Spring MVC detect ajax request

Question

How to detect an ajax request in the best possible way?

I'm currently using this in my controller:

private boolean isAjax(HttpServletRequest request){
    String header = request.getHeader("x-requested-with");
    if(header != null && header.equals("XMLHttpRequest"))
        return true;
    else
        return false;
}

But I don't like this way, I think there should have a better solution with Spring.

Answer 1

That is the only "generic" way to detect an Ajax request.

But keep in mind: that's not failproof, it is just a best effort attempt, it is possible to make an Ajax request without sending the X-Requested-With headers.

jQuery usually includes that header. Maybe another lib doesn't. The protocol certainly doesn't consider that header mandatory.

---

Just a note: Your code is perfectly valid, though you could write it a bit simpler:

private boolean isAjax(HttpServletRequest request) {
    String requestedWithHeader = request.getHeader("X-Requested-With");
    return "XMLHttpRequest".equals(requestedWithHeader);
}