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Web on Reactive Stack

Version 5.2.1.RELEASE

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1. Spring WebFlux
1.1. Overview
1.1.1. Define “Reactive”
1.1.2. Reactive API
1.1.3. Programming Models
1.1.4. Applicability
1.1.5. Servers
1.1.6. Performance
1.1.7. Concurrency Model
1.2. Reactive Core
1.2.1. HttpHandler
1.2.2. WebHandler API
Special bean types
Form Data
Multipart Data
Forwarded Headers
1.2.3. Filters
CORS
1.2.4. Exceptions
1.2.5. Codecs
Jackson JSON
Form Data
Multipart
Limits
Streaming
DataBuffer

1.2.6. Logging
Log Id
Sensitive Data
1.3. DispatcherHandler
1.3.1. Special Bean Types
1.3.2. WebFlux Config
1.3.3. Processing
1.3.4. Result Handling
1.3.5. Exceptions
1.3.6. View Resolution
Handling
Redirecting

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Content Negotiation
1.4. Annotated Controllers
1.4.1. @Controller
1.4.2. Request Mapping
URI Patterns
Pattern Comparison
Consumable Media Types
Producible Media Types
Parameters and Headers
HTTP HEAD, OPTIONS
Custom Annotations
Explicit Registrations
1.4.3. Handler Methods
Method Arguments
Return Values
Type Conversion
Matrix Variables
@RequestParam

@RequestHeader

@CookieValue

@ModelAttribute

@SessionAttributes

@SessionAttribute

@RequestAttribute

Multipart Content
@RequestBody

HttpEntity

@ResponseBody

ResponseEntity

Jackson JSON
1.4.4. Model
1.4.5. DataBinder
1.4.6. Managing Exceptions
REST API exceptions
1.4.7. Controller Advice
1.5. Functional Endpoints
1.5.1. Overview
1.5.2. HandlerFunction
ServerRequest

ServerResponse

Handler Classes
Validation
1.5.3. RouterFunction
Predicates
Routes
Nested Routes
1.5.4. Running a Server
1.5.5. Filtering Handler Functions

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1.6. URI Links

1.6.1. UriComponents
1.6.2. UriBuilder
1.6.3. URI Encoding
1.7. CORS
1.7.1. Introduction
1.7.2. Processing
1.7.3. @CrossOrigin
1.7.4. Global Configuration
1.7.5. CORS WebFilter
1.8. Web Security
1.9. View Technologies
1.9.1. Thymeleaf
1.9.2. FreeMarker
View Configuration
FreeMarker Configuration
Form Handling
1.9.3. Script Views
Requirements
Script Templates
1.9.4. JSON and XML
1.10. HTTP Caching
1.10.1. CacheControl
1.10.2. Controllers
1.10.3. Static Resources
1.11. WebFlux Config
1.11.1. Enabling WebFlux Config
1.11.2. WebFlux config API
1.11.3. Conversion, formatting
1.11.4. Validation
1.11.5. Content Type Resolvers
1.11.6. HTTP message codecs
1.11.7. View Resolvers
1.11.8. Static Resources
1.11.9. Path Matching
1.11.10. Advanced Configuration Mode
1.12. HTTP/2
2. WebClient
2.1. Configuration
2.1.1. Reactor Netty
Resources
Timeouts
2.1.2. Jetty
2.2. retrieve()
2.3. exchange()
2.4. Request Body
2.4.1. Form Data
2.4.2. Multipart Data

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2.5. Client Filters

2.6. Synchronous Use
2.7. Testing
3. WebSockets
3.1. Introduction to WebSocket
3.1.1. HTTP Versus WebSocket
3.1.2. When to Use WebSockets
3.2. WebSocket API
3.2.1. Server
3.2.2. WebSocketHandler
3.2.3. DataBuffer
3.2.4. Handshake
3.2.5. Server Configation
3.2.6. CORS
3.2.7. Client
4. Testing
5. RSocket
5.1. Overview
5.1.1. The Protocol
5.1.2. Java Implementation
5.1.3. Spring Support
5.2. RSocketRequester
5.2.1. Client Requester
Connection Setup
Strategies
Client Responders
Advanced
5.2.2. Server Requester
5.2.3. Requests
5.3. Annotated Responders
5.3.1. Server Responders
5.3.2. Client Responders
5.3.3. @MessageMapping
5.3.4. @ConnectMapping
5.4. MetadataExtractor
6. Reactive Libraries

This part of the documentation covers support for reactive-stack web applications built on a Reactive Streams API to run on non-
blocking servers, such as Netty, Undertow, and Servlet 3.1+ containers. Individual chapters cover the Spring WebFlux framework, the
reactive WebClient , support for testing, and reactive libraries. For Servlet-stack web applications, see Web on Servlet Stack.

1. Spring WebFlux
The original web framework included in the Spring Framework, Spring Web MVC, was purpose-built for the Servlet API and Servlet
containers. The reactive-stack web framework, Spring WebFlux, was added later in version 5.0. It is fully non-blocking, supports
Reactive Streams back pressure, and runs on such servers as Netty, Undertow, and Servlet 3.1+ containers.

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Both web frameworks mirror the names of their source modules (spring-webmvc and spring-webflux) and co-exist side by side in
the Spring Framework. Each module is optional. Applications can use one or the other module or, in some cases, both — for example,
Spring MVC controllers with the reactive WebClient .

1.1. Overview
Why was Spring WebFlux created?

Part of the answer is the need for a non-blocking web stack to handle concurrency with a small number of threads and scale with
fewer hardware resources. Servlet 3.1 did provide an API for non-blocking I/O. However, using it leads away from the rest of the Servlet
API, where contracts are synchronous ( Filter , Servlet ) or blocking ( getParameter , getPart ). This was the motivation for a new
common API to serve as a foundation across any non-blocking runtime. That is important because of servers (such as Netty) that
are well-established in the async, non-blocking space.

The other part of the answer is functional programming. Much as the addition of annotations in Java 5 created opportunities (such
as annotated REST controllers or unit tests), the addition of lambda expressions in Java 8 created opportunities for functional APIs
in Java. This is a boon for non-blocking applications and continuation-style APIs (as popularized by CompletableFuture and
ReactiveX) that allow declarative composition of asynchronous logic. At the programming-model level, Java 8 enabled Spring
WebFlux to offer functional web endpoints alongside annotated controllers.

1.1.1. De ne “Reactive”
We touched on “non-blocking” and “functional” but what does reactive mean?

The term, “reactive,” refers to programming models that are built around reacting to change — network components reacting to I/O
events, UI controllers reacting to mouse events, and others. In that sense, non-blocking is reactive, because, instead of being
blocked, we are now in the mode of reacting to notifications as operations complete or data becomes available.

There is also another important mechanism that we on the Spring team associate with “reactive” and that is non-blocking back
pressure. In synchronous, imperative code, blocking calls serve as a natural form of back pressure that forces the caller to wait. In
non-blocking code, it becomes important to control the rate of events so that a fast producer does not overwhelm its destination.

Reactive Streams is a small spec (also adopted in Java 9) that defines the interaction between asynchronous components with back
pressure. For example a data repository (acting as Publisher) can produce data that an HTTP server (acting as Subscriber) can then
write to the response. The main purpose of Reactive Streams is to let the subscriber to control how quickly or how slowly the
publisher produces data.

Common question: what if a publisher cannot slow down?

The purpose of Reactive Streams is only to establish the mechanism and a boundary. If a publisher cannot slow down, it has to
decide whether to buffer, drop, or fail.

1.1.2. Reactive API

Reactive Streams plays an important role for interoperability. It is of interest to libraries and infrastructure components but less
useful as an application API, because it is too low-level. Applications need a higher-level and richer, functional API to compose async
logic — similar to the Java 8 Stream API but not only for collections. This is the role that reactive libraries play.

Reactor is the reactive library of choice for Spring WebFlux. It provides the Mono and Flux API types to work on data sequences of 0..1
( Mono ) and 0..N ( Flux ) through a rich set of operators aligned with the ReactiveX vocabulary of operators. Reactor is a Reactive
Streams library and, therefore, all of its operators support non-blocking back pressure. Reactor has a strong focus on server-side
Java. It is developed in close collaboration with Spring.

WebFlux requires Reactor as a core dependency but it is interoperable with other reactive libraries via Reactive Streams. As a
general rule, a WebFlux API accepts a plain Publisher as input, adapts it to a Reactor type internally, uses that, and returns either a
Flux or a Mono as output. So, you can pass any Publisher as input and you can apply operations on the output, but you need to
adapt the output for use with another reactive library. Whenever feasible (for example, annotated controllers), WebFlux adapts
transparently to the use of RxJava or another reactive library. See Reactive Libraries for more details.

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In addition to Reactive APIs, WebFlux can also be used with Coroutines APIs in Kotlin which provides a more imperative style of
programming. The following Kotlin code samples will be provided with Coroutines APIs.

1.1.3. Programming Models

The spring-web module contains the reactive foundation that underlies Spring WebFlux, including HTTP abstractions, Reactive
Streams adapters for supported servers, codecs, and a core WebHandler API comparable to the Servlet API but with non-blocking
contracts.

On that foundation, Spring WebFlux provides a choice of two programming models:

Annotated Controllers: Consistent with Spring MVC and based on the same annotations from the spring-web module. Both
Spring MVC and WebFlux controllers support reactive (Reactor and RxJava) return types, and, as a result, it is not easy to tell
them apart. One notable difference is that WebFlux also supports reactive @RequestBody arguments.

Functional Endpoints: Lambda-based, lightweight, and functional programming model. You can think of this as a small library or
a set of utilities that an application can use to route and handle requests. The big difference with annotated controllers is that
the application is in charge of request handling from start to finish versus declaring intent through annotations and being called
back.

1.1.4. Applicability
Spring MVC or WebFlux?

A natural question to ask but one that sets up an unsound dichotomy. Actually, both work together to expand the range of available
options. The two are designed for continuity and consistency with each other, they are available side by side, and feedback from
each side benefits both sides. The following diagram shows how the two relate, what they have in common, and what each supports
uniquely:

We suggest that you consider the following specific points:

If you have a Spring MVC application that works fine, there is no need to change. Imperative programming is the easiest way to
write, understand, and debug code. You have maximum choice of libraries, since, historically, most are blocking.

If you are already shopping for a non-blocking web stack, Spring WebFlux offers the same execution model benefits as others in
this space and also provides a choice of servers (Netty, Tomcat, Jetty, Undertow, and Servlet 3.1+ containers), a choice of
programming models (annotated controllers and functional web endpoints), and a choice of reactive libraries (Reactor, RxJava,
or other).

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If you are interested in a lightweight, functional web framework for use with Java 8 lambdas or Kotlin, you can use the Spring
WebFlux functional web endpoints. That can also be a good choice for smaller applications or microservices with less complex
requirements that can benefit from greater transparency and control.

In a microservice architecture, you can have a mix of applications with either Spring MVC or Spring WebFlux controllers or with
Spring WebFlux functional endpoints. Having support for the same annotation-based programming model in both frameworks
makes it easier to re-use knowledge while also selecting the right tool for the right job.

A simple way to evaluate an application is to check its dependencies. If you have blocking persistence APIs (JPA, JDBC) or
networking APIs to use, Spring MVC is the best choice for common architectures at least. It is technically feasible with both
Reactor and RxJava to perform blocking calls on a separate thread but you would not be making the most of a non-blocking web
stack.

If you have a Spring MVC application with calls to remote services, try the reactive WebClient . You can return reactive types
(Reactor, RxJava, or other) directly from Spring MVC controller methods. The greater the latency per call or the interdependency
among calls, the more dramatic the benefits. Spring MVC controllers can call other reactive components too.

If you have a large team, keep in mind the steep learning curve in the shift to non-blocking, functional, and declarative
programming. A practical way to start without a full switch is to use the reactive WebClient . Beyond that, start small and
measure the benefits. We expect that, for a wide range of applications, the shift is unnecessary. If you are unsure what benefits to
look for, start by learning about how non-blocking I/O works (for example, concurrency on single-threaded Node.js) and its
effects.

1.1.5. Servers
Spring WebFlux is supported on Tomcat, Jetty, Servlet 3.1+ containers, as well as on non-Servlet runtimes such as Netty and
Undertow. All servers are adapted to a low-level, common API so that higher-level programming models can be supported across
servers.

Spring WebFlux does not have built-in support to start or stop a server. However, it is easy to assemble an application from Spring
configuration and WebFlux infrastructure and run it with a few lines of code.

Spring Boot has a WebFlux starter that automates these steps. By default, the starter uses Netty, but it is easy to switch to Tomcat,
Jetty, or Undertow by changing your Maven or Gradle dependencies. Spring Boot defaults to Netty, because it is more widely used in
the asynchronous, non-blocking space and lets a client and a server share resources.

Tomcat and Jetty can be used with both Spring MVC and WebFlux. Keep in mind, however, that the way they are used is very different.
Spring MVC relies on Servlet blocking I/O and lets applications use the Servlet API directly if they need to. Spring WebFlux relies on
Servlet 3.1 non-blocking I/O and uses the Servlet API behind a low-level adapter and not exposed for direct use.

For Undertow, Spring WebFlux uses Undertow APIs directly without the Servlet API.

1.1.6. Performance
Performance has many characteristics and meanings. Reactive and non-blocking generally do not make applications run faster.
They can, in some cases, (for example, if using the WebClient to execute remote calls in parallel). On the whole, it requires more work
to do things the non-blocking way and that can increase slightly the required processing time.

The key expected benefit of reactive and non-blocking is the ability to scale with a small, fixed number of threads and less memory.
That makes applications more resilient under load, because they scale in a more predictable way. In order to observe those benefits,
however, you need to have some latency (including a mix of slow and unpredictable network I/O). That is where the reactive stack
begins to show its strengths, and the differences can be dramatic.

1.1.7. Concurrency Model

Both Spring MVC and Spring WebFlux support annotated controllers, but there is a key difference in the concurrency model and the
default assumptions for blocking and threads.

In Spring MVC (and servlet applications in general), it is assumed that applications can block the current thread, (for example, for
remote calls), and, for this reason, servlet containers use a large thread pool to absorb potential blocking during request handling.

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In Spring WebFlux (and non-blocking servers in general), it is assumed that applications do not block, and, therefore, non-blocking
servers use a small, fixed-size thread pool (event loop workers) to handle requests.

“To scale” and “small number of threads” may sound contradictory but to never block the current thread (and rely on callbacks
instead) means that you do not need extra threads, as there are no blocking calls to absorb.

Invoking a Blocking API

What if you do need to use a blocking library? Both Reactor and RxJava provide the publishOn operator to continue processing on a
different thread. That means there is an easy escape hatch. Keep in mind, however, that blocking APIs are not a good fit for this
concurrency model.

Mutable State

In Reactor and RxJava, you declare logic through operators, and, at runtime, a reactive pipeline is formed where data is processed
sequentially, in distinct stages. A key benefit of this is that it frees applications from having to protect mutable state because
application code within that pipeline is never invoked concurrently.

Threading Model

What threads should you expect to see on a server running with Spring WebFlux?

On a “vanilla” Spring WebFlux server (for example, no data access nor other optional dependencies), you can expect one thread
for the server and several others for request processing (typically as many as the number of CPU cores). Servlet containers,
however, may start with more threads (for example, 10 on Tomcat), in support of both servlet (blocking) I/O and servlet 3.1 (non-
blocking) I/O usage.

The reactive WebClient operates in event loop style. So you can see a small, fixed number of processing threads related to that
(for example, reactor-http-nio- with the Reactor Netty connector). However, if Reactor Netty is used for both client and server,
the two share event loop resources by default.

Reactor and RxJava provide thread pool abstractions, called Schedulers, to use with the publishOn operator that is used to
switch processing to a different thread pool. The schedulers have names that suggest a specific concurrency strategy — for
example, “parallel” (for CPU-bound work with a limited number of threads) or “elastic” (for I/O-bound work with a large number of
threads). If you see such threads, it means some code is using a specific thread pool Scheduler strategy.

Data access libraries and other third party dependencies can also create and use threads of their own.

Configuring

The Spring Framework does not provide support for starting and stopping servers. To configure the threading model for a server, you
need to use server-specific configuration APIs, or, if you use Spring Boot, check the Spring Boot configuration options for each
server. You can configure the WebClient directly. For all other libraries, see their respective documentation.

1.2. Reactive Core

The spring-web module contains the following foundational support for reactive web applications:

For server request processing there are two levels of support.

HttpHandler: Basic contract for HTTP request handling with non-blocking I/O and Reactive Streams back pressure, along with
adapters for Reactor Netty, Undertow, Tomcat, Jetty, and any Servlet 3.1+ container.

WebHandler API: Slightly higher level, general-purpose web API for request handling, on top of which concrete programming
models such as annotated controllers and functional endpoints are built.

For the client side, there is a basic ClientHttpConnector contract to perform HTTP requests with non-blocking I/O and Reactive
Streams back pressure, along with adapters for Reactor Netty and for the reactive Jetty HttpClient. The higher level WebClient
used in applications builds on this basic contract.

For client and server, codecs to use to serialize and deserialize HTTP request and response content.

1.2.1. HttpHandler
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HttpHandler is a simple contract with a single method to handle a request and response. It is intentionally minimal, and its main,
and only purpose is to be a minimal abstraction over different HTTP server APIs.

