spring-security/site/docs/current/reference/html/headers.html

Answer 2

The answer is quite simple:

@Controller public class EmployeeController {
     @RequestMapping(value = "/find/employer/{employerId}", method = RequestMethod.GET)     public List getEmployees(@PathVariable("employerId") Long employerId, final HttpServletResponse response) {         response.setHeader("Cache-Control", "no-cache");         return employeeService.findEmployeesForEmployer(employerId);     }
 } 

Code above shows exactly what you want to achive. You have to do two things. Add "final HttpServletResponse response" as your parameter. And then set header Cache-Control to no-cache.