Spring MVC annotated controller methods, unable to "find" method for DELETE operation

Question

Here is the actual code:

@RequestMapping(value = "/competitors/{id}", method = RequestMethod.GET)
public Competitor getCompetitor(@PathVariable("id") long id)
{
    Competitor competitor = competitorService.getCompetitorById(id);

    if (null == competitor)
    {
        EmptyResultDataAccessException e = new EmptyResultDataAccessException(1);
        logger.log(Level.WARN, e.getMessage());
        throw e;
    }

    return competitor;
}

@RequestMapping(value = "/competitors/{id}", method = RequestMethod.DELETE)
public String deleteCompetitor(@PathVariable("id") long id)
{
    Competitor competitor = new Competitor();
    competitor.setId(id);
    competitorService.deleteCompetitor(competitor);

    return "Solid gone!";
}

Sending a DELETE request to /competitors/200 results in the error:

"HTTP Status 405 - Request method 'DELETE' not supported"

The logging from Spring confirms that no route to this method can be found:

5559 [tomcat-http--3] DEBUG org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet  - DispatcherServlet with name 'dispatcher' processing DELETE request for [/vrsboserver/competitors/200] 5562 [tomcat-http--3] DEBUG org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.annotation.DefaultAnnotationHandlerMapping
- Matching patterns for request [/competitors/200] are [/competitors/{id}] 5565 [tomcat-http--3] DEBUG org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.annotation.DefaultAnnotationHandlerMapping
- Mapping [/competitors/200] to handler 'com.gtspt.vrsboserver.controllers.CompetitorController@4fe7f80' 5565 [tomcat-http--3] DEBUG org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.WebContentInterceptor  - Looking up cache seconds for [/competitors/200] 5565 [tomcat-http--3] DEBUG org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.WebContentInterceptor  - Applying default cache seconds to [/competitors/200] 5566 [tomcat-http--3] DEBUG org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.annotation.AnnotationMethodHandlerExceptionResolver
- Resolving exception from handler [com.gtspt.vrsboserver.controllers.CompetitorController@4fe7f80]: org.springframework.web.HttpRequestMethodNotSupportedException: Request method 'DELETE' not supported 5567 [tomcat-http--3] DEBUG org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.annotation.ResponseStatusExceptionResolver
- Resolving exception from handler [com.gtspt.vrsboserver.controllers.CompetitorController@4fe7f80]: org.springframework.web.HttpRequestMethodNotSupportedException: Request method 'DELETE' not supported 5568 [tomcat-http--3] DEBUG org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.support.DefaultHandlerExceptionResolver
- Resolving exception from handler [com.gtspt.vrsboserver.controllers.CompetitorController@4fe7f80]: org.springframework.web.HttpRequestMethodNotSupportedException: Request method 'DELETE' not supported 5568 [tomcat-http--3] WARN  org.springframework.web.servlet.PageNotFound  - Request method 'DELETE' not supported

To which my response is "BUH?".

Answer 1

I had same problem. What helps and it's probably not the final solution but is working for me:

Change of annotations and parameters of the method deleteCompetitors. Remove id (method parameter too). Read the id parameter from HttpServletRequest.

@RequestMapping(value = "/competitors", method = RequestMethod.DELETE)
public String deleteCompetitor(HttpServletRequest request)
{
    String idHeader = request.getHeader("id");

    Integer id = Integer.valueOf(idHeader).intValue();

    Competitor competitor = new Competitor();
    competitor.setId(id);
    competitorService.deleteCompetitor(competitor);

    return "Solid gone!";
}

The id parameter is passed by header this way (code of the client - not complete):

DefaultHttpClient httpClient = new DefaultHttpClient();

HttpDelete httpDelete = new HttpDelete...

...

httpDelete.setHeader("id", "123");

...

httpClient.execute(httpDelete);

I'm using the Apache HttpClient.

Answer 2

Normal browser only support get / post.

Spring resolved this by using a hidden parameter, to enable it, add below to your web.xml:

<filter>
    <filter-name>httpMethodFilter</filter-name>
    <filter-class>org.springframework.web.filter.HiddenHttpMethodFilter</filter-class>
</filter>
<filter-mapping>
    <filter-name>httpMethodFilter</filter-name>
    <servlet-name>springDispatcher</servlet-name>
</filter-mapping>