The following table describes the supported server APIs:

Server name Server API used Reactive Streams support

Netty Netty API Reactor Netty

Undertow Undertow API spring-web: Undertow to Reactive Streams bridge

Tomcat Servlet 3.1 non-blocking I/O; Tomcat API to read spring-web: Servlet 3.1 non-blocking I/O to
and write ByteBuffers vs byte[] Reactive Streams bridge

Jetty Servlet 3.1 non-blocking I/O; Jetty API to write spring-web: Servlet 3.1 non-blocking I/O to
ByteBuffers vs byte[] Reactive Streams bridge

Servlet 3.1 container Servlet 3.1 non-blocking I/O spring-web: Servlet 3.1 non-blocking I/O to
Reactive Streams bridge

The following table describes server dependencies (also see supported versions):

Server name Group id Artifact name

Reactor Netty io.projectreactor.netty reactor-netty

Undertow io.undertow undertow-core

Tomcat org.apache.tomcat.embed tomcat-embed-core

Jetty org.eclipse.jetty jetty-server, jetty-servlet

The code snippets below show using the HttpHandler adapters with each server API:

Reactor Netty

Java Kotlin
JAVA
HttpHandler handler = ...
ReactorHttpHandlerAdapter adapter = new ReactorHttpHandlerAdapter(handler);
HttpServer.create().host(host).port(port).handle(adapter).bind().block();

Undertow

Java Kotlin
JAVA
HttpHandler handler = ...
UndertowHttpHandlerAdapter adapter = new UndertowHttpHandlerAdapter(handler);
Undertow server = Undertow.builder().addHttpListener(port, host).setHandler(adapter).build();
server.start();

Tomcat

Java Kotlin
JAVA
HttpHandler handler = ...
Servlet servlet = new TomcatHttpHandlerAdapter(handler);

Tomcat server = new Tomcat();

File base = new File(System.getProperty("java.io.tmpdir"));

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Context rootContext = server.addContext("", base.getAbsolutePath());
Tomcat.addServlet(rootContext, "main", servlet);
rootContext.addServletMappingDecoded("/", "main");
server.setHost(host);
server.setPort(port);
server.start();

Jetty

Java Kotlin
JAVA
HttpHandler handler = ...
Servlet servlet = new JettyHttpHandlerAdapter(handler);

Server server = new Server();

ServletContextHandler contextHandler = new ServletContextHandler(server, "");
contextHandler.addServlet(new ServletHolder(servlet), "/");
contextHandler.start();

ServerConnector connector = new ServerConnector(server);

connector.setHost(host);
connector.setPort(port);
server.addConnector(connector);
server.start();

Servlet 3.1+ Container

To deploy as a WAR to any Servlet 3.1+ container, you can extend and include AbstractReactiveWebInitializer in the WAR. That class
wraps an HttpHandler with ServletHttpHandlerAdapter and registers that as a Servlet .

1.2.2. WebHandler API

The org.springframework.web.server package builds on the HttpHandler contract to provide a general-purpose web API for
processing requests through a chain of multiple WebExceptionHandler , multiple WebFilter , and a single WebHandler component. The
chain can be put together with WebHttpHandlerBuilder by simply pointing to a Spring ApplicationContext where components are
auto-detected, and/or by registering components with the builder.

While HttpHandler has a simple goal to abstract the use of different HTTP servers, the WebHandler API aims to provide a broader set
of features commonly used in web applications such as:

User session with attributes.

Request attributes.

Resolved Locale or Principal for the request.

Access to parsed and cached form data.

Abstractions for multipart data.

and more..

Special bean types

The table below lists the components that WebHttpHandlerBuilder can auto-detect in a Spring ApplicationContext, or that can be
registered directly with it:

Bean name Bean type Count Description

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Bean name Bean type Count Description

<any> WebExceptionHandler 0..N Provide handling for exceptions from the

chain of WebFilter instances and the target
WebHandler . For more details, see Exceptions.

<any> WebFilter 0..N Apply interception style logic to before and

after the rest of the filter chain and the target
WebHandler . For more details, see Filters.

webHandler WebHandler 1 The handler for the request.

webSessionManager WebSessionManager 0..1 The manager for WebSession instances

exposed through a method on
ServerWebExchange . DefaultWebSessionManager
by default.

serverCodecConfigurer ServerCodecConfigurer 0..1 For access to HttpMessageReader instances for

parsing form data and multipart data that is
then exposed through methods on
ServerWebExchange .
ServerCodecConfigurer.create() by default.

localeContextResolver LocaleContextResolver 0..1 The resolver for LocaleContext exposed

through a method on ServerWebExchange .
AcceptHeaderLocaleContextResolver by default.

forwardedHeaderTransformer ForwardedHeaderTransformer 0..1 For processing forwarded type headers, either

by extracting and removing them or by
removing them only. Not used by default.

Form Data
ServerWebExchange exposes the following method for access to form data:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
Mono<MultiValueMap<String, String>> getFormData();

The DefaultServerWebExchange uses the configured HttpMessageReader to parse form data ( application/x-www-form-urlencoded ) into a
MultiValueMap . By default, FormHttpMessageReader is configured for use by the ServerCodecConfigurer bean (see the Web Handler API).

Multipart Data
Same as in Spring MVC

ServerWebExchange exposes the following method for access to multipart data:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
Mono<MultiValueMap<String, Part>> getMultipartData();

The DefaultServerWebExchange uses the configured HttpMessageReader<MultiValueMap<String, Part>> to parse multipart/form-data

content into a MultiValueMap . At present, Synchronoss NIO Multipart is the only third-party library supported and the only library we
know for non-blocking parsing of multipart requests. It is enabled through the ServerCodecConfigurer bean (see the Web Handler
API).

To parse multipart data in streaming fashion, you can use the Flux<Part> returned from an HttpMessageReader<Part> instead. For
example, in an annotated controller, use of @RequestPart implies Map -like access to individual parts by name and, hence, requires

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parsing multipart data in full. By contrast, you can use @RequestBody to decode the content to Flux<Part> without collecting to a
MultiValueMap .

Forwarded Headers
Same as in Spring MVC

As a request goes through proxies (such as load balancers), the host, port, and scheme may change, and that makes it a challenge,
from a client perspective, to create links that point to the correct host, port, and scheme.

RFC 7239 defines the Forwarded HTTP header that proxies can use to provide information about the original request. There are other
non-standard headers, too, including X-Forwarded-Host , X-Forwarded-Port , X-Forwarded-Proto , X-Forwarded-Ssl , and X-Forwarded-
Prefix .

ForwardedHeaderTransformer is a component that modifies the host, port, and scheme of the request, based on forwarded headers,
and then removes those headers. You can declare it as a bean with a name of forwardedHeaderTransformer , and it is detected and
used.

There are security considerations for forwarded headers, since an application cannot know if the headers were added by a proxy, as
intended, or by a malicious client. This is why a proxy at the boundary of trust should be configured to remove untrusted forwarded
traffic coming from the outside. You can also configure the ForwardedHeaderTransformer with removeOnly=true , in which case it
removes but does not use the headers.

In 5.1 ForwardedHeaderFilter was deprecated and superceded by ForwardedHeaderTransformer so forwarded headers can be
processed earlier, before the exchange is created. If the filter is configured anyway, it is taken out of the list of filters, and
ForwardedHeaderTransformer is used instead.

1.2.3. Filters
Same as in Spring MVC

In the WebHandler API, you can use a WebFilter to apply interception-style logic before and after the rest of the processing chain of
filters and the target WebHandler . When using the WebFlux Config, registering a WebFilter is as simple as declaring it as a Spring
bean and (optionally) expressing precedence by using @Order on the bean declaration or by implementing Ordered .

CORS
Same as in Spring MVC

Spring WebFlux provides fine-grained support for CORS configuration through annotations on controllers. However, when you use it
with Spring Security, we advise relying on the built-in CorsFilter , which must be ordered ahead of Spring Security’s chain of filters.

See the section on CORS and the CORS WebFilter for more details.

1.2.4. Exceptions
Same as in Spring MVC

In the WebHandler API, you can use a WebExceptionHandler to handle exceptions from the chain of WebFilter instances and the target
WebHandler . When using the WebFlux Config, registering a WebExceptionHandler is as simple as declaring it as a Spring bean and
(optionally) expressing precedence by using @Order on the bean declaration or by implementing Ordered .

The following table describes the available WebExceptionHandler implementations:

Exception Handler Description

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Exception Handler Description

ResponseStatusExceptionHandler Provides handling for exceptions of type ResponseStatusException by setting the

response to the HTTP status code of the exception.

WebFluxResponseStatusExceptionHandler Extension of ResponseStatusExceptionHandler that can also determine the HTTP

status code of a @ResponseStatus annotation on any exception.

This handler is declared in the WebFlux Config.

1.2.5. Codecs
Same as in Spring MVC

The spring-web and spring-core modules provide support for serializing and deserializing byte content to and from higher level
objects through non-blocking I/O with Reactive Streams back pressure. The following describes this support:

Encoder and Decoder are low level contracts to encode and decode content independent of HTTP.

HttpMessageReader and HttpMessageWriter are contracts to encode and decode HTTP message content.

An Encoder can be wrapped with EncoderHttpMessageWriter to adapt it for use in a web application, while a Decoder can be
wrapped with DecoderHttpMessageReader .

DataBuffer abstracts different byte buffer representations (e.g. Netty ByteBuf , java.nio.ByteBuffer , etc.) and is what all codecs
work on. See Data Buffers and Codecs in the "Spring Core" section for more on this topic.

The spring-core module provides byte[] , ByteBuffer , DataBuffer , Resource , and String encoder and decoder implementations.
The spring-web module provides Jackson JSON, Jackson Smile, JAXB2, Protocol Buffers and other encoders and decoders along with
web-only HTTP message reader and writer implementations for form data, multipart content, server-sent events, and others.

ClientCodecConfigurer and ServerCodecConfigurer are typically used to configure and customize the codecs to use in an application.
See the section on configuring HTTP message codecs.

Jackson JSON
JSON and binary JSON (Smile) are both supported when the Jackson library is present.

The Jackson2Decoder works as follows:

Jackson’s asynchronous, non-blocking parser is used to aggregate a stream of byte chunks into TokenBuffer 's each representing
a JSON object.

Each TokenBuffer is passed to Jackson’s ObjectMapper to create a higher level object.

When decoding to a single-value publisher (e.g. Mono ), there is one TokenBuffer .

When decoding to a multi-value publisher (e.g. Flux ), each TokenBuffer is passed to the ObjectMapper as soon as enough bytes
are received for a fully formed object. The input content can be a JSON array, or line-delimited JSON if the content-type is
"application/stream+json".

The Jackson2Encoder works as follows:

For a single value publisher (e.g. Mono ), simply serialize it through the ObjectMapper .

For a multi-value publisher with "application/json", by default collect the values with Flux#collectToList() and then serialize the
resulting collection.

For a multi-value publisher with a streaming media type such as application/stream+json or application/stream+x-jackson-
smile , encode, write, and flush each value individually using a line-delimited JSON format.

For SSE the Jackson2Encoder is invoked per event and the output is flushed to ensure delivery without delay.

By default both Jackson2Encoder and Jackson2Decoder do not support elements of type String . Instead the default assumption

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is that a string or a sequence of strings represent serialized JSON content, to be rendered by the CharSequenceEncoder . If what
you need is to render a JSON array from Flux<String> , use Flux#collectToList() and encode a Mono<List<String>> .

Form Data
FormHttpMessageReader and FormHttpMessageWriter support decoding and encoding "application/x-www-form-urlencoded" content.

On the server side where form content often needs to be accessed from multiple places, ServerWebExchange provides a dedicated
getFormData() method that parses the content through FormHttpMessageReader and then caches the result for repeated access. See
Form Data in the WebHandler API section.

Once getFormData() is used, the original raw content can no longer be read from the request body. For this reason, applications are
expected to go through ServerWebExchange consistently for access to the cached form data versus reading from the raw request
body.

Multipart
MultipartHttpMessageReader and MultipartHttpMessageWriter support decoding and encoding "multipart/form-data" content. In turn
MultipartHttpMessageReader delegates to another HttpMessageReader for the actual parsing to a Flux<Part> and then simply collects
the parts into a MultiValueMap . At present the Synchronoss NIO Multipart is used for the actual parsing.

On the server side where multipart form content may need to be accessed from multiple places, ServerWebExchange provides a
dedicated getMultipartData() method that parses the content through MultipartHttpMessageReader and then caches the result for
repeated access. See Multipart Data in the WebHandler API section.

Once getMultipartData() is used, the original raw content can no longer be read from the request body. For this reason applications
have to consistently use getMultipartData() for repeated, map-like access to parts, or otherwise rely on the
SynchronossPartHttpMessageReader for a one-time access to Flux<Part> .

Limits
Decoder and HttpMessageReader implementations that buffer some or all of the input stream can be configured with a limit on the
maximum number of bytes to buffer in memory. In some cases buffering occurs because input is aggregated and represented as a
single object, e.g. controller method with @RequestBody byte[] , x-www-form-urlencoded data, and so on. Buffering can also occurs with
streaming, when splitting the input stream, e.g. delimited text, a stream of JSON objects, and so on. For those streaming cases, the
limit applies to the number of bytes associted with one object in the stream.

To configure buffer sizes, you can check if a given Decoder or HttpMessageReader exposes a maxInMemorySize property and if so the
Javadoc will have details about default values. In WebFlux, the ServerCodecConfigurer provides a single place from where to set all
codecs, through the maxInMemorySize property for default codecs.

For Multipart parsing the maxInMemorySize property limits the size of non-file parts. For file parts it determines the threshold at
which the part is written to disk. For file parts written to disk, there is an additional maxDiskUsagePerPart property to limit the
amount of disk space per part. There is also a maxParts property to limit the overall number of parts in a multipart request. To
configure all 3 in WebFlux, you’ll need to supply a pre-configured instance of MultipartHttpMessageReader to ServerCodecConfigurer .

Streaming
Same as in Spring MVC

When streaming to the HTTP response (for example, text/event-stream , application/stream+json ), it is important to send data
periodically, in order to reliably detect a disconnected client sooner rather than later. Such a send could be an comment-only, empty
SSE event or any other "no-op" data that would effectively serve as a heartbeat.

DataBuffer

DataBuffer is the representation for a byte buffer in WebFlux. The Spring Core part of the reference has more on that in the section
on Data Buffers and Codecs. The key point to understand is that on some servers like Netty, byte buffers are pooled and reference
counted, and must be released when consumed to avoid memory leaks.
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WebFlux applications generally do not need to be concerned with such issues, unless they consume or produce data buffers directly,
as opposed to relying on codecs to convert to and from higher level objects. Or unless they choose to create custom codecs. For such
cases please review the the information in Data Buffers and Codecs, especially the section on Using DataBuffer.

1.2.6. Logging
Same as in Spring MVC

DEBUG level logging in Spring WebFlux is designed to be compact, minimal, and human-friendly. It focuses on high value bits of
information that are useful over and over again vs others that are useful only when debugging a specific issue.

TRACE level logging generally follows the same principles as DEBUG (and for example also should not be a firehose) but can be used
for debugging any issue. In addition some log messages may show a different level of detail at TRACE vs DEBUG.

Good logging comes from the experience of using the logs. If you spot anything that does not meet the stated goals, please let us
know.

Log Id
In WebFlux, a single request can be executed over multiple threads and the thread ID is not useful for correlating log messages that
belong to a specific request. This is why WebFlux log messages are prefixed with a request-specific ID by default.

On the server side, the log ID is stored in the ServerWebExchange attribute ( LOG_ID_ATTRIBUTE ), while a fully formatted prefix based on
that ID is available from ServerWebExchange#getLogPrefix() . On the WebClient side, the log ID is stored in the ClientRequest attribute
( LOG_ID_ATTRIBUTE ) ,while a fully formatted prefix is available from ClientRequest#logPrefix() .

Sensitive Data
Same as in Spring MVC

DEBUG and TRACE logging can log sensitive information. This is why form parameters and headers are masked by default and you
must explicitly enable their logging in full.

The following example shows how to do so for server-side requests:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Configuration
@EnableWebFlux
class MyConfig implements WebFluxConfigurer {

@Override
public void configureHttpMessageCodecs(ServerCodecConfigurer configurer) {
configurer.defaultCodecs().enableLoggingRequestDetails(true);
}
}

The following example shows how to do so for client-side requests:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
Consumer<ClientCodecConfigurer> consumer = configurer ->
configurer.defaultCodecs().enableLoggingRequestDetails(true);

WebClient webClient = WebClient.builder()

.exchangeStrategies(ExchangeStrategies.builder().codecs(consumer).build())
.build();

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1.3. DispatcherHandler
Same as in Spring MVC

Spring WebFlux, similarly to Spring MVC, is designed around the front controller pattern, where a central WebHandler , the
DispatcherHandler , provides a shared algorithm for request processing, while actual work is performed by configurable, delegate
components. This model is flexible and supports diverse workflows.

DispatcherHandler discovers the delegate components it needs from Spring configuration. It is also designed to be a Spring bean
itself and implements ApplicationContextAware for access to the context in which it runs. If DispatcherHandler is declared with a
bean name of webHandler , it is, in turn, discovered by WebHttpHandlerBuilder , which puts together a request-processing chain, as
described in WebHandler API.

Spring configuration in a WebFlux application typically contains:

DispatcherHandler with the bean name, webHandler

WebFilter and WebExceptionHandler beans

DispatcherHandler special beans

Others

The configuration is given to WebHttpHandlerBuilder to build the processing chain, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
ApplicationContext context = ...
HttpHandler handler = WebHttpHandlerBuilder.applicationContext(context);

The resulting HttpHandler is ready for use with a server adapter.

1.3.1. Special Bean Types

Same as in Spring MVC

The DispatcherHandler delegates to special beans to process requests and render the appropriate responses. By “special beans,” we
mean Spring-managed Object instances that implement WebFlux framework contracts. Those usually come with built-in contracts,
but you can customize their properties, extend them, or replace them.

The following table lists the special beans detected by the DispatcherHandler . Note that there are also some other beans detected at
a lower level (see Special bean types in the Web Handler API).

Bean type Explanation

HandlerMapping Map a request to a handler. The mapping is based on some criteria, the details of
which vary by HandlerMapping implementation — annotated controllers, simple URL
pattern mappings, and others.

The main HandlerMapping implementations are RequestMappingHandlerMapping for

@RequestMapping annotated methods, RouterFunctionMapping for functional endpoint
routes, and SimpleUrlHandlerMapping for explicit registrations of URI path patterns
and WebHandler instances.

HandlerAdapter Help the DispatcherHandler to invoke a handler mapped to a request regardless of

how the handler is actually invoked. For example, invoking an annotated controller
requires resolving annotations. The main purpose of a HandlerAdapter is to shield the
DispatcherHandler from such details.

HandlerResultHandler Process the result from the handler invocation and finalize the response. See Result
Handling.

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1.3.2. WebFlux Con g

Same as in Spring MVC

Applications can declare the infrastructure beans (listed under Web Handler API and DispatcherHandler ) that are required to process
requests. However, in most cases, the WebFlux Config is the best starting point. It declares the required beans and provides a
higher-level configuration callback API to customize it.

Spring Boot relies on the WebFlux config to configure Spring WebFlux and also provides many extra convenient options.

1.3.3. Processing
Same as in Spring MVC

DispatcherHandler processes requests as follows:

Each HandlerMapping is asked to find a matching handler, and the first match is used.

If a handler is found, it is executed through an appropriate HandlerAdapter , which exposes the return value from the execution as
HandlerResult .

