Who sets response content-type in Spring MVC (@ResponseBody)

Question

I found solution for Spring 3.1. with using @ResponseBody annotation. Here is example of controller using Json output:

@RequestMapping(value = "/getDealers", method = RequestMethod.GET, 
produces = "application/json; charset=utf-8")
@ResponseBody
public String sendMobileData() {

}

Simple declaration of the StringHttpMessageConverter bean is not enough, you need to inject it into AnnotationMethodHandlerAdapter:

<bean class = "org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.annotation.AnnotationMethodHandlerAdapter">
    <property name="messageConverters">
        <array>
            <bean class = "org.springframework.http.converter.StringHttpMessageConverter">
                <property name="supportedMediaTypes" value = "text/plain;charset=UTF-8" />
            </bean>
        </array>
    </property>
</bean>

However, using this method you have to redefine all HttpMessageConverters, and also it doesn't work with <mvc:annotation-driven />.

So, perhaps the most convenient but ugly method is to intercept instantiation of the AnnotationMethodHandlerAdapter with BeanPostProcessor:

public class EncodingPostProcessor implements BeanPostProcessor {
    public Object postProcessBeforeInitialization(Object bean, String name)
            throws BeansException {
        if (bean instanceof AnnotationMethodHandlerAdapter) {
            HttpMessageConverter<?>[] convs = ((AnnotationMethodHandlerAdapter) bean).getMessageConverters();
            for (HttpMessageConverter<?> conv: convs) {
                if (conv instanceof StringHttpMessageConverter) {
                    ((StringHttpMessageConverter) conv).setSupportedMediaTypes(
                        Arrays.asList(new MediaType("text", "html", 
                            Charset.forName("UTF-8"))));
                }
            }
        }
        return bean;
    }

    public Object postProcessAfterInitialization(Object bean, String name)
            throws BeansException {
        return bean;
    }
}

-

<bean class = "EncodingPostProcessor " />

Note that in Spring MVC 3.1 you can use the MVC namespace to configure message converters:

<mvc:annotation-driven>
  <mvc:message-converters register-defaults="true">
    <bean class="org.springframework.http.converter.StringHttpMessageConverter">
      <property name="supportedMediaTypes" value = "text/plain;charset=UTF-8" />
    </bean>
  </mvc:message-converters>
</mvc:annotation-driven>

Or code-based configuration:

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

  private static final Charset UTF8 = Charset.forName("UTF-8");

  @Override
  public void configureMessageConverters(List<HttpMessageConverter<?>> converters) {
    StringHttpMessageConverter stringConverter = new StringHttpMessageConverter();
    stringConverter.setSupportedMediaTypes(Arrays.asList(new MediaType("text", "plain", UTF8)));
    converters.add(stringConverter);

    // Add other converters ...
  }
}

Just in case you can also set encoding by the following way:

@RequestMapping(value = "ajax/gethelp")
public ResponseEntity<String> handleGetHelp(Locale loc, String code, HttpServletResponse response) {
    HttpHeaders responseHeaders = new HttpHeaders();
    responseHeaders.add("Content-Type", "text/html; charset=utf-8");

    log.debug("Getting help for code: " + code);
    String help = messageSource.getMessage(code, null, loc);
    log.debug("Help is: " + help);

    return new ResponseEntity<String>("returning: " + help, responseHeaders, HttpStatus.CREATED);
}

I think using StringHttpMessageConverter is better than this.