Missing set-cookie header on POST in Spring MVC 3.1

Question

Cookies added to the HttpServletResponse during an $.ajax POST call do not appear in the response header (there is no set-cookie). The same code does function properly during GET requests.

I have the following code in an interceptor postHandle:

public void postHandle(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response,
                           Object handler, ModelAndView modelAndView) throws Exception {
.
.
            Cookie cookie = new Cookie(User.USER_KEY, userAsJson);
            LOGGER.info("Cookie json is: " + userAsJson);
            cookie.setPath("/");
            response.addCookie(cookie);
            LOGGER.info("Header names: " + response.getHeaderNames());
            LOGGER.info("Set-cookie header(s): " + response.getHeaders("Set-Cookie"));
}

I'm seeing this issue when returning from a request to this mapping:

@RequestMapping(value = "/api/user/wait", method = RequestMethod.POST)
@ResponseBody
public User waitingApi(HttpSession session) {

Ajax call parameters:

    var ajaxMessage = {
        url : '/api/user/wait',
        type : 'POST',
        success : waitCallback,
        error : waitErrorCallback
    };

On a GET I see the following in my logs:

Cookie json is: { my valid json object }

Header names: [Set-Cookie]

Set-cookie header(s): [user="{ my valid json object }"; Version=1; Path=/]

On a POST I see the following in my logs:

Cookie json is: { my valid json object }

Header names: [Content-Type, Transfer-Encoding, Date, Server]

Set-cookie header(s): [] <--- this is empty, not redacted

Answer 1

After much time spent with google, I found this post: http://mjremijan.blogspot.ca/2012/06/spring-not-setting-cookie-on-ajax.html

Is short, the postHandle interceptor doesn't do anything when the request hits an operation which has the annotation @ResponseBody. You can set the cookie inside the operation method by adding the response object to the operation parameters and calling addCookie inside the operation.