The HandlerResult is given to an appropriate HandlerResultHandler to complete processing by writing to the response directly or
by using a view to render.

1.3.4. Result Handling

The return value from the invocation of a handler, through a HandlerAdapter , is wrapped as a HandlerResult , along with some
additional context, and passed to the first HandlerResultHandler that claims support for it. The following table shows the available
HandlerResultHandler implementations, all of which are declared in the WebFlux Config:

Result Handler Type Return Values Default Order

ResponseEntityResultHandler ResponseEntity , typically from @Controller instances. 0

ServerResponseResultHandler ServerResponse , typically from functional endpoints. 0

ResponseBodyResultHandler Handle return values from @ResponseBody methods or 100

@RestController classes.

ViewResolutionResultHandler CharSequence , View , Model, Map , Rendering, or any other Integer.MAX_VALUE

Object is treated as a model attribute.

See also View Resolution.

1.3.5. Exceptions
Same as in Spring MVC

The HandlerResult returned from a HandlerAdapter can expose a function for error handling based on some handler-specific
mechanism. This error function is called if:

The handler (for example, @Controller ) invocation fails.

The handling of the handler return value through a HandlerResultHandler fails.

The error function can change the response (for example, to an error status), as long as an error signal occurs before the reactive
type returned from the handler produces any data items.

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This is how @ExceptionHandler methods in @Controller classes are supported. By contrast, support for the same in Spring MVC is
built on a HandlerExceptionResolver . This generally should not matter. However, keep in mind that, in WebFlux, you cannot use a
@ControllerAdvice to handle exceptions that occur before a handler is chosen.

See also Managing Exceptions in the “Annotated Controller” section or Exceptions in the WebHandler API section.

1.3.6. View Resolution

Same as in Spring MVC

View resolution enables rendering to a browser with an HTML template and a model without tying you to a specific view technology.
In Spring WebFlux, view resolution is supported through a dedicated HandlerResultHandler that uses ViewResolver instances to
map a String (representing a logical view name) to a View instance. The View is then used to render the response.

Handling
Same as in Spring MVC

The HandlerResult passed into ViewResolutionResultHandler contains the return value from the handler and the model that contains
attributes added during request handling. The return value is processed as one of the following:

String , CharSequence : A logical view name to be resolved to a View through the list of configured ViewResolver implementations.

void : Select a default view name based on the request path, minus the leading and trailing slash, and resolve it to a View . The
same also happens when a view name was not provided (for example, model attribute was returned) or an async return value (for
example, Mono completed empty).

Rendering: API for view resolution scenarios. Explore the options in your IDE with code completion.

Model , Map : Extra model attributes to be added to the model for the request.

Any other: Any other return value (except for simple types, as determined by BeanUtils#isSimpleProperty) is treated as a model
attribute to be added to the model. The attribute name is derived from the class name by using conventions, unless a handler
method @ModelAttribute annotation is present.

The model can contain asynchronous, reactive types (for example, from Reactor or RxJava). Prior to rendering, AbstractView resolves
such model attributes into concrete values and updates the model. Single-value reactive types are resolved to a single value or no
value (if empty), while multi-value reactive types (for example, Flux<T> ) are collected and resolved to List<T> .

To configure view resolution is as simple as adding a ViewResolutionResultHandler bean to your Spring configuration. WebFlux
Config provides a dedicated configuration API for view resolution.

See View Technologies for more on the view technologies integrated with Spring WebFlux.

Redirecting
Same as in Spring MVC

The special redirect: prefix in a view name lets you perform a redirect. The UrlBasedViewResolver (and sub-classes) recognize this
as an instruction that a redirect is needed. The rest of the view name is the redirect URL.

The net effect is the same as if the controller had returned a RedirectView or Rendering.redirectTo("abc").build() , but now the
controller itself can operate in terms of logical view names. A view name such as redirect:/some/resource is relative to the current
application, while a view name such as redirect:https://example.com/arbitrary/path redirects to an absolute URL.

Content Negotiation
Same as in Spring MVC

ViewResolutionResultHandler supports content negotiation. It compares the request media types with the media types supported by
each selected View . The first View that supports the requested media type(s) is used.

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In order to support media types such as JSON and XML, Spring WebFlux provides HttpMessageWriterView , which is a special View
that renders through an HttpMessageWriter. Typically, you would configure these as default views through the WebFlux
Configuration. Default views are always selected and used if they match the requested media type.

1.4. Annotated Controllers

Same as in Spring MVC

Spring WebFlux provides an annotation-based programming model, where @Controller and @RestController components use
annotations to express request mappings, request input, handle exceptions, and more. Annotated controllers have flexible method
signatures and do not have to extend base classes nor implement specific interfaces.

The following listing shows a basic example:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@RestController
public class HelloController {

@GetMapping("/hello")
public String handle() {
return "Hello WebFlux";
}
}

In the preceding example, the method returns a String to be written to the response body.

1.4.1. @Controller
Same as in Spring MVC

You can define controller beans by using a standard Spring bean definition. The @Controller stereotype allows for auto-detection
and is aligned with Spring general support for detecting @Component classes in the classpath and auto-registering bean definitions
for them. It also acts as a stereotype for the annotated class, indicating its role as a web component.

To enable auto-detection of such @Controller beans, you can add component scanning to your Java configuration, as the following
example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Configuration
@ComponentScan("org.example.web") 1

public class WebConfig {

// ...
}

1 Scan the org.example.web package.

@RestController is a composed annotation that is itself meta-annotated with @Controller and @ResponseBody , indicating a
controller whose every method inherits the type-level @ResponseBody annotation and, therefore, writes directly to the response body
versus view resolution and rendering with an HTML template.

1.4.2. Request Mapping

Same as in Spring MVC

The @RequestMapping annotation is used to map requests to controllers methods. It has various attributes to match by URL, HTTP
method, request parameters, headers, and media types. You can use it at the class level to express shared mappings or at the

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method level to narrow down to a specific endpoint mapping.

There are also HTTP method specific shortcut variants of @RequestMapping :

@GetMapping

@PostMapping

@PutMapping

@DeleteMapping

@PatchMapping

The preceding annotations are Custom Annotations that are provided because, arguably, most controller methods should be
mapped to a specific HTTP method versus using @RequestMapping , which, by default, matches to all HTTP methods. At the same time,
a @RequestMapping is still needed at the class level to express shared mappings.

The following example uses type and method level mappings:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@RestController
@RequestMapping("/persons")
class PersonController {

@GetMapping("/{id}")
public Person getPerson(@PathVariable Long id) {
// ...
}

@PostMapping
@ResponseStatus(HttpStatus.CREATED)
public void add(@RequestBody Person person) {
// ...
}
}

URI Patterns
Same as in Spring MVC

You can map requests by using glob patterns and wildcards:

? matches one character

* matches zero or more characters within a path segment

** match zero or more path segments

You can also declare URI variables and access their values with @PathVariable , as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@GetMapping("/owners/{ownerId}/pets/{petId}")
public Pet findPet(@PathVariable Long ownerId, @PathVariable Long petId) {
// ...
}

You can declare URI variables at the class and method levels, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin

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JAVA
@Controller
@RequestMapping("/owners/{ownerId}") 1

public class OwnerController {

@GetMapping("/pets/{petId}") 2

public Pet findPet(@PathVariable Long ownerId, @PathVariable Long petId) {

// ...
}
}

1 Class-level URI mapping.

2 Method-level URI mapping.

URI variables are automatically converted to the appropriate type or a TypeMismatchException is raised. Simple types ( int , long ,
Date , and so on) are supported by default and you can register support for any other data type. See Type Conversion and DataBinder .

URI variables can be named explicitly (for example, @PathVariable("customId") ), but you can leave that detail out if the names are
the same and you compile your code with debugging information or with the -parameters compiler flag on Java 8.

The syntax {*varName} declares a URI variable that matches zero or more remaining path segments. For example
/resources/{*path} matches all files /resources/ and the "path" variable captures the complete relative path.

The syntax {varName:regex} declares a URI variable with a regular expression that has the syntax: {varName:regex} . For example,
given a URL of /spring-web-3.0.5 .jar , the following method extracts the name, version, and file extension:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@GetMapping("/{name:[a-z-]+}-{version:\\d\\.\\d\\.\\d}{ext:\\.[a-z]+}")
public void handle(@PathVariable String version, @PathVariable String ext) {
// ...
}

URI path patterns can also have embedded ${…} placeholders that are resolved on startup through PropertyPlaceHolderConfigurer
against local, system, environment, and other property sources. You ca use this to, for example, parameterize a base URL based on
some external configuration.

Spring WebFlux uses PathPattern and the PathPatternParser for URI path matching support. Both classes are located in
spring-web and are expressly designed for use with HTTP URL paths in web applications where a large number of URI path
patterns are matched at runtime.

Spring WebFlux does not support suffix pattern matching — unlike Spring MVC, where a mapping such as /person also matches to
/person.* . For URL-based content negotiation, if needed, we recommend using a query parameter, which is simpler, more explicit,
and less vulnerable to URL path based exploits.

Pattern Comparison
Same as in Spring MVC

When multiple patterns match a URL, they must be compared to find the best match. This is done with
PathPattern.SPECIFICITY_COMPARATOR , which looks for patterns that are more specific.

For every pattern, a score is computed, based on the number of URI variables and wildcards, where a URI variable scores lower than a
wildcard. A pattern with a lower total score wins. If two patterns have the same score, the longer is chosen.

Catch-all patterns (for example, ** , {*varName} ) are excluded from the scoring and are always sorted last instead. If two patterns
are both catch-all, the longer is chosen.

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Consumable Media Types

Same as in Spring MVC

You can narrow the request mapping based on the Content-Type of the request, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@PostMapping(path = "/pets", consumes = "application/json")
public void addPet(@RequestBody Pet pet) {
// ...
}

The consumes attribute also supports negation expressions — for example, !text/plain means any content type other than
text/plain .

You can declare a shared consumes attribute at the class level. Unlike most other request mapping attributes, however, when used at
the class level, a method-level consumes attribute overrides rather than extends the class-level declaration.

MediaType provides constants for commonly used media types — for example, APPLICATION_JSON_VALUE and
APPLICATION_XML_VALUE .

Producible Media Types

Same as in Spring MVC

You can narrow the request mapping based on the Accept request header and the list of content types that a controller method
produces, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@GetMapping(path = "/pets/{petId}", produces = "application/json")
@ResponseBody
public Pet getPet(@PathVariable String petId) {
// ...
}

The media type can specify a character set. Negated expressions are supported — for example, !text/plain means any content type
other than text/plain .

You can declare a shared produces attribute at the class level. Unlike most other request mapping attributes, however, when used at
the class level, a method-level produces attribute overrides rather than extend the class level declaration.

MediaType provides constants for commonly used media types — e.g. APPLICATION_JSON_VALUE , APPLICATION_XML_VALUE .

Parameters and Headers

Same as in Spring MVC

You can narrow request mappings based on query parameter conditions. You can test for the presence of a query parameter
( myParam ), for its absence ( !myParam ), or for a specific value ( myParam=myValue ). The following examples tests for a parameter with a
value:

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Java Kotlin
JAVA
@GetMapping(path = "/pets/{petId}", params = "myParam=myValue") 1

public void findPet(@PathVariable String petId) {

// ...
}

1 Check that myParam equals myValue .

You can also use the same with request header conditions, as the follwing example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@GetMapping(path = "/pets", headers = "myHeader=myValue") 1

public void findPet(@PathVariable String petId) {

// ...
}

1 Check that myHeader equals myValue .

HTTP HEAD, OPTIONS

Same as in Spring MVC

@GetMapping and @RequestMapping(method=HttpMethod.GET) support HTTP HEAD transparently for request mapping purposes.
Controller methods need not change. A response wrapper, applied in the HttpHandler server adapter, ensures a Content-Length
header is set to the number of bytes written without actually writing to the response.

By default, HTTP OPTIONS is handled by setting the Allow response header to the list of HTTP methods listed in all @RequestMapping
methods with matching URL patterns.

For a @RequestMapping without HTTP method declarations, the Allow header is set to GET,HEAD,POST,PUT,PATCH,DELETE,OPTIONS .
Controller methods should always declare the supported HTTP methods (for example, by using the HTTP method specific variants —
@GetMapping , @PostMapping , and others).

You can explicitly map a @RequestMapping method to HTTP HEAD and HTTP OPTIONS, but that is not necessary in the common case.

Custom Annotations
Same as in Spring MVC

Spring WebFlux supports the use of composed annotations for request mapping. Those are annotations that are themselves meta-
annotated with @RequestMapping and composed to redeclare a subset (or all) of the @RequestMapping attributes with a narrower, more
specific purpose.

@GetMapping , @PostMapping , @PutMapping , @DeleteMapping , and @PatchMapping are examples of composed annotations. They are
provided, because, arguably, most controller methods should be mapped to a specific HTTP method versus using @RequestMapping ,
which, by default, matches to all HTTP methods. If you need an example of composed annotations, look at how those are declared.

Spring WebFlux also supports custom request mapping attributes with custom request matching logic. This is a more advanced
option that requires sub-classing RequestMappingHandlerMapping and overriding the getCustomMethodCondition method, where you
can check the custom attribute and return your own RequestCondition .

Explicit Registrations
Same as in Spring MVC

You can programmatically register Handler methods, which can be used for dynamic registrations or for advanced cases, such as
different instances of the same handler under different URLs. The following example shows how to do so:

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Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Configuration
public class MyConfig {

@Autowired
public void setHandlerMapping(RequestMappingHandlerMapping mapping, UserHandler handler) 1

throws NoSuchMethodException {

RequestMappingInfo info = RequestMappingInfo

.paths("/user/{id}").methods(RequestMethod.GET).build(); 2

Method method = UserHandler.class.getMethod("getUser", Long.class); 3

mapping.registerMapping(info, handler, method); 4

1 Inject target handlers and the handler mapping for controllers.

2 Prepare the request mapping metadata.
3 Get the handler method.
4 Add the registration.

1.4.3. Handler Methods

Same as in Spring MVC

@RequestMapping handler methods have a flexible signature and can choose from a range of supported controller method arguments
and return values.

Method Arguments
Same as in Spring MVC

The following table shows the supported controller method arguments.

Reactive types (Reactor, RxJava, or other) are supported on arguments that require blocking I/O (for example, reading the request
body) to be resolved. This is marked in the Description column. Reactive types are not expected on arguments that do not require
blocking.

JDK 1.8’s java.util.Optional is supported as a method argument in combination with annotations that have a required attribute
(for example, @RequestParam , @RequestHeader , and others) and is equivalent to required=false .

Controller method argument Description

ServerWebExchange Access to the full ServerWebExchange — container for the HTTP request and response,
request and session attributes, checkNotModified methods, and others.

ServerHttpRequest , ServerHttpResponse Access to the HTTP request or response.

WebSession Access to the session. This does not force the start of a new session unless attributes
are added. Supports reactive types.

java.security.Principal The currently authenticated user — possibly a specific Principal implementation

class if known. Supports reactive types.

org.springframework.http.HttpMethod The HTTP method of the request.

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Controller method argument Description

java.util.Locale The current request locale, determined by the most specific LocaleResolver
available — in effect, the configured LocaleResolver / LocaleContextResolver .

java.util.TimeZone + java.time.ZoneId The time zone associated with the current request, as determined by a
LocaleContextResolver .

@PathVariable For access to URI template variables. See URI Patterns.

@MatrixVariable For access to name-value pairs in URI path segments. See Matrix Variables.

@RequestParam For access to Servlet request parameters. Parameter values are converted to the
declared method argument type. See @RequestParam .

Note that use of @RequestParam is optional — for example, to set its attributes. See
“Any other argument” later in this table.

@RequestHeader For access to request headers. Header values are converted to the declared method
argument type. See @RequestHeader .

@CookieValue For access to cookies. Cookie values are converted to the declared method argument
type. See @CookieValue .

@RequestBody For access to the HTTP request body. Body content is converted to the declared
method argument type by using HttpMessageReader instances. Supports reactive
types. See @RequestBody .

HttpEntity<B> For access to request headers and body. The body is converted with
HttpMessageReader instances. Supports reactive types. See HttpEntity .

@RequestPart For access to a part in a multipart/form-data request. Supports reactive types. See
Multipart Content and Multipart Data.

java.util.Map , For access to the model that is used in HTML controllers and is exposed to templates
org.springframework.ui.Model , and as part of view rendering.
org.springframework.ui.ModelMap .

@ModelAttribute For access to an existing attribute in the model (instantiated if not present) with
data binding and validation applied. See @ModelAttribute as well as Model and
DataBinder .

Note that use of @ModelAttribute is optional — for example, to set its attributes. See
“Any other argument” later in this table.

Errors , BindingResult For access to errors from validation and data binding for a command object (that is,
a @ModelAttribute argument) or errors from the validation of a @RequestBody or
@RequestPart argument. An Errors , or BindingResult argument must be declared
immediately after the validated method argument.

SessionStatus + class-level For marking form processing complete, which triggers cleanup of session attributes
@SessionAttributes declared through a class-level @SessionAttributes annotation. See
@SessionAttributes for more details.

UriComponentsBuilder For preparing a URL relative to the current request’s host, port, scheme, and path. See
URI Links.

@SessionAttribute For access to any session attribute — in contrast to model attributes stored in the
session as a result of a class-level @SessionAttributes declaration. See
@SessionAttribute for more details.

@RequestAttribute For access to request attributes. See @RequestAttribute for more details.

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Controller method argument Description

Any other argument If a method argument is not matched to any of the above, it is, by default, resolved as
a @RequestParam if it is a simple type, as determined by BeanUtils#isSimpleProperty,
or as a @ModelAttribute , otherwise.

Return Values
Same as in Spring MVC

The following table shows the supported controller method return values. Note that reactive types from libraries such as Reactor,
RxJava, or other are generally supported for all return values.

Controller method return value Description

@ResponseBody The return value is encoded through HttpMessageWriter instances and written to the
response. See @ResponseBody .

HttpEntity<B> , ResponseEntity<B> The return value specifies the full response, including HTTP headers, and the body is
encoded through HttpMessageWriter instances and written to the response. See
ResponseEntity .

HttpHeaders For returning a response with headers and no body.

String A view name to be resolved with ViewResolver instances and used together with the
implicit model — determined through command objects and @ModelAttribute
methods. The handler method can also programmatically enrich the model by
declaring a Model argument (described earlier).

