HTTP redirect: 301 (permanent) vs. 302 (temporary) in Spring

Question

I want to make a 301 redirect in Spring, So here the piece of code I use

@RequestMapping(value = { "/devices" } , method = RequestMethod.GET)
    private String initGetForm(@ModelAttribute("searchForm") final SearchForm searchForm,
                            BindingResult result, 
                            HttpServletRequest request,
                            HttpServletResponse response,
                            Model model, Locale locale) throws Exception {


        String newUrl = "/devices/en";

        response.setStatus(HttpServletResponse.SC_MOVED_PERMANENTLY);
        response.setHeader("Location", newUrl);
        response.setHeader("Connection", "close");

        return "redirect:" + newUrl;

}

But checking the IE Developer Tools I got this Status 302 Moved Temporarily !

Answer 1

Spring is resetting your response headers when it handles the redirection since you are returning a logical view name with a special redirect prefix.If you want to manually set the headers handle the response yourself without using Spring view resolution. Change your code as follows

@RequestMapping(value = { "/devices" } , method = RequestMethod.GET)
private void initGetForm(@ModelAttribute("searchForm") final SearchForm searchForm,
                                BindingResult result, 
                                HttpServletRequest request,
                                HttpServletResponse response,
                                Model model, Locale locale) throws Exception {

            String newUrl = request.getContextPath() + "/devices/en";
            response.setStatus(HttpServletResponse.SC_MOVED_PERMANENTLY);
            response.setHeader("Location", newUrl);
            response.setHeader("Connection", "close");

    }