View A View instance to use for rendering together with the implicit model — determined
through command objects and @ModelAttribute methods. The handler method can
also programmatically enrich the model by declaring a Model argument (described
earlier).

java.util.Map , Attributes to be added to the implicit model, with the view name implicitly
org.springframework.ui.Model determined based on the request path.

@ModelAttribute An attribute to be added to the model, with the view name implicitly determined
based on the request path.

Note that @ModelAttribute is optional. See “Any other return value” later in this table.

Rendering An API for model and view rendering scenarios.

void A method with a void , possibly asynchronous (for example, Mono<Void> ), return type
(or a null return value) is considered to have fully handled the response if it also
has a ServerHttpResponse , a ServerWebExchange argument, or an @ResponseStatus
annotation. The same is also true if the controller has made a positive ETag or
lastModified timestamp check. // TODO: See Controllers for details.

If none of the above is true, a void return type can also indicate “no response body”
for REST controllers or default view name selection for HTML controllers.

Flux<ServerSentEvent> , Emit server-sent events. The ServerSentEvent wrapper can be omitted when only data
Observable<ServerSentEvent> , or other needs to be written (however, text/event-stream must be requested or declared in
reactive type the mapping through the produces attribute).

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Controller method return value Description

Any other return value If a return value is not matched to any of the above, it is, by default, treated as a view
name, if it is String or void (default view name selection applies), or as a model
attribute to be added to the model, unless it is a simple type, as determined by
BeanUtils#isSimpleProperty, in which case it remains unresolved.

Type Conversion
Same as in Spring MVC

Some annotated controller method arguments that represent String-based request input (for example, @RequestParam ,
@RequestHeader , @PathVariable , @MatrixVariable , and @CookieValue ) can require type conversion if the argument is declared as
something other than String .

For such cases, type conversion is automatically applied based on the configured converters. By default, simple types (such as int ,
long , Date , and others) are supported. Type conversion can be customized through a WebDataBinder (see [mvc-ann-initbinder]) or by
registering Formatters with the FormattingConversionService (see Spring Field Formatting).

Matrix Variables
Same as in Spring MVC

RFC 3986 discusses name-value pairs in path segments. In Spring WebFlux, we refer to those as “matrix variables” based on an “old
post” by Tim Berners-Lee, but they can be also be referred to as URI path parameters.

Matrix variables can appear in any path segment, with each variable separated by a semicolon and multiple values separated by
commas — for example, "/cars;color=red,green;year=2012" . Multiple values can also be specified through repeated variable names
— for example, "color=red;color=green;color=blue" .

Unlike Spring MVC, in WebFlux, the presence or absence of matrix variables in a URL does not affect request mappings. In other
words, you are not required to use a URI variable to mask variable content. That said, if you want to access matrix variables from a
controller method, you need to add a URI variable to the path segment where matrix variables are expected. The following example
shows how to do so:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
// GET /pets/42;q=11;r=22

@GetMapping("/pets/{petId}")
public void findPet(@PathVariable String petId, @MatrixVariable int q) {

// petId == 42
// q == 11
}

Given that all path segments can contain matrix variables, you may sometimes need to disambiguate which path variable the
matrix variable is expected to be in, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
// GET /owners/42;q=11/pets/21;q=22

@GetMapping("/owners/{ownerId}/pets/{petId}")
public void findPet(
@MatrixVariable(name="q", pathVar="ownerId") int q1,
@MatrixVariable(name="q", pathVar="petId") int q2) {

// q1 == 11

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// q2 == 22
}

You can define a matrix variable may be defined as optional and specify a default value as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
// GET /pets/42

@GetMapping("/pets/{petId}")
public void findPet(@MatrixVariable(required=false, defaultValue="1") int q) {

// q == 1
}

To get all matrix variables, use a MultiValueMap , as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
// GET /owners/42;q=11;r=12/pets/21;q=22;s=23

@GetMapping("/owners/{ownerId}/pets/{petId}")
public void findPet(
@MatrixVariable MultiValueMap<String, String> matrixVars,
@MatrixVariable(pathVar="petId") MultiValueMap<String, String> petMatrixVars) {

// matrixVars: ["q" : [11,22], "r" : 12, "s" : 23]

// petMatrixVars: ["q" : 22, "s" : 23]
}

@RequestParam

Same as in Spring MVC

You can use the @RequestParam annotation to bind query parameters to a method argument in a controller. The following code
snippet shows the usage:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Controller
@RequestMapping("/pets")
public class EditPetForm {

// ...

@GetMapping
public String setupForm(@RequestParam("petId") int petId, Model model) { 1

Pet pet = this.clinic.loadPet(petId);

model.addAttribute("pet", pet);
return "petForm";
}

// ...
}

1 Using @RequestParam .

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The Servlet API “request parameter” concept conflates query parameters, form data, and multiparts into one. However, in
WebFlux, each is accessed individually through ServerWebExchange . While @RequestParam binds to query parameters only, you
can use data binding to apply query parameters, form data, and multiparts to a command object.

Method parameters that use the @RequestParam annotation are required by default, but you can specify that a method parameter is
optional by setting the required flag of a @RequestParam to false or by declaring the argument with a java.util.Optional wrapper.

Type conversion is applied automatically if the target method parameter type is not String . See [mvc-ann-typeconversion].

When a @RequestParam annotation is declared on a Map<String, String> or MultiValueMap<String, String> argument, the map is
populated with all query parameters.

Note that use of @RequestParam is optional — for example, to set its attributes. By default, any argument that is a simple value type
(as determined by BeanUtils#isSimpleProperty) and is not resolved by any other argument resolver is treated as if it were annotated
with @RequestParam .

@RequestHeader

Same as in Spring MVC

You can use the @RequestHeader annotation to bind a request header to a method argument in a controller.

The following example shows a request with headers:

Host localhost:8080
Accept text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9
Accept-Language fr,en-gb;q=0.7,en;q=0.3
Accept-Encoding gzip,deflate
Accept-Charset ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7
Keep-Alive 300

The following example gets the value of the Accept-Encoding and Keep-Alive headers:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@GetMapping("/demo")
public void handle(
@RequestHeader("Accept-Encoding") String encoding, 1

@RequestHeader("Keep-Alive") long keepAlive) { 2

//...
}

1 Get the value of the Accept-Encoging header.

2 Get the value of the Keep-Alive header.

Type conversion is applied automatically if the target method parameter type is not String . See [mvc-ann-typeconversion].

When a @RequestHeader annotation is used on a Map<String, String> , MultiValueMap<String, String> , or HttpHeaders argument, the
map is populated with all header values.

Built-in support is available for converting a comma-separated string into an array or collection of strings or other types
known to the type conversion system. For example, a method parameter annotated with @RequestHeader("Accept") may be of
type String but also of String[] or List<String> .

@CookieValue

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Same as in Spring MVC

You can use the @CookieValue annotation to bind the value of an HTTP cookie to a method argument in a controller.

The following example shows a request with a cookie:

JSESSIONID=415A4AC178C59DACE0B2C9CA727CDD84

The following code sample demonstrates how to get the cookie value:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@GetMapping("/demo")
public void handle(@CookieValue("JSESSIONID") String cookie) { 1

//...
}

1 Get the cookie value.

Type conversion is applied automatically if the target method parameter type is not String . See [mvc-ann-typeconversion].

@ModelAttribute

Same as in Spring MVC

You can use the @ModelAttribute annotation on a method argument to access an attribute from the model or have it instantiated if
not present. The model attribute is also overlain with the values of query parameters and form fields whose names match to field
names. This is referred to as data binding, and it saves you from having to deal with parsing and converting individual query
parameters and form fields. The following example binds an instance of Pet :

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@PostMapping("/owners/{ownerId}/pets/{petId}/edit")
public String processSubmit(@ModelAttribute Pet pet) { } 1

1 Bind an instance of Pet .

The Pet instance in the preceding example is resolved as follows:

From the model if already added through Model .

From the HTTP session through @SessionAttributes .

From the invocation of a default constructor.

From the invocation of a “primary constructor” with arguments that match query parameters or form fields. Argument names are
determined through JavaBeans @ConstructorProperties or through runtime-retained parameter names in the bytecode.

After the model attribute instance is obtained, data binding is applied. The WebExchangeDataBinder class matches names of query
parameters and form fields to field names on the target Object . Matching fields are populated after type conversion is applied
where necessary. For more on data binding (and validation), see Validation. For more on customizing data binding, see DataBinder .

Data binding can result in errors. By default, a WebExchangeBindException is raised, but, to check for such errors in the controller
method, you can add a BindingResult argument immediately next to the @ModelAttribute , as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@PostMapping("/owners/{ownerId}/pets/{petId}/edit")
public String processSubmit(@ModelAttribute("pet") Pet pet, BindingResult result) { 1
if (result.hasErrors()) {
return "petForm";
}

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// ...
}

1 Adding a BindingResult .

You can automatically apply validation after data binding by adding the javax.validation.Valid annotation or Spring’s @Validated
annotation (see also Bean Validation and Spring validation). The following example uses the @Valid annotation:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@PostMapping("/owners/{ownerId}/pets/{petId}/edit")
public String processSubmit(@Valid @ModelAttribute("pet") Pet pet, BindingResult result) { 1
if (result.hasErrors()) {
return "petForm";
}
// ...
}

1 Using @Valid on a model attribute argument.

Spring WebFlux, unlike Spring MVC, supports reactive types in the model — for example, Mono<Account> or
io.reactivex.Single<Account> . You can declare a @ModelAttribute argument with or without a reactive type wrapper, and it will be
resolved accordingly, to the actual value if necessary. However, note that, to use a BindingResult argument, you must declare the
@ModelAttribute argument before it without a reactive type wrapper, as shown earlier. Alternatively, you can handle any errors
through the reactive type, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@PostMapping("/owners/{ownerId}/pets/{petId}/edit")
public Mono<String> processSubmit(@Valid @ModelAttribute("pet") Mono<Pet> petMono) {
return petMono
.flatMap(pet -> {
// ...
})
.onErrorResume(ex -> {
// ...
});
}

Note that use of @ModelAttribute is optional — for example, to set its attributes. By default, any argument that is not a simple value
type( as determined by BeanUtils#isSimpleProperty) and is not resolved by any other argument resolver is treated as if it were
annotated with @ModelAttribute .

@SessionAttributes

Same as in Spring MVC

@SessionAttributes is used to store model attributes in the WebSession between requests. It is a type-level annotation that declares
session attributes used by a specific controller. This typically lists the names of model attributes or types of model attributes that
should be transparently stored in the session for subsequent requests to access.

Consider the following example:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Controller
@SessionAttributes("pet") 1
public class EditPetForm {
// ...
}

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1 Using the @SessionAttributes annotation.

On the first request, when a model attribute with the name, pet , is added to the model, it is automatically promoted to and saved in
the WebSession . It remains there until another controller method uses a SessionStatus method argument to clear the storage, as the
following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Controller
@SessionAttributes("pet") 1
public class EditPetForm {

// ...

@PostMapping("/pets/{id}")
public String handle(Pet pet, BindingResult errors, SessionStatus status) { 2
if (errors.hasErrors()) {
// ...
}
status.setComplete();
// ...
}
}
}

1 Using the @SessionAttributes annotation.

2 Using a SessionStatus variable.

@SessionAttribute

Same as in Spring MVC

If you need access to pre-existing session attributes that are managed globally (that is, outside the controller — for example, by a
filter) and may or may not be present, you can use the @SessionAttribute annotation on a method parameter, as the following
example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@GetMapping("/")
public String handle(@SessionAttribute User user) { 1

// ...
}

1 Using @SessionAttribute .

For use cases that require adding or removing session attributes, consider injecting WebSession into the controller method.

For temporary storage of model attributes in the session as part of a controller workflow, consider using SessionAttributes , as
described in @SessionAttributes .

@RequestAttribute

Same as in Spring MVC

Similarly to @SessionAttribute , you can use the @RequestAttribute annotation to access pre-existing request attributes created
earlier (for example, by a WebFilter ), as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin

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JAVA
@GetMapping("/")
public String handle(@RequestAttribute Client client) { 1

// ...
}

1 Using @RequestAttribute .

Multipart Content
Same as in Spring MVC

As explained in Multipart Data, ServerWebExchange provides access to multipart content. The best way to handle a file upload form
(for example, from a browser) in a controller is through data binding to a command object, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
class MyForm {

private String name;

private MultipartFile file;

// ...

@Controller
public class FileUploadController {

@PostMapping("/form")
public String handleFormUpload(MyForm form, BindingResult errors) {
// ...
}

You can also submit multipart requests from non-browser clients in a RESTful service scenario. The following example uses a file
along with JSON:

POST /someUrl
Content-Type: multipart/mixed

--edt7Tfrdusa7r3lNQc79vXuhIIMlatb7PQg7Vp
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="meta-data"
Content-Type: application/json; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

{
"name": "value"
}
--edt7Tfrdusa7r3lNQc79vXuhIIMlatb7PQg7Vp
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="file-data"; filename="file.properties"
Content-Type: text/xml
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
... File Data ...

You can access individual parts with @RequestPart , as the following example shows:

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Java Kotlin
JAVA
@PostMapping("/")
public String handle(@RequestPart("meta-data") Part metadata, 1

@RequestPart("file-data") FilePart file) { 2

// ...
}

1 Using @RequestPart to get the metadata.

2 Using @RequestPart to get the file.

To deserialize the raw part content (for example, to JSON — similar to @RequestBody ), you can declare a concrete target Object ,
instead of Part , as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@PostMapping("/")
public String handle(@RequestPart("meta-data") MetaData metadata) { 1

// ...
}

1 Using @RequestPart to get the metadata.

You can use @RequestPart combination with javax.validation.Valid or Spring’s @Validated annotation, which causes Standard
Bean Validation to be applied. By default, validation errors cause a WebExchangeBindException , which is turned into a 400
( BAD_REQUEST ) response. Alternatively, you can handle validation errors locally within the controller through an Errors or
BindingResult argument, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@PostMapping("/")
public String handle(@Valid @RequestPart("meta-data") MetaData metadata, 1

BindingResult result) { 2
// ...
}

1 Using a @Valid annotation.

2 Using a BindingResult argument.

To access all multipart data as a MultiValueMap , you can use @RequestBody , as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@PostMapping("/")
public String handle(@RequestBody Mono<MultiValueMap<String, Part>> parts) { 1

// ...
}

1 Using @RequestBody .

To access multipart data sequentially, in streaming fashion, you can use @RequestBody with Flux<Part> (or Flow<Part> in Kotlin)
instead, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@PostMapping("/")
public String handle(@RequestBody Flux<Part> parts) { 1
// ...
}

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1 Using @RequestBody .

@RequestBody

Same as in Spring MVC

You can use the @RequestBody annotation to have the request body read and deserialized into an Object through an
HttpMessageReader. The following example uses a @RequestBody argument:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@PostMapping("/accounts")
public void handle(@RequestBody Account account) {
// ...
}

Unlike Spring MVC, in WebFlux, the @RequestBody method argument supports reactive types and fully non-blocking reading and
(client-to-server) streaming.

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@PostMapping("/accounts")
public void handle(@RequestBody Mono<Account> account) {
// ...
}

You can use the HTTP message codecs option of the WebFlux Config to configure or customize message readers.

You can use @RequestBody in combination with javax.validation.Valid or Spring’s @Validated annotation, which causes Standard
Bean Validation to be applied. By default, validation errors cause a WebExchangeBindException , which is turned into a 400
( BAD_REQUEST ) response. Alternatively, you can handle validation errors locally within the controller through an Errors or a
BindingResult argument. The following example uses a BindingResult argument`:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@PostMapping("/accounts")
public void handle(@Valid @RequestBody Account account, BindingResult result) {
// ...
}

HttpEntity

Same as in Spring MVC

HttpEntity is more or less identical to using @RequestBody but is based on a container object that exposes request headers and the
body. The following example uses an HttpEntity :

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@PostMapping("/accounts")
public void handle(HttpEntity<Account> entity) {
// ...
}

@ResponseBody

Same as in Spring MVC

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You can use the @ResponseBody annotation on a method to have the return serialized to the response body through an
HttpMessageWriter. The following example shows how to do so:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@GetMapping("/accounts/{id}")
@ResponseBody
public Account handle() {
// ...
}

@ResponseBody is also supported at the class level, in which case it is inherited by all controller methods. This is the effect of
@RestController , which is nothing more than a meta-annotation marked with @Controller and @ResponseBody .

@ResponseBody supports reactive types, which means you can return Reactor or RxJava types and have the asynchronous values they
produce rendered to the response. For additional details, see Streaming and JSON rendering.

You can combine @ResponseBody methods with JSON serialization views. See Jackson JSON for details.

You can use the HTTP message codecs option of the WebFlux Config to configure or customize message writing.

ResponseEntity

Same as in Spring MVC

ResponseEntity is like @ResponseBody but with status and headers. For example:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@GetMapping("/something")
public ResponseEntity<String> handle() {
String body = ... ;
String etag = ... ;
return ResponseEntity.ok().eTag(etag).build(body);
}

WebFlux supports using a single value reactive type to produce the ResponseEntity asynchronously, and/or single and multi-value
reactive types for the body.

Jackson JSON
Spring offers support for the Jackson JSON library.

JSON Views

Same as in Spring MVC

Spring WebFlux provides built-in support for Jackson’s Serialization Views, which allows rendering only a subset of all fields in an
Object . To use it with @ResponseBody or ResponseEntity controller methods, you can use Jackson’s @JsonView annotation to activate
a serialization view class, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@RestController
public class UserController {

@GetMapping("/user")
@JsonView(User.WithoutPasswordView.class)
public User getUser() {

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return new User("eric", "7!jd#h23");
}
}

public class User {

public interface WithoutPasswordView {};

public interface WithPasswordView extends WithoutPasswordView {};

private String username;

private String password;

public User() {
}

public User(String username, String password) {

this.username = username;
this.password = password;
}

@JsonView(WithoutPasswordView.class)
public String getUsername() {
return this.username;
}

@JsonView(WithPasswordView.class)
public String getPassword() {
return this.password;
}
}

@JsonView allows an array of view classes but you can only specify only one per controller method. Use a composite interface if
you need to activate multiple views.

1.4.4. Model
Same as in Spring MVC

You can use the @ModelAttribute annotation:

On a method argument in @RequestMapping methods to create or access an Object from the model and to bind it to the request
through a WebDataBinder .

As a method-level annotation in @Controller or @ControllerAdvice classes, helping to initialize the model prior to any
@RequestMapping method invocation.

On a @RequestMapping method to mark its return value as a model attribute.

This section discusses @ModelAttribute methods, or the second item from the preceding list. A controller can have any number of
@ModelAttribute methods. All such methods are invoked before @RequestMapping methods in the same controller. A @ModelAttribute
method can also be shared across controllers through @ControllerAdvice . See the section on Controller Advice for more details.

@ModelAttribute methods have flexible method signatures. They support many of the same arguments as @RequestMapping methods
(except for @ModelAttribute itself and anything related to the request body).

The following example uses a @ModelAttribute method:

Java Kotlin

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JAVA
@ModelAttribute
public void populateModel(@RequestParam String number, Model model) {
model.addAttribute(accountRepository.findAccount(number));
// add more ...
}

The following example adds one attribute only:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@ModelAttribute
public Account addAccount(@RequestParam String number) {
return accountRepository.findAccount(number);
}

When a name is not explicitly specified, a default name is chosen based on the type, as explained in the javadoc for
Conventions . You can always assign an explicit name by using the overloaded addAttribute method or through the name
attribute on @ModelAttribute (for a return value).

Spring WebFlux, unlike Spring MVC, explicitly supports reactive types in the model (for example, Mono<Account> or
io.reactivex.Single<Account> ). Such asynchronous model attributes can be transparently resolved (and the model updated) to their
actual values at the time of @RequestMapping invocation, provided a @ModelAttribute argument is declared without a wrapper, as the
following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@ModelAttribute
public void addAccount(@RequestParam String number) {
Mono<Account> accountMono = accountRepository.findAccount(number);
model.addAttribute("account", accountMono);
}

@PostMapping("/accounts")
public String handle(@ModelAttribute Account account, BindingResult errors) {
// ...
}

In addition, any model attributes that have a reactive type wrapper are resolved to their actual values (and the model updated) just
prior to view rendering.

You can also use @ModelAttribute as a method-level annotation on @RequestMapping methods, in which case the return value of the
@RequestMapping method is interpreted as a model attribute. This is typically not required, as it is the default behavior in HTML
controllers, unless the return value is a String that would otherwise be interpreted as a view name. @ModelAttribute can also help
to customize the model attribute name, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@GetMapping("/accounts/{id}")
@ModelAttribute("myAccount")
public Account handle() {
// ...
return account;
}

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1.4.5. DataBinder
Same as in Spring MVC

@Controller or @ControllerAdvice classes can have @InitBinder methods, to initialize instances of WebDataBinder . Those, in turn,
are used to:

Bind request parameters (that is, form data or query) to a model object.

Convert String -based request values (such as request parameters, path variables, headers, cookies, and others) to the target
type of controller method arguments.

Format model object values as String values when rendering HTML forms.

@InitBinder methods can register controller-specific java.bean.PropertyEditor or Spring Converter and Formatter components. In
addition, you can use the WebFlux Java configuration to register Converter and Formatter types in a globally shared
FormattingConversionService .

@InitBinder methods support many of the same arguments that @RequestMapping methods do, except for @ModelAttribute
(command object) arguments. Typically, they are declared with a WebDataBinder argument, for registrations, and a void return value.
The following example uses the @InitBinder annotation:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Controller
public class FormController {

@InitBinder 1

public void initBinder(WebDataBinder binder) {

SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
dateFormat.setLenient(false);
binder.registerCustomEditor(Date.class, new CustomDateEditor(dateFormat, false));
}

// ...
}

1 Using the @InitBinder annotation.

Alternatively, when using a Formatter -based setup through a shared FormattingConversionService , you could re-use the same
approach and register controller-specific Formatter instances, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Controller
public class FormController {

@InitBinder
protected void initBinder(WebDataBinder binder) {
binder.addCustomFormatter(new DateFormatter("yyyy-MM-dd")); 1
}

// ...
}

1 Adding a custom formatter (a DateFormatter , in this case).

1.4.6. Managing Exceptions

Same as in Spring MVC

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@Controller and @ControllerAdvice classes can have @ExceptionHandler methods to handle exceptions from controller methods.
The following example includes such a handler method:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Controller
public class SimpleController {

// ...

@ExceptionHandler 1
public ResponseEntity<String> handle(IOException ex) {
// ...
}
}

1 Declaring an @ExceptionHandler .

The exception can match against a top-level exception being propagated (that is, a direct IOException being thrown) or against the
immediate cause within a top-level wrapper exception (for example, an IOException wrapped inside an IllegalStateException ).

For matching exception types, preferably declare the target exception as a method argument, as shown in the preceding example.
Alternatively, the annotation declaration can narrow the exception types to match. We generally recommend being as specific as
possible in the argument signature and to declare your primary root exception mappings on a @ControllerAdvice prioritized with a
corresponding order. See the MVC section for details.

An @ExceptionHandler method in WebFlux supports the same method arguments and return values as a @RequestMapping
method, with the exception of request body- and @ModelAttribute -related method arguments.

Support for @ExceptionHandler methods in Spring WebFlux is provided by the HandlerAdapter for @RequestMapping methods. See
DispatcherHandler for more detail.

REST API exceptions

Same as in Spring MVC

A common requirement for REST services is to include error details in the body of the response. The Spring Framework does not
automatically do so, because the representation of error details in the response body is application-specific. However, a
@RestController can use @ExceptionHandler methods with a ResponseEntity return value to set the status and the body of the
response. Such methods can also be declared in @ControllerAdvice classes to apply them globally.

Note that Spring WebFlux does not have an equivalent for the Spring MVC ResponseEntityExceptionHandler , because WebFlux
raises only ResponseStatusException (or subclasses thereof), and those do not need to be translated to an HTTP status code.

1.4.7. Controller Advice

Same as in Spring MVC

Typically, the @ExceptionHandler , @InitBinder , and @ModelAttribute methods apply within the @Controller class (or class hierarchy)
in which they are declared. If you want such methods to apply more globally (across controllers), you can declare them in a class
annotated with @ControllerAdvice or @RestControllerAdvice .

@ControllerAdvice is annotated with @Component , which means that such classes can be registered as Spring beans through
component scanning. @RestControllerAdvice is a composed annotation that is annotated with both @ControllerAdvice and

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@ResponseBody , which essentially means @ExceptionHandler methods are rendered to the response body through message
conversion (versus view resolution or template rendering).

On startup, the infrastructure classes for @RequestMapping and @ExceptionHandler methods detect Spring beans annotated with
@ControllerAdvice and then apply their methods at runtime. Global @ExceptionHandler methods (from a @ControllerAdvice ) are
applied after local ones (from the @Controller ). By contrast, global @ModelAttribute and @InitBinder methods are applied before
local ones.

By default, @ControllerAdvice methods apply to every request (that is, all controllers), but you can narrow that down to a subset of
controllers by using attributes on the annotation, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
// Target all Controllers annotated with @RestController
@ControllerAdvice(annotations = RestController.class)
public class ExampleAdvice1 {}

// Target all Controllers within specific packages

@ControllerAdvice("org.example.controllers")
public class ExampleAdvice2 {}

// Target all Controllers assignable to specific classes

@ControllerAdvice(assignableTypes = {ControllerInterface.class, AbstractController.class})
public class ExampleAdvice3 {}

The selectors in the preceding example are evaluated at runtime and may negatively impact performance if used extensively. See
the @ControllerAdvice javadoc for more details.

1.5. Functional Endpoints

Same as in Spring MVC

Spring WebFlux includes WebFlux.fn, a lightweight functional programming model in which functions are used to route and handle
requests and contracts are designed for immutability. It is an alternative to the annotation-based programming model but
otherwise runs on the same Reactive Core foundation.

1.5.1. Overview
Same as in Spring MVC

In WebFlux.fn, an HTTP request is handled with a HandlerFunction : a function that takes ServerRequest and returns a delayed
ServerResponse (i.e. Mono<ServerResponse> ). Both the request as the response object have immutable contracts that offer JDK 8-
friendly access to the HTTP request and response. HandlerFunction is the equivalent of the body of a @RequestMapping method in the
annotation-based programming model.

Incoming requests are routed to a handler function with a RouterFunction : a function that takes ServerRequest and returns a
delayed HandlerFunction (i.e. Mono<HandlerFunction> ). When the router function matches, a handler function is returned; otherwise
an empty Mono. RouterFunction is the equivalent of a @RequestMapping annotation, but with the major difference that router
functions provide not just data, but also behavior.

RouterFunctions.route() provides a router builder that facilitates the creation of routers, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
import static org.springframework.http.MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON;
import static org.springframework.web.reactive.function.server.RequestPredicates.*;
import static org.springframework.web.reactive.function.server.RouterFunctions.route;

PersonRepository repository = ...

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PersonHandler handler = new PersonHandler(repository);

RouterFunction<ServerResponse> route = route()

.GET("/person/{id}", accept(APPLICATION_JSON), handler::getPerson)
.GET("/person", accept(APPLICATION_JSON), handler::listPeople)
.POST("/person", handler::createPerson)
.build();

public class PersonHandler {

// ...

public Mono<ServerResponse> listPeople(ServerRequest request) {

// ...
}

public Mono<ServerResponse> createPerson(ServerRequest request) {

// ...
}

public Mono<ServerResponse> getPerson(ServerRequest request) {

// ...
}
}

One way to run a RouterFunction is to turn it into an HttpHandler and install it through one of the built-in server adapters:

RouterFunctions.toHttpHandler(RouterFunction)

RouterFunctions.toHttpHandler(RouterFunction, HandlerStrategies)

Most applications can run through the WebFlux Java configuration, see Running a Server.

1.5.2. HandlerFunction
Same as in Spring MVC

ServerRequest and ServerResponse are immutable interfaces that offer JDK 8-friendly access to the HTTP request and response. Both
request and response provide Reactive Streams back pressure against the body streams. The request body is represented with a
Reactor Flux or Mono . The response body is represented with any Reactive Streams Publisher , including Flux and Mono . For more
on that, see Reactive Libraries.

ServerRequest

ServerRequest provides access to the HTTP method, URI, headers, and query parameters, while access to the body is provided
through the body methods.

The following example extracts the request body to a Mono<String> :

Java Kotlin
JAVA
Mono<String> string = request.bodyToMono(String.class);

The following example extracts the body to a Flux<Person> (or a Flow<Person> in Kotlin), where Person objects are decoded from
someserialized form, such as JSON or XML:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
Flux<Person> people = request.bodyToFlux(Person.class);

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The preceding examples are shortcuts that use the more general ServerRequest.body(BodyExtractor) , which accepts the
BodyExtractor functional strategy interface. The utility class BodyExtractors provides access to a number of instances. For example,
the preceding examples can also be written as follows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
Mono<String> string = request.body(BodyExtractors.toMono(String.class));
Flux<Person> people = request.body(BodyExtractors.toFlux(Person.class));

The following example shows how to access form data:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
Mono<MultiValueMap<String, String> map = request.formData();

The following example shows how to access multipart data as a map:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
Mono<MultiValueMap<String, Part> map = request.multipartData();

The following example shows how to access multiparts, one at a time, in streaming fashion:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
Flux<Part> parts = request.body(BodyExtractors.toParts());

ServerResponse

ServerResponse provides access to the HTTP response and, since it is immutable, you can use a build method to create it. You can
use the builder to set the response status, to add response headers, or to provide a body. The following example creates a 200 (OK)
response with JSON content:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
Mono<Person> person = ...
ServerResponse.ok().contentType(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON).body(person, Person.class);

The following example shows how to build a 201 (CREATED) response with a Location header and no body:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
URI location = ...
ServerResponse.created(location).build();

Depending on the codec used, it is possible to pass hint parameters to customize how the body is serialized or deserialized. For
example, to specify a Jackson JSON view:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
ServerResponse.ok().hint(Jackson2CodecSupport.JSON_VIEW_HINT, MyJacksonView.class).body(...);

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Handler Classes
We can write a handler function as a lambda, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
HandlerFunction<ServerResponse> helloWorld =
request -> ServerResponse.ok().bodyValue("Hello World");

That is convenient, but in an application we need multiple functions, and multiple inline lambda’s can get messy. Therefore, it is
useful to group related handler functions together into a handler class, which has a similar role as @Controller in an annotation-
based application. For example, the following class exposes a reactive Person repository:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
import static org.springframework.http.MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON;
import static org.springframework.web.reactive.function.server.ServerResponse.ok;

public class PersonHandler {

private final PersonRepository repository;

public PersonHandler(PersonRepository repository) {

this.repository = repository;
}

public Mono<ServerResponse> listPeople(ServerRequest request) { 1

Flux<Person> people = repository.allPeople();

return ok().contentType(APPLICATION_JSON).body(people, Person.class);
}

public Mono<ServerResponse> createPerson(ServerRequest request) { 2

Mono<Person> person = request.bodyToMono(Person.class);
return ok().build(repository.savePerson(person));
}

public Mono<ServerResponse> getPerson(ServerRequest request) { 3

int personId = Integer.valueOf(request.pathVariable("id"));

return repository.getPerson(personId)
.flatMap(person -> ok().contentType(APPLICATION_JSON).bodyValue(person))
.switchIfEmpty(ServerResponse.notFound().build());
}
}

1 listPeople is a handler function that returns all Person objects found in the repository as JSON.

2 createPerson is a handler function that stores a new Person contained in the request body. Note that PersonRepository.savePerson(Perso

3 getPerson is a handler function that returns a single person, identified by the id path variable. We retrieve that Person from the reposit

Validation
A functional endpoint can use Spring’s validation facilities to apply validation to the request body. For example, given a custom
Spring Validator implementation for a Person :

Java Kotlin
JAVA
public class PersonHandler {

private final Validator validator = new PersonValidator(); 1

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// ...

public Mono<ServerResponse> createPerson(ServerRequest request) {

Mono<Person> person = request.bodyToMono(Person.class).doOnNext(this::validate); 2
return ok().build(repository.savePerson(person));
}

private void validate(Person person) {

Errors errors = new BeanPropertyBindingResult(person, "person");
validator.validate(person, errors);
if (errors.hasErrors()) {
throw new ServerWebInputException(errors.toString()); 3
}
}
}

1 Create Validator instance.

2 Apply validation.
3 Raise exception for a 400 response.

Handlers can also use the standard bean validation API (JSR-303) by creating and injecting a global Validator instance based on
LocalValidatorFactoryBean . See Spring Validation.

1.5.3. RouterFunction
Same as in Spring MVC

Router functions are used to route the requests to the corresponding HandlerFunction . Typically, you do not write router functions
yourself, but rather use a method on the RouterFunctions utility class to create one. RouterFunctions.route() (no parameters)
provides you with a fluent builder for creating a router function, whereas RouterFunctions.route(RequestPredicate, HandlerFunction)
offers a direct way to create a router.

Generally, it is recommended to use the route() builder, as it provides convenient short-cuts for typical mapping scenarios without
requiring hard-to-discover static imports. For instance, the router function builder offers the method GET(String, HandlerFunction)
to create a mapping for GET requests; and POST(String, HandlerFunction) for POSTs.

Besides HTTP method-based mapping, the route builder offers a way to introduce additional predicates when mapping to requests.
For each HTTP method there is an overloaded variant that takes a RequestPredicate as a parameter, though which additional
constraints can be expressed.

Predicates
You can write your own RequestPredicate , but the RequestPredicates utility class offers commonly used implementations, based on
the request path, HTTP method, content-type, and so on. The following example uses a request predicate to create a constraint based
on the Accept header:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
RouterFunction<ServerResponse> route = RouterFunctions.route()
.GET("/hello-world", accept(MediaType.TEXT_PLAIN),
request -> ServerResponse.ok().bodyValue("Hello World"));

You can compose multiple request predicates together by using:

RequestPredicate.and(RequestPredicate) — both must match.

RequestPredicate.or(RequestPredicate) — either can match.

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Many of the predicates from RequestPredicates are composed. For example, RequestPredicates.GET(String) is composed from
RequestPredicates.method(HttpMethod) and RequestPredicates.path(String) . The example shown above also uses two request
predicates, as the builder uses RequestPredicates.GET internally, and composes that with the accept predicate.

Routes
Router functions are evaluated in order: if the first route does not match, the second is evaluated, and so on. Therefore, it makes
sense to declare more specific routes before general ones. Note that this behavior is different from the annotation-based
programming model, where the "most specific" controller method is picked automatically.

When using the router function builder, all defined routes are composed into one RouterFunction that is returned from build() .
There are also other ways to compose multiple router functions together:

add(RouterFunction) on the RouterFunctions.route() builder

RouterFunction.and(RouterFunction)

RouterFunction.andRoute(RequestPredicate, HandlerFunction) — shortcut for RouterFunction.and() with nested

RouterFunctions.route() .

The following example shows the composition of four routes:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
import static org.springframework.http.MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON;
import static org.springframework.web.reactive.function.server.RequestPredicates.*;

PersonRepository repository = ...

PersonHandler handler = new PersonHandler(repository);

RouterFunction<ServerResponse> otherRoute = ...

RouterFunction<ServerResponse> route = route()

.GET("/person/{id}", accept(APPLICATION_JSON), handler::getPerson) 1
.GET("/person", accept(APPLICATION_JSON), handler::listPeople) 2
.POST("/person", handler::createPerson) 3
.add(otherRoute) 4

.build();

1 GET /person/{id} with an Accept header that matches JSON is routed to PersonHandler.getPerson

2 GET /person with an Accept header that matches JSON is routed to PersonHandler.listPeople

3 POST /person with no additional predicates is mapped to PersonHandler.createPerson , and

4 otherRoute is a router function that is created elsewhere, and added to the route built.

Nested Routes
It is common for a group of router functions to have a shared predicate, for instance a shared path. In the example above, the shared
predicate would be a path predicate that matches /person , used by three of the routes. When using annotations, you would remove
this duplication by using a type-level @RequestMapping annotation that maps to /person . In WebFlux.fn, path predicates can be
shared through the path method on the router function builder. For instance, the last few lines of the example above can be
improved in the following way by using nested routes:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
RouterFunction<ServerResponse> route = route()
.path("/person", builder -> builder 1
.GET("/{id}", accept(APPLICATION_JSON), handler::getPerson)
.GET("", accept(APPLICATION_JSON), handler::listPeople)
.POST("/person", handler::createPerson))
.build();

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1 Note that second parameter of path is a consumer that takes the a router builder.

Though path-based nesting is the most common, you can nest on any kind of predicate by using the nest method on the builder.
The above still contains some duplication in the form of the shared Accept -header predicate. We can further improve by using the
nest method together with accept :

Java Kotlin
JAVA
RouterFunction<ServerResponse> route = route()
.path("/person", b1 -> b1
.nest(accept(APPLICATION_JSON), b2 -> b2
.GET("/{id}", handler::getPerson)
.GET("", handler::listPeople))
.POST("/person", handler::createPerson))
.build();

1.5.4. Running a Server

Same as in Spring MVC

How do you run a router function in an HTTP server? A simple option is to convert a router function to an HttpHandler by using one of
the following:

RouterFunctions.toHttpHandler(RouterFunction)

RouterFunctions.toHttpHandler(RouterFunction, HandlerStrategies)

You can then use the returned HttpHandler with a number of server adapters by following HttpHandler for server-specific
instructions.

A more typical option, also used by Spring Boot, is to run with a DispatcherHandler -based setup through the WebFlux Config, which
uses Spring configuration to declare the components required to process requests. The WebFlux Java configuration declares the
following infrastructure components to support functional endpoints:

RouterFunctionMapping : Detects one or more RouterFunction<?> beans in the Spring configuration, combines them through
RouterFunction.andOther , and routes requests to the resulting composed RouterFunction .

HandlerFunctionAdapter : Simple adapter that lets DispatcherHandler invoke a HandlerFunction that was mapped to a request.

ServerResponseResultHandler : Handles the result from the invocation of a HandlerFunction by invoking the writeTo method of the
ServerResponse .

The preceding components let functional endpoints fit within the DispatcherHandler request processing lifecycle and also
(potentially) run side by side with annotated controllers, if any are declared. It is also how functional endpoints are enabled by the
Spring Boot WebFlux starter.

The following example shows a WebFlux Java configuration (see DispatcherHandler for how to run it):

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Configuration
@EnableWebFlux
public class WebConfig implements WebFluxConfigurer {

@Bean
public RouterFunction<?> routerFunctionA() {
// ...
}

@Bean
public RouterFunction<?> routerFunctionB() {

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// ...
}

// ...

@Override
public void configureHttpMessageCodecs(ServerCodecConfigurer configurer) {
// configure message conversion...
}

@Override
public void addCorsMappings(CorsRegistry registry) {
// configure CORS...
}

@Override
public void configureViewResolvers(ViewResolverRegistry registry) {
// configure view resolution for HTML rendering...
}
}

1.5.5. Filtering Handler Functions

Same as in Spring MVC

You can filter handler functions by using the before , after , or filter methods on the routing function builder. With annotations,
you can achieve similar functionality by using @ControllerAdvice , a ServletFilter , or both. The filter will apply to all routes that are
built by the builder. This means that filters defined in nested routes do not apply to "top-level" routes. For instance, consider the
following example:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
RouterFunction<ServerResponse> route = route()
.path("/person", b1 -> b1
.nest(accept(APPLICATION_JSON), b2 -> b2
.GET("/{id}", handler::getPerson)
.GET("", handler::listPeople)
.before(request -> ServerRequest.from(request) 1
.header("X-RequestHeader", "Value")
.build()))
.POST("/person", handler::createPerson))
.after((request, response) -> logResponse(response)) 2
.build();

1 The before filter that adds a custom request header is only applied to the two GET routes.
2 The after filter that logs the response is applied to all routes, including the nested ones.

The filter method on the router builder takes a HandlerFilterFunction : a function that takes a ServerRequest and HandlerFunction
and returns a ServerResponse . The handler function parameter represents the next element in the chain. This is typically the handler
that is routed to, but it can also be another filter if multiple are applied.

Now we can add a simple security filter to our route, assuming that we have a SecurityManager that can determine whether a
particular path is allowed. The following example shows how to do so:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
SecurityManager securityManager = ...

RouterFunction<ServerResponse> route = route()

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.path("/person", b1 -> b1
.nest(accept(APPLICATION_JSON), b2 -> b2
.GET("/{id}", handler::getPerson)
.GET("", handler::listPeople))
.POST("/person", handler::createPerson))
.filter((request, next) -> {
if (securityManager.allowAccessTo(request.path())) {
return next.handle(request);
}
else {
return ServerResponse.status(UNAUTHORIZED).build();
}
})
.build();

The preceding example demonstrates that invoking the next.handle(ServerRequest) is optional. We allow only the handler function
to be executed when access is allowed.

Besides using the filter method on the router function builder, it is possible to apply a filter to an existing router function via
RouterFunction.filter(HandlerFilterFunction) .

CORS support for functional endpoints is provided through a dedicated CorsWebFilter .

1.6. URI Links

Same as in Spring MVC

This section describes various options available in the Spring Framework to prepare URIs.

1.6.1. UriComponents
Spring MVC and Spring WebFlux

UriComponentsBuilder helps to build URI’s from URI templates with variables, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
UriComponents uriComponents = UriComponentsBuilder
.fromUriString("https://example.com/hotels/{hotel}") 1
.queryParam("q", "{q}") 2
.encode() 3
.build(); 4

URI uri = uriComponents.expand("Westin", "123").toUri(); 5

1 Static factory method with a URI template.

2 Add or replace URI components.
3 Request to have the URI template and URI variables encoded.
4 Build a UriComponents .
5 Expand variables and obtain the URI .

The preceding example can be consolidated into one chain and shortened with buildAndExpand , as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin

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JAVA
URI uri = UriComponentsBuilder
.fromUriString("https://example.com/hotels/{hotel}")
.queryParam("q", "{q}")
.encode()
.buildAndExpand("Westin", "123")
.toUri();

You can shorten it further by going directly to a URI (which implies encoding), as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
URI uri = UriComponentsBuilder
.fromUriString("https://example.com/hotels/{hotel}")
.queryParam("q", "{q}")
.build("Westin", "123");

You shorter it further still with a full URI template, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
URI uri = UriComponentsBuilder
.fromUriString("https://example.com/hotels/{hotel}?q={q}")
.build("Westin", "123");

1.6.2. UriBuilder
Spring MVC and Spring WebFlux

UriComponentsBuilder implements UriBuilder . You can create a UriBuilder , in turn, with a UriBuilderFactory . Together,
UriBuilderFactory and UriBuilder provide a pluggable mechanism to build URIs from URI templates, based on shared
configuration, such as a base URL, encoding preferences, and other details.

You can configure RestTemplate and WebClient with a UriBuilderFactory to customize the preparation of URIs.
DefaultUriBuilderFactory is a default implementation of UriBuilderFactory that uses UriComponentsBuilder internally and exposes
shared configuration options.

The following example shows how to configure a RestTemplate :

Java Kotlin
JAVA
// import org.springframework.web.util.DefaultUriBuilderFactory.EncodingMode;

String baseUrl = "https://example.org";

DefaultUriBuilderFactory factory = new DefaultUriBuilderFactory(baseUrl);
factory.setEncodingMode(EncodingMode.TEMPLATE_AND_VALUES);

RestTemplate restTemplate = new RestTemplate();

restTemplate.setUriTemplateHandler(factory);

The following example configures a WebClient :

Java Kotlin
JAVA
// import org.springframework.web.util.DefaultUriBuilderFactory.EncodingMode;

String baseUrl = "https://example.org";

DefaultUriBuilderFactory factory = new DefaultUriBuilderFactory(baseUrl);

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factory.setEncodingMode(EncodingMode.TEMPLATE_AND_VALUES);

WebClient client = WebClient.builder().uriBuilderFactory(factory).build();

In addition, you can also use DefaultUriBuilderFactory directly. It is similar to using UriComponentsBuilder but, instead of static
factory methods, it is an actual instance that holds configuration and preferences, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
String baseUrl = "https://example.com";
DefaultUriBuilderFactory uriBuilderFactory = new DefaultUriBuilderFactory(baseUrl);

URI uri = uriBuilderFactory.uriString("/hotels/{hotel}")

.queryParam("q", "{q}")
.build("Westin", "123");

1.6.3. URI Encoding

Spring MVC and Spring WebFlux

UriComponentsBuilder exposes encoding options at two levels:

UriComponentsBuilder#encode(): Pre-encodes the URI template first and then strictly encodes URI variables when expanded.

UriComponents#encode(): Encodes URI components after URI variables are expanded.

Both options replace non-ASCII and illegal characters with escaped octets. However, the first option also replaces characters with
reserved meaning that appear in URI variables.

Consider ";", which is legal in a path but has reserved meaning. The first option replaces ";" with "%3B" in URI variables but not
in the URI template. By contrast, the second option never replaces ";", since it is a legal character in a path.

For most cases, the first option is likely to give the expected result, because it treats URI variables as opaque data to be fully
encoded, while option 2 is useful only if URI variables intentionally contain reserved characters.

The following example uses the first option:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
URI uri = UriComponentsBuilder.fromPath("/hotel list/{city}")
.queryParam("q", "{q}")
.encode()
.buildAndExpand("New York", "foo+bar")
.toUri();

// Result is "/hotel%20list/New%20York?q=foo%2Bbar"

You can shorten the preceding example by going directly to the URI (which implies encoding), as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
URI uri = UriComponentsBuilder.fromPath("/hotel list/{city}")
.queryParam("q", "{q}")
.build("New York", "foo+bar")

You can shorten it further still with a full URI template, as the following example shows:

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Java Kotlin
JAVA
URI uri = UriComponentsBuilder.fromPath("/hotel list/{city}?q={q}")
.build("New York", "foo+bar")

The WebClient and the RestTemplate expand and encode URI templates internally through the UriBuilderFactory strategy. Both can
be configured with a custom strategy. as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
String baseUrl = "https://example.com";
DefaultUriBuilderFactory factory = new DefaultUriBuilderFactory(baseUrl)
factory.setEncodingMode(EncodingMode.TEMPLATE_AND_VALUES);

// Customize the RestTemplate..

RestTemplate restTemplate = new RestTemplate();
restTemplate.setUriTemplateHandler(factory);

// Customize the WebClient..

WebClient client = WebClient.builder().uriBuilderFactory(factory).build();

The DefaultUriBuilderFactory implementation uses UriComponentsBuilder internally to expand and encode URI templates. As a
factory, it provides a single place to configure the approach to encoding, based on one of the below encoding modes:

TEMPLATE_AND_VALUES : Uses UriComponentsBuilder#encode() , corresponding to the first option in the earlier list, to pre-encode the
URI template and strictly encode URI variables when expanded.

VALUES_ONLY : Does not encode the URI template and, instead, applies strict encoding to URI variables through
UriUtils#encodeUriUriVariables prior to expanding them into the template.

URI_COMPONENTS : Uses UriComponents#encode() , corresponding to the second option in the earlier list, to encode URI component
value after URI variables are expanded.

NONE : No encoding is applied.

The RestTemplate is set to EncodingMode.URI_COMPONENTS for historic reasons and for backwards compatibility. The WebClient relies
on the default value in DefaultUriBuilderFactory , which was changed from EncodingMode.URI_COMPONENTS in 5.0.x to
EncodingMode.TEMPLATE_AND_VALUES in 5.1.

1.7. CORS
Same as in Spring MVC

Spring WebFlux lets you handle CORS (Cross-Origin Resource Sharing). This section describes how to do so.

1.7.1. Introduction
Same as in Spring MVC

For security reasons, browsers prohibit AJAX calls to resources outside the current origin. For example, you could have your bank
account in one tab and evil.com in another. Scripts from evil.com should not be able to make AJAX requests to your bank API with
your credentials — for example, withdrawing money from your account!

Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) is a W3C specification implemented by most browsers that lets you specify what kind of
cross-domain requests are authorized, rather than using less secure and less powerful workarounds based on IFRAME or JSONP.

1.7.2. Processing
Same as in Spring MVC

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The CORS specification distinguishes between preflight, simple, and actual requests. To learn how CORS works, you can read this
article, among many others, or see the specification for more details.

Spring WebFlux HandlerMapping implementations provide built-in support for CORS. After successfully mapping a request to a
handler, a HandlerMapping checks the CORS configuration for the given request and handler and takes further actions. Preflight
requests are handled directly, while simple and actual CORS requests are intercepted, validated, and have the required CORS
response headers set.

In order to enable cross-origin requests (that is, the Origin header is present and differs from the host of the request), you need to
have some explicitly declared CORS configuration. If no matching CORS configuration is found, preflight requests are rejected. No
CORS headers are added to the responses of simple and actual CORS requests and, consequently, browsers reject them.

Each HandlerMapping can be configured individually with URL pattern-based CorsConfiguration mappings. In most cases,
applications use the WebFlux Java configuration to declare such mappings, which results in a single, global map passed to all
HadlerMappping implementations.

You can combine global CORS configuration at the HandlerMapping level with more fine-grained, handler-level CORS configuration.
For example, annotated controllers can use class- or method-level @CrossOrigin annotations (other handlers can implement
CorsConfigurationSource ).

The rules for combining global and local configuration are generally additive — for example, all global and all local origins. For those
attributes where only a single value can be accepted, such as allowCredentials and maxAge , the local overrides the global value. See
CorsConfiguration#combine(CorsConfiguration) for more details.

To learn more from the source or to make advanced customizations, see:

CorsConfiguration

CorsProcessor and DefaultCorsProcessor

AbstractHandlerMapping

1.7.3. @CrossOrigin
Same as in Spring MVC

The @CrossOrigin annotation enables cross-origin requests on annotated controller methods, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@RestController
@RequestMapping("/account")
public class AccountController {

@CrossOrigin
@GetMapping("/{id}")
public Mono<Account> retrieve(@PathVariable Long id) {
// ...
}

@DeleteMapping("/{id}")
public Mono<Void> remove(@PathVariable Long id) {
// ...
}
}

By default, @CrossOrigin allows:

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All origins.

All headers.

All HTTP methods to which the controller method is mapped.

allowedCredentials is not enabled by default, since that establishes a trust level that exposes sensitive user-specific information
(such as cookies and CSRF tokens) and should be used only where appropriate.

maxAge is set to 30 minutes.

@CrossOrigin is supported at the class level, too, and inherited by all methods. The following example specifies a certain domain
and sets maxAge to an hour:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@CrossOrigin(origins = "https://domain2.com", maxAge = 3600)
@RestController
@RequestMapping("/account")
public class AccountController {

@GetMapping("/{id}")
public Mono<Account> retrieve(@PathVariable Long id) {
// ...
}

@DeleteMapping("/{id}")
public Mono<Void> remove(@PathVariable Long id) {
// ...
}
}

You can use @CrossOrigin at both the class and the method level, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@CrossOrigin(maxAge = 3600) 1
@RestController
@RequestMapping("/account")
public class AccountController {

@CrossOrigin("https://domain2.com") 2
@GetMapping("/{id}")
public Mono<Account> retrieve(@PathVariable Long id) {
// ...
}

@DeleteMapping("/{id}")
public Mono<Void> remove(@PathVariable Long id) {
// ...
}
}

1 Using @CrossOrigin at the class level.

2 Using @CrossOrigin at the method level.

1.7.4. Global Con guration

Same as in Spring MVC

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In addition to fine-grained, controller method-level configuration, you probably want to define some global CORS configuration, too.
You can set URL-based CorsConfiguration mappings individually on any HandlerMapping . Most applications, however, use the
WebFlux Java configuration to do that.

By default global configuration enables the following:

All origins.

All headers.

GET , HEAD , and POST methods.

allowedCredentials is not enabled by default, since that establishes a trust level that exposes sensitive user-specific information(
such as cookies and CSRF tokens) and should be used only where appropriate.

maxAge is set to 30 minutes.

To enable CORS in the WebFlux Java configuration, you can use the CorsRegistry callback, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Configuration
@EnableWebFlux
public class WebConfig implements WebFluxConfigurer {

@Override
public void addCorsMappings(CorsRegistry registry) {

registry.addMapping("/api/**")
.allowedOrigins("https://domain2.com")
.allowedMethods("PUT", "DELETE")
.allowedHeaders("header1", "header2", "header3")
.exposedHeaders("header1", "header2")
.allowCredentials(true).maxAge(3600);

// Add more mappings...

}
}

1.7.5. CORS WebFilter

Same as in Spring MVC

You can apply CORS support through the built-in CorsWebFilter , which is a good fit with functional endpoints.

If you try to use the CorsFilter with Spring Security, keep in mind that Spring Security has built-in support for CORS.

To configure the filter, you can declare a CorsWebFilter bean and pass a CorsConfigurationSource to its constructor, as the following
example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Bean
CorsWebFilter corsFilter() {

CorsConfiguration config = new CorsConfiguration();

// Possibly...
// config.applyPermitDefaultValues()

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config.setAllowCredentials(true);
config.addAllowedOrigin("https://domain1.com");
config.addAllowedHeader("*");
config.addAllowedMethod("*");

UrlBasedCorsConfigurationSource source = new UrlBasedCorsConfigurationSource();

source.registerCorsConfiguration("/**", config);

return new CorsWebFilter(source);

}

1.8. Web Security

Same as in Spring MVC

The Spring Security project provides support for protecting web applications from malicious exploits. See the Spring Security
reference documentation, including:

WebFlux Security

WebFlux Testing Support

CSRF Protection

Security Response Headers

1.9. View Technologies

Same as in Spring MVC

The use of view technologies in Spring WebFlux is pluggable. Whether you decide to use Thymeleaf, FreeMarker, or some other view
technology is primarily a matter of a configuration change. This chapter covers the view technologies integrated with Spring
WebFlux. We assume you are already familiar with View Resolution.

1.9.1. Thymeleaf
Same as in Spring MVC

Thymeleaf is a modern server-side Java template engine that emphasizes natural HTML templates that can be previewed in a
browser by double-clicking, which is very helpful for independent work on UI templates (for example, by a designer) without the need
for a running server. Thymeleaf offers an extensive set of features, and it is actively developed and maintained. For a more complete
introduction, see the Thymeleaf project home page.

The Thymeleaf integration with Spring WebFlux is managed by the Thymeleaf project. The configuration involves a few bean
declarations, such as SpringResourceTemplateResolver , SpringWebFluxTemplateEngine , and ThymeleafReactiveViewResolver . For more
details, see Thymeleaf+Spring and the WebFlux integration announcement.

1.9.2. FreeMarker
Same as in Spring MVC

Apache FreeMarker is a template engine for generating any kind of text output from HTML to email and others. The Spring
Framework has built-in integration for using Spring WebFlux with FreeMarker templates.

View Con guration

Same as in Spring MVC

The following example shows how to configure FreeMarker as a view technology:

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Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Configuration
@EnableWebFlux
public class WebConfig implements WebFluxConfigurer {

@Override
public void configureViewResolvers(ViewResolverRegistry registry) {
registry.freeMarker();
}

// Configure FreeMarker...

@Bean
public FreeMarkerConfigurer freeMarkerConfigurer() {
FreeMarkerConfigurer configurer = new FreeMarkerConfigurer();
configurer.setTemplateLoaderPath("classpath:/templates/freemarker");
return configurer;
}
}

Your templates need to be stored in the directory specified by the FreeMarkerConfigurer , shown in the preceding example. Given the
preceding configuration, if your controller returns the view name, welcome , the resolver looks for the
classpath:/templates/freemarker/welcome.ftl template.

FreeMarker Con guration

Same as in Spring MVC

You can pass FreeMarker 'Settings' and 'SharedVariables' directly to the FreeMarker Configuration object (which is managed by
Spring) by setting the appropriate bean properties on the FreeMarkerConfigurer bean. The freemarkerSettings property requires a
java.util.Properties object, and the freemarkerVariables property requires a java.util.Map . The following example shows how to
use a FreeMarkerConfigurer :

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Configuration
@EnableWebFlux
public class WebConfig implements WebFluxConfigurer {

// ...

@Bean
public FreeMarkerConfigurer freeMarkerConfigurer() {
Map<String, Object> variables = new HashMap<>();
variables.put("xml_escape", new XmlEscape());

FreeMarkerConfigurer configurer = new FreeMarkerConfigurer();

configurer.setTemplateLoaderPath("classpath:/templates");
configurer.setFreemarkerVariables(variables);
return configurer;
}
}

See the FreeMarker documentation for details of settings and variables as they apply to the Configuration object.

Form Handling
Same as in Spring MVC

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Spring provides a tag library for use in JSPs that contains, among others, a <spring:bind/> element. This element primarily lets
forms display values from form-backing objects and show the results of failed validations from a Validator in the web or business
tier. Spring also has support for the same functionality in FreeMarker, with additional convenience macros for generating form
input elements themselves.

The Bind Macros

Same as in Spring MVC

A standard set of macros are maintained within the spring-webflux.jar file for FreeMarker, so they are always available to a suitably
configured application.

Some of the macros defined in the Spring templating libraries are considered internal (private), but no such scoping exists in the
macro definitions, making all macros visible to calling code and user templates. The following sections concentrate only on the
macros you need to directly call from within your templates. If you wish to view the macro code directly, the file is called spring.ftl
and is in the org.springframework.web.reactive.result.view.freemarker package.

For additional details on binding support, see Simple Binding for Spring MVC.

Form Macros

For details on Spring’s form macro support for FreeMarker templates, consult the following sections of the Spring MVC
documentation.

Input Macros

Input Fields

Selection Fields

HTML Escaping

1.9.3. Script Views

Same as in Spring MVC

The Spring Framework has a built-in integration for using Spring WebFlux with any templating library that can run on top of the JSR-
223 Java scripting engine. The following table shows the templating libraries that we have tested on different script engines:

Scripting Library Scripting Engine

Handlebars Nashorn

Mustache Nashorn

React Nashorn

EJS Nashorn

ERB JRuby

String templates Jython

Kotlin Script templating Kotlin

The basic rule for integrating any other script engine is that it must implement the ScriptEngine and Invocable interfaces.

Requirements
Same as in Spring MVC

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You need to have the script engine on your classpath, the details of which vary by script engine:

The Nashorn JavaScript engine is provided with Java 8+. Using the latest update release available is highly recommended.

JRuby should be added as a dependency for Ruby support.

Jython should be added as a dependency for Python support.

org.jetbrains.kotlin:kotlin-script-util dependency and a META-INF/services/javax.script.ScriptEngineFactory file containing

a org.jetbrains.kotlin.script.jsr223.KotlinJsr223JvmLocalScriptEngineFactory line should be added for Kotlin script support. See
this example for more detail.

You need to have the script templating library. One way to do that for Javascript is through WebJars.

Script Templates
Same as in Spring MVC

You can declare a ScriptTemplateConfigurer bean to specify the script engine to use, the script files to load, what function to call to
render templates, and so on. The following example uses Mustache templates and the Nashorn JavaScript engine:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Configuration
@EnableWebFlux
public class WebConfig implements WebFluxConfigurer {

@Override
public void configureViewResolvers(ViewResolverRegistry registry) {
registry.scriptTemplate();
}

@Bean
public ScriptTemplateConfigurer configurer() {
ScriptTemplateConfigurer configurer = new ScriptTemplateConfigurer();
configurer.setEngineName("nashorn");
configurer.setScripts("mustache.js");
configurer.setRenderObject("Mustache");
configurer.setRenderFunction("render");
return configurer;
}
}

The render function is called with the following parameters:

String template : The template content

Map model : The view model

RenderingContext renderingContext : The RenderingContext that gives access to the application context, the locale, the template
loader, and the URL (since 5.0)

Mustache.render() is natively compatible with this signature, so you can call it directly.

If your templating technology requires some customization, you can provide a script that implements a custom render function. For
example, Handlerbars needs to compile templates before using them and requires a polyfill in order to emulate some browser
facilities not available in the server-side script engine. The following example shows how to set a custom render function:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Configuration
@EnableWebFlux
public class WebConfig implements WebFluxConfigurer {

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@Override
public void configureViewResolvers(ViewResolverRegistry registry) {
registry.scriptTemplate();
}

@Bean
public ScriptTemplateConfigurer configurer() {
ScriptTemplateConfigurer configurer = new ScriptTemplateConfigurer();
configurer.setEngineName("nashorn");
configurer.setScripts("polyfill.js", "handlebars.js", "render.js");
configurer.setRenderFunction("render");
configurer.setSharedEngine(false);
return configurer;
}
}

Setting the sharedEngine property to false is required when using non-thread-safe script engines with templating libraries
not designed for concurrency, such as Handlebars or React running on Nashorn. In that case, Java SE 8 update 60 is required,
due to this bug, but it is generally recommended to use a recent Java SE patch release in any case.

polyfill.js defines only the window object needed by Handlebars to run properly, as the following snippet shows:

JAVASCRIPT
var window = {};

This basic render.js implementation compiles the template before using it. A production ready implementation should also store
and reused cached templates or pre-compiled templates. This can be done on the script side, as well as any customization you need
(managing template engine configuration for example). The following example shows how compile a template:

JAVASCRIPT
function render(template, model) {
var compiledTemplate = Handlebars.compile(template);
return compiledTemplate(model);
}

Check out the Spring Framework unit tests, Java, and resources, for more configuration examples.

1.9.4. JSON and XML

Same as in Spring MVC

For Content Negotiation purposes, it is useful to be able to alternate between rendering a model with an HTML template or as other
formats (such as JSON or XML), depending on the content type requested by the client. To support doing so, Spring WebFlux provides
the HttpMessageWriterView , which you can use to plug in any of the available Codecs from spring-web , such as Jackson2JsonEncoder ,
Jackson2SmileEncoder , or Jaxb2XmlEncoder .

Unlike other view technologies, HttpMessageWriterView does not require a ViewResolver but is instead configured as a default view.
You can configure one or more such default views, wrapping different HttpMessageWriter instances or Encoder instances. The one
that matches the requested content type is used at runtime.

In most cases, a model contains multiple attributes. To determine which one to serialize, you can configure HttpMessageWriterView
with the name of the model attribute to use for rendering. If the model contains only one attribute, that one is used.

1.10. HTTP Caching

Same as in Spring MVC

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HTTP caching can significantly improve the performance of a web application. HTTP caching revolves around the Cache-Control
response header and subsequent conditional request headers, such as Last-Modified and ETag . Cache-Control advises private (for
example, browser) and public (for example, proxy) caches how to cache and re-use responses. An ETag header is used to make a
conditional request that may result in a 304 (NOT_MODIFIED) without a body, if the content has not changed. ETag can be seen as a
more sophisticated successor to the Last-Modified header.

This section describes the HTTP caching related options available in Spring WebFlux.

1.10.1. CacheControl
Same as in Spring MVC

CacheControl provides support for configuring settings related to the Cache-Control header and is accepted as an argument in a
number of places:

Controllers

Static Resources

While RFC 7234 describes all possible directives for the Cache-Control response header, the CacheControl type takes a use case-
oriented approach that focuses on the common scenarios, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
// Cache for an hour - "Cache-Control: max-age=3600"
CacheControl ccCacheOneHour = CacheControl.maxAge(1, TimeUnit.HOURS);

// Prevent caching - "Cache-Control: no-store"

CacheControl ccNoStore = CacheControl.noStore();

// Cache for ten days in public and private caches,

// public caches should not transform the response
// "Cache-Control: max-age=864000, public, no-transform"
CacheControl ccCustom = CacheControl.maxAge(10, TimeUnit.DAYS).noTransform().cachePublic();

1.10.2. Controllers
Same as in Spring MVC

Controllers can add explicit support for HTTP caching. We recommend doing so, since the lastModified or ETag value for a resource
needs to be calculated before it can be compared against conditional request headers. A controller can add an ETag and Cache-
Control settings to a ResponseEntity , as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@GetMapping("/book/{id}")
public ResponseEntity<Book> showBook(@PathVariable Long id) {

Book book = findBook(id);

String version = book.getVersion();

return ResponseEntity
.ok()
.cacheControl(CacheControl.maxAge(30, TimeUnit.DAYS))
.eTag(version) // lastModified is also available
.body(book);
}

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The preceding example sends a 304 (NOT_MODIFIED) response with an empty body if the comparison to the conditional request
headers indicates the content has not changed. Otherwise, the ETag and Cache-Control headers are added to the response.

You can also make the check against conditional request headers in the controller, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@RequestMapping
public String myHandleMethod(ServerWebExchange exchange, Model model) {

long eTag = ... 1

if (exchange.checkNotModified(eTag)) {
return null; 2
}

model.addAttribute(...); 3
return "myViewName";
}

1 Application-specific calculation.
2 Response has been set to 304 (NOT_MODIFIED). No further processing.
3 Continue with request processing.

There are three variants for checking conditional requests against eTag values, lastModified values, or both. For conditional GET
and HEAD requests, you can set the response to 304 (NOT_MODIFIED). For conditional POST , PUT , and DELETE , you can instead set
the response to 409 (PRECONDITION_FAILED) to prevent concurrent modification.

1.10.3. Static Resources

Same as in Spring MVC

You should serve static resources with a Cache-Control and conditional response headers for optimal performance. See the section
on configuring Static Resources.

1.11. WebFlux Con g

Same as in Spring MVC

The WebFlux Java configuration declares the components that are required to process requests with annotated controllers or
functional endpoints, and it offers an API to customize the configuration. That means you do not need to understand the underlying
beans created by the Java configuration. However, if you want to understand them, you can see them in WebFluxConfigurationSupport
or read more about what they are in Special Bean Types.

For more advanced customizations, not available in the configuration API, you can gain full control over the configuration through
the Advanced Configuration Mode.

1.11.1. Enabling WebFlux Con g

Same as in Spring MVC

You can use the @EnableWebFlux annotation in your Java config, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Configuration
@EnableWebFlux
public class WebConfig {
}

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The preceding example registers a number of Spring WebFlux infrastructure beans and adapts to dependencies available on the
classpath — for JSON, XML, and others.

1.11.2. WebFlux con g API

Same as in Spring MVC

In your Java configuration, you can implement the WebFluxConfigurer interface, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Configuration
@EnableWebFlux
public class WebConfig implements WebFluxConfigurer {

// Implement configuration methods...

}

1.11.3. Conversion, formatting

Same as in Spring MVC

By default, formatters for Number and Date types are installed, including support for the @NumberFormat and @DateTimeFormat
annotations. Full support for the Joda-Time formatting library is also installed if Joda-Time is present on the classpath.

The following example shows how to register custom formatters and converters:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Configuration
@EnableWebFlux
public class WebConfig implements WebFluxConfigurer {

@Override
public void addFormatters(FormatterRegistry registry) {
// ...
}

See FormatterRegistrar SPI and the FormattingConversionServiceFactoryBean for more information on when to use
FormatterRegistrar implementations.

1.11.4. Validation
Same as in Spring MVC

By default, if Bean Validation is present on the classpath (for example, the Hibernate Validator), the LocalValidatorFactoryBean is
registered as a global validator for use with @Valid and Validated on @Controller method arguments.

In your Java configuration, you can customize the global Validator instance, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin

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JAVA
@Configuration
@EnableWebFlux
public class WebConfig implements WebFluxConfigurer {

@Override
public Validator getValidator(); {
// ...
}

Note that you can also register Validator implementations locally, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Controller
public class MyController {

@InitBinder
protected void initBinder(WebDataBinder binder) {
binder.addValidators(new FooValidator());
}

If you need to have a LocalValidatorFactoryBean injected somewhere, create a bean and mark it with @Primary in order to avoid
conflict with the one declared in the MVC config.

1.11.5. Content Type Resolvers

Same as in Spring MVC

You can configure how Spring WebFlux determines the requested media types for @Controller instances from the request. By
default, only the Accept header is checked, but you can also enable a query parameter-based strategy.

The following example shows how to customize the requested content type resolution:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Configuration
@EnableWebFlux
public class WebConfig implements WebFluxConfigurer {

@Override
public void configureContentTypeResolver(RequestedContentTypeResolverBuilder builder) {
// ...
}
}

1.11.6. HTTP message codecs

Same as in Spring MVC

The following example shows how to customize how the request and response body are read and written:

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Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Configuration
@EnableWebFlux
public class WebConfig implements WebFluxConfigurer {

@Override
public void configureHttpMessageCodecs(ServerCodecConfigurer configurer) {
// ...
}
}

ServerCodecConfigurer provides a set of default readers and writers. You can use it to add more readers and writers, customize the
default ones, or replace the default ones completely.

For Jackson JSON and XML, consider using Jackson2ObjectMapperBuilder , which customizes Jackson’s default properties with the
following ones:

DeserializationFeature.FAIL_ON_UNKNOWN_PROPERTIES is disabled.

MapperFeature.DEFAULT_VIEW_INCLUSION is disabled.

It also automatically registers the following well-known modules if they are detected on the classpath:

jackson-datatype-jdk7 : Support for Java 7 types like java.nio.file.Path .

jackson-datatype-joda : Support for Joda-Time types.

jackson-datatype-jsr310 : Support for Java 8 Date and Time API types.

jackson-datatype-jdk8 : Support for other Java 8 types, such as Optional .

1.11.7. View Resolvers

Same as in Spring MVC

The following example shows how to configure view resolution:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Configuration
@EnableWebFlux
public class WebConfig implements WebFluxConfigurer {

@Override
public void configureViewResolvers(ViewResolverRegistry registry) {
// ...
}
}

The ViewResolverRegistry has shortcuts for view technologies with which the Spring Framework integrates. The following example
uses FreeMarker (which also requires configuring the underlying FreeMarker view technology):

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Configuration
@EnableWebFlux
public class WebConfig implements WebFluxConfigurer {

@Override

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public void configureViewResolvers(ViewResolverRegistry registry) {
registry.freeMarker();
}

// Configure Freemarker...

@Bean
public FreeMarkerConfigurer freeMarkerConfigurer() {
FreeMarkerConfigurer configurer = new FreeMarkerConfigurer();
configurer.setTemplateLoaderPath("classpath:/templates");
return configurer;
}
}

You can also plug in any ViewResolver implementation, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Configuration
@EnableWebFlux
public class WebConfig implements WebFluxConfigurer {

@Override
public void configureViewResolvers(ViewResolverRegistry registry) {
ViewResolver resolver = ... ;
registry.viewResolver(resolver);
}
}

To support Content Negotiation and rendering other formats through view resolution (besides HTML), you can configure one or more
default views based on the HttpMessageWriterView implementation, which accepts any of the available Codecs from spring-web . The
following example shows how to do so:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Configuration
@EnableWebFlux
public class WebConfig implements WebFluxConfigurer {

@Override
public void configureViewResolvers(ViewResolverRegistry registry) {
registry.freeMarker();

Jackson2JsonEncoder encoder = new Jackson2JsonEncoder();

registry.defaultViews(new HttpMessageWriterView(encoder));
}

// ...
}

See View Technologies for more on the view technologies that are integrated with Spring WebFlux.

1.11.8. Static Resources

Same as in Spring MVC

This option provides a convenient way to serve static resources from a list of Resource -based locations.

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In the next example, given a request that starts with /resources , the relative path is used to find and serve static resources relative
to /static on the classpath. Resources are served with a one-year future expiration to ensure maximum use of the browser cache
and a reduction in HTTP requests made by the browser. The Last-Modified header is also evaluated and, if present, a 304 status
code is returned. The following list shows the example:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Configuration
@EnableWebFlux
public class WebConfig implements WebFluxConfigurer {

@Override
public void addResourceHandlers(ResourceHandlerRegistry registry) {
registry.addResourceHandler("/resources/**")
.addResourceLocations("/public", "classpath:/static/")
.setCacheControl(CacheControl.maxAge(365, TimeUnit.DAYS));
}

The resource handler also supports a chain of ResourceResolver implementations and ResourceTransformer implementations, which
can be used to create a toolchain for working with optimized resources.

You can use the VersionResourceResolver for versioned resource URLs based on an MD5 hash computed from the content, a fixed
application version, or other information. A ContentVersionStrategy (MD5 hash) is a good choice with some notable exceptions (such
as JavaScript resources used with a module loader).

The following example shows how to use VersionResourceResolver in your Java configuration:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Configuration
@EnableWebFlux
public class WebConfig implements WebFluxConfigurer {

@Override
public void addResourceHandlers(ResourceHandlerRegistry registry) {
registry.addResourceHandler("/resources/**")
.addResourceLocations("/public/")
.resourceChain(true)
.addResolver(new VersionResourceResolver().addContentVersionStrategy("/**"));
}

You can use ResourceUrlProvider to rewrite URLs and apply the full chain of resolvers and transformers (for example, to insert
versions). The WebFlux configuration provides a ResourceUrlProvider so that it can be injected into others.

Unlike Spring MVC, at present, in WebFlux, there is no way to transparently rewrite static resource URLs, since there are no view
technologies that can make use of a non-blocking chain of resolvers and transformers. When serving only local resources, the
workaround is to use ResourceUrlProvider directly (for example, through a custom element) and block.

Note that, when using both EncodedResourceResolver (for example, Gzip, Brotli encoded) and VersionedResourceResolver , they must
be registered in that order, to ensure content-based versions are always computed reliably based on the unencoded file.

WebJars are also supported through the WebJarsResourceResolver which is automatically registered when the org.webjars:webjars-
locator-core library is present on the classpath. The resolver can re-write URLs to include the version of the jar and can also match
against incoming URLs without versions — for example, from /jquery/jquery.min.js to /jquery/1.2.0/jquery.min.js .

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1.11.9. Path Matching

Same as in Spring MVC

You can customize options related to path matching. For details on the individual options, see the PathMatchConfigurer javadoc. The
following example shows how to use PathMatchConfigurer :

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Configuration
@EnableWebFlux
public class WebConfig implements WebFluxConfigurer {

@Override
public void configurePathMatch(PathMatchConfigurer configurer) {
configurer
.setUseCaseSensitiveMatch(true)
.setUseTrailingSlashMatch(false)
.addPathPrefix("/api",
HandlerTypePredicate.forAnnotation(RestController.class));
}
}

Spring WebFlux relies on a parsed representation of the request path called RequestPath for access to decoded path segment
values, with semicolon content removed (that is, path or matrix variables). That means, unlike in Spring MVC, you need not
indicate whether to decode the request path nor whether to remove semicolon content for path matching purposes.

Spring WebFlux also does not support suffix pattern matching, unlike in Spring MVC, where we are also recommend moving
away from reliance on it.

1.11.10. Advanced Con guration Mode

Same as in Spring MVC

@EnableWebFlux imports DelegatingWebFluxConfiguration that:

Provides default Spring configuration for WebFlux applications

detects and delegates to WebFluxConfigurer implementations to customize that configuration.

For advanced mode, you can remove @EnableWebFlux and extend directly from DelegatingWebFluxConfiguration instead of
implementing WebFluxConfigurer , as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Configuration
public class WebConfig extends DelegatingWebFluxConfiguration {

// ...
}

You can keep existing methods in WebConfig , but you can now also override bean declarations from the base class and still have any
number of other WebMvcConfigurer implementations on the classpath.

1.12. HTTP/2
Same as in Spring MVC

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Servlet 4 containers are required to support HTTP/2, and Spring Framework 5 is compatible with Servlet API 4. From a programming
model perspective, there is nothing specific that applications need to do. However, there are considerations related to server
configuration. For more details, see the HTTP/2 wiki page.

Currently, Spring WebFlux does not support HTTP/2 with Netty. There is also no support for pushing resources programmatically to
the client.

2. WebClient
Spring WebFlux includes a reactive, non-blocking WebClient for HTTP requests. The client has a functional, fluent API with reactive
types for declarative composition, see Reactive Libraries. WebFlux client and server rely on the same non-blocking codecs to encode
and decode request and response content.

Internally WebClient delegates to an HTTP client library. By default, it uses Reactor Netty, there is built-in support for the Jetty
reactive HttpClient, and others can be plugged in through a ClientHttpConnector .

2.1. Con guration

The simplest way to create a WebClient is through one of the static factory methods:

WebClient.create()

WebClient.create(String baseUrl)

The above methods use the Reactor Netty HttpClient with default settings and expect io.projectreactor.netty:reactor-netty to be
on the classpath.

You can also use WebClient.builder() with further options:

uriBuilderFactory : Customized UriBuilderFactory to use as a base URL.

defaultHeader : Headers for every request.

defaultCookie : Cookies for every request.

defaultRequest : Consumer to customize every request.

filter : Client filter for every request.

exchangeStrategies : HTTP message reader/writer customizations.

clientConnector : HTTP client library settings.

The following example configures HTTP codecs:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
ExchangeStrategies strategies = ExchangeStrategies.builder()
.codecs(configurer -> {
// ...
})
.build();

WebClient client = WebClient.builder()

.exchangeStrategies(strategies)
.build();

Once built, a WebClient instance is immutable. However, you can clone it and build a modified copy without affecting the original
instance, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin

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JAVA
WebClient client1 = WebClient.builder()
.filter(filterA).filter(filterB).build();

WebClient client2 = client1.mutate()

.filter(filterC).filter(filterD).build();

// client1 has filterA, filterB

// client2 has filterA, filterB, filterC, filterD

2.1.1. Reactor Netty

To customize Reactor Netty settings, simple provide a pre-configured HttpClient :

Java Kotlin
JAVA
HttpClient httpClient = HttpClient.create().secure(sslSpec -> ...);

WebClient webClient = WebClient.builder()

.clientConnector(new ReactorClientHttpConnector(httpClient))
.build();

Resources
By default, HttpClient participates in the global Reactor Netty resources held in reactor.netty.http.HttpResources , including event
loop threads and a connection pool. This is the recommended mode, since fixed, shared resources are preferred for event loop
concurrency. In this mode global resources remain active until the process exits.

If the server is timed with the process, there is typically no need for an explicit shutdown. However, if the server can start or stop in-
process (for example, a Spring MVC application deployed as a WAR), you can declare a Spring-managed bean of type
ReactorResourceFactory with globalResources=true (the default) to ensure that the Reactor Netty global resources are shut down
when the Spring ApplicationContext is closed, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Bean
public ReactorResourceFactory reactorResourceFactory() {
return new ReactorResourceFactory();
}

You can also choose not to participate in the global Reactor Netty resources. However, in this mode, the burden is on you to ensure
that all Reactor Netty client and server instances use shared resources, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Bean
public ReactorResourceFactory resourceFactory() {
ReactorResourceFactory factory = new ReactorResourceFactory();
factory.setUseGlobalResources(false); 1
return factory;
}

@Bean
public WebClient webClient() {

Function<HttpClient, HttpClient> mapper = client -> {

// Further customizations...

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};

ClientHttpConnector connector =
new ReactorClientHttpConnector(resourceFactory(), mapper); 2

return WebClient.builder().clientConnector(connector).build(); 3
}

1 Create resources independent of global ones.

2 Use the ReactorClientHttpConnector constructor with resource factory.
3 Plug the connector into the WebClient.Builder .

Timeouts
To configure a connection timeout:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
import io.netty.channel.ChannelOption;

HttpClient httpClient = HttpClient.create()

.tcpConfiguration(client ->
client.option(ChannelOption.CONNECT_TIMEOUT_MILLIS, 10000));

To configure a read and/or write timeout values:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
import io.netty.handler.timeout.ReadTimeoutHandler;
import io.netty.handler.timeout.WriteTimeoutHandler;

HttpClient httpClient = HttpClient.create()

.tcpConfiguration(client ->
client.doOnConnected(conn -> conn
.addHandlerLast(new ReadTimeoutHandler(10))
.addHandlerLast(new WriteTimeoutHandler(10))));

2.1.2. Jetty
The following example shows how to customize Jetty HttpClient settings:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
HttpClient httpClient = new HttpClient();
httpClient.setCookieStore(...);
ClientHttpConnector connector = new JettyClientHttpConnector(httpClient);

WebClient webClient = WebClient.builder().clientConnector(connector).build();

By default, HttpClient creates its own resources ( Executor , ByteBufferPool , Scheduler ), which remain active until the process exits
or stop() is called.

You can share resources between multiple instances of the Jetty client (and server) and ensure that the resources are shut down
when the Spring ApplicationContext is closed by declaring a Spring-managed bean of type JettyResourceFactory , as the following
example shows:

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JAVA
@Bean
public JettyResourceFactory resourceFactory() {
return new JettyResourceFactory();
}

@Bean
public WebClient webClient() {

HttpClient httpClient = new HttpClient();

// Further customizations...

ClientHttpConnector connector =
new JettyClientHttpConnector(httpClient, resourceFactory()); 1

return WebClient.builder().clientConnector(connector).build(); 2
}

1 Use the JettyClientHttpConnector constructor with resource factory.

2 Plug the connector into the WebClient.Builder .

2.2. retrieve()
The retrieve() method is the easiest way to get a response body and decode it. The following example shows how to do so:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
WebClient client = WebClient.create("https://example.org");

Mono<Person> result = client.get()

.uri("/persons/{id}", id).accept(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON)
.retrieve()
.bodyToMono(Person.class);

You can also get a stream of objects decoded from the response, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
Flux<Quote> result = client.get()
.uri("/quotes").accept(MediaType.TEXT_EVENT_STREAM)
.retrieve()
.bodyToFlux(Quote.class);

By default, responses with 4xx or 5xx status codes result in an WebClientResponseException or one of its HTTP status specific sub-
classes, such as WebClientResponseException.BadRequest , WebClientResponseException.NotFound , and others. You can also use the
onStatus method to customize the resulting exception, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
Mono<Person> result = client.get()
.uri("/persons/{id}", id).accept(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON)
.retrieve()
.onStatus(HttpStatus::is4xxClientError, response -> ...)
.onStatus(HttpStatus::is5xxServerError, response -> ...)
.bodyToMono(Person.class);

When onStatus is used, if the response is expected to have content, then the onStatus callback should consume it. If not, the
content will be automatically drained to ensure resources are released.

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2.3. exchange()
The exchange() method provides more control than the retrieve method. The following example is equivalent to retrieve() but
also provides access to the ClientResponse :

Java Kotlin
JAVA
Mono<Person> result = client.get()
.uri("/persons/{id}", id).accept(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON)
.exchange()
.flatMap(response -> response.bodyToMono(Person.class));

At this level, you can also create a full ResponseEntity :

Java Kotlin
JAVA
Mono<ResponseEntity<Person>> result = client.get()
.uri("/persons/{id}", id).accept(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON)
.exchange()
.flatMap(response -> response.toEntity(Person.class));

Note that (unlike retrieve() ), with exchange() , there are no automatic error signals for 4xx and 5xx responses. You have to check
the status code and decide how to proceed.

When using exchange() , you have to make sure that the body is always consumed or released, even when an exception occurs
(see Using DataBuffer). Typically, you do this by invoking either bodyTo* or toEntity* on ClientResponse to convert the body
into an object of the desired type, but you can also invoke releaseBody() to discard the body contents without consuming it or
toBodilessEntity() to get just the status and headers (while discarding the body).

Finally, there is bodyToMono(Void.class) , which should only be used if no response content is expected. If the response does
have content, the connection is closed and is not placed back in the pool, because it is not left in a reusable state.

2.4. Request Body

The request body can be encoded from any asynchronous type handled by ReactiveAdapterRegistry , like Mono or Kotlin Coroutines
Deferred as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
Mono<Person> personMono = ... ;

Mono<Void> result = client.post()

.uri("/persons/{id}", id)
.contentType(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON)
.body(personMono, Person.class)
.retrieve()
.bodyToMono(Void.class);

You can also have a stream of objects be encoded, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
Flux<Person> personFlux = ... ;

Mono<Void> result = client.post()

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.uri("/persons/{id}", id)
.contentType(MediaType.APPLICATION_STREAM_JSON)
.body(personFlux, Person.class)
.retrieve()
.bodyToMono(Void.class);

Alternatively, if you have the actual value, you can use the bodyValue shortcut method, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
Person person = ... ;

Mono<Void> result = client.post()

.uri("/persons/{id}", id)
.contentType(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON)
.bodyValue(person)
.retrieve()
.bodyToMono(Void.class);

2.4.1. Form Data

To send form data, you can provide a MultiValueMap<String, String> as the body. Note that the content is automatically set to
application/x-www-form-urlencoded by the FormHttpMessageWriter . The following example shows how to use MultiValueMap<String,
String> :

Java Kotlin
JAVA
MultiValueMap<String, String> formData = ... ;

Mono<Void> result = client.post()

.uri("/path", id)
.bodyValue(formData)
.retrieve()
.bodyToMono(Void.class);

You can also supply form data in-line by using BodyInserters , as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
import static org.springframework.web.reactive.function.BodyInserters.*;

Mono<Void> result = client.post()

.uri("/path", id)
.body(fromFormData("k1", "v1").with("k2", "v2"))
.retrieve()
.bodyToMono(Void.class);

2.4.2. Multipart Data

To send multipart data, you need to provide a MultiValueMap<String, ?> whose values are either Object instances that represent
part content or HttpEntity instances that represent the content and headers for a part. MultipartBodyBuilder provides a convenient
API to prepare a multipart request. The following example shows how to create a MultiValueMap<String, ?> :

Java Kotlin
JAVA
MultipartBodyBuilder builder = new MultipartBodyBuilder();
builder.part("fieldPart", "fieldValue");

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builder.part("filePart1", new FileSystemResource("...logo.png"));
builder.part("jsonPart", new Person("Jason"));
builder.part("myPart", part); // Part from a server request

MultiValueMap<String, HttpEntity<?>> parts = builder.build();

In most cases, you do not have to specify the Content-Type for each part. The content type is determined automatically based on the
HttpMessageWriter chosen to serialize it or, in the case of a Resource , based on the file extension. If necessary, you can explicitly
provide the MediaType to use for each part through one of the overloaded builder part methods.

Once a MultiValueMap is prepared, the easiest way to pass it to the the WebClient is through the body method, as the following
example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
MultipartBodyBuilder builder = ...;

Mono<Void> result = client.post()

.uri("/path", id)
.body(builder.build())
.retrieve()
.bodyToMono(Void.class);

If the MultiValueMap contains at least one non- String value, which could also represent regular form data (that is, application/x-
www-form-urlencoded ), you need not set the Content-Type to multipart/form-data . This is always the case when using
MultipartBodyBuilder , which ensures an HttpEntity wrapper.

As an alternative to MultipartBodyBuilder , you can also provide multipart content, inline-style, through the built-in BodyInserters ,
as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
import static org.springframework.web.reactive.function.BodyInserters.*;

Mono<Void> result = client.post()

.uri("/path", id)
.body(fromMultipartData("fieldPart", "value").with("filePart", resource))
.retrieve()
.bodyToMono(Void.class);

2.5. Client Filters

You can register a client filter ( ExchangeFilterFunction ) through the WebClient.Builder in order to intercept and modify requests, as
the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
WebClient client = WebClient.builder()
.filter((request, next) -> {

ClientRequest filtered = ClientRequest.from(request)

.header("foo", "bar")
.build();

return next.exchange(filtered);
})
.build();

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This can be used for cross-cutting concerns, such as authentication. The following example uses a filter for basic authentication
through a static factory method:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
import static org.springframework.web.reactive.function.client.ExchangeFilterFunctions.basicAuthentication;

WebClient client = WebClient.builder()

.filter(basicAuthentication("user", "password"))
.build();

Filters apply globally to every request. To change a filter’s behavior for a specific request, you can add request attributes to the
ClientRequest that can then be accessed by all filters in the chain, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
WebClient client = WebClient.builder()
.filter((request, next) -> {
Optional<Object> usr = request.attribute("myAttribute");
// ...
})
.build();

client.get().uri("https://example.org/")
.attribute("myAttribute", "...")
.retrieve()
.bodyToMono(Void.class);

You can also replicate an existing WebClient , insert new filters, or remove already registered filters. The following example, inserts a
basic authentication filter at index 0:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
import static org.springframework.web.reactive.function.client.ExchangeFilterFunctions.basicAuthentication;

WebClient client = webClient.mutate()

.filters(filterList -> {
filterList.add(0, basicAuthentication("user", "password"));
})
.build();

2.6. Synchronous Use

WebClient can be used in synchronous style by blocking at the end for the result:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
Person person = client.get().uri("/person/{id}", i).retrieve()
.bodyToMono(Person.class)
.block();

List<Person> persons = client.get().uri("/persons").retrieve()

.bodyToFlux(Person.class)
.collectList()
.block();

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However if multiple calls need to be made, it’s more efficient to avoid blocking on each response individually, and instead wait for
the combined result:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
Mono<Person> personMono = client.get().uri("/person/{id}", personId)
.retrieve().bodyToMono(Person.class);

Mono<List<Hobby>> hobbiesMono = client.get().uri("/person/{id}/hobbies", personId)

.retrieve().bodyToFlux(Hobby.class).collectList();

Map<String, Object> data = Mono.zip(personMono, hobbiesMono, (person, hobbies) -> {

Map<String, String> map = new LinkedHashMap<>();
map.put("person", person);
map.put("hobbies", hobbies);
return map;
})
.block();

The above is merely one example. There are lots of other patterns and operators for putting together a reactive pipeline that makes
many remote calls, potentially some nested, inter-dependent, without ever blocking until the end.

With Flux or Mono , you should never have to block in a Spring MVC or Spring WebFlux controller. Simply return the resulting
reactive type from the controller method. The same principle apply to Kotlin Coroutines and Spring WebFlux, just use
suspending function or return Flow in your controller method .

2.7. Testing
To test code that uses the WebClient , you can use a mock web server, such as the OkHttp MockWebServer. To see an example of its
use, check out WebClientIntegrationTests in the Spring Framework test suite or the static-server sample in the OkHttp repository.

3. WebSockets
Same as in the Servlet stack

This part of the reference documentation covers support for reactive-stack WebSocket messaging.

3.1. Introduction to WebSocket

The WebSocket protocol, RFC 6455, provides a standardized way to establish a full-duplex, two-way communication channel
between client and server over a single TCP connection. It is a different TCP protocol from HTTP but is designed to work over HTTP,
using ports 80 and 443 and allowing re-use of existing firewall rules.

A WebSocket interaction begins with an HTTP request that uses the HTTP Upgrade header to upgrade or, in this case, to switch to the
WebSocket protocol. The following example shows such an interaction:

GET /spring-websocket-portfolio/portfolio HTTP/1.1 YAML

Host: localhost:8080
Upgrade: websocket 1
Connection: Upgrade 2

Sec-WebSocket-Key: Uc9l9TMkWGbHFD2qnFHltg==
Sec-WebSocket-Protocol: v10.stomp, v11.stomp
Sec-WebSocket-Version: 13
Origin: http://localhost:8080

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1 The Upgrade header.
2 Using the Upgrade connection.

Instead of the usual 200 status code, a server with WebSocket support returns output similar to the following:

HTTP/1.1 101 Switching Protocols 1 YAML

Upgrade: websocket
Connection: Upgrade
Sec-WebSocket-Accept: 1qVdfYHU9hPOl4JYYNXF623Gzn0=
Sec-WebSocket-Protocol: v10.stomp

1 Protocol switch

After a successful handshake, the TCP socket underlying the HTTP upgrade request remains open for both the client and the server
to continue to send and receive messages.

A complete introduction of how WebSockets work is beyond the scope of this document. See RFC 6455, the WebSocket chapter of
HTML5, or any of the many introductions and tutorials on the Web.

Note that, if a WebSocket server is running behind a web server (e.g. nginx), you likely need to configure it to pass WebSocket
upgrade requests on to the WebSocket server. Likewise, if the application runs in a cloud environment, check the instructions of the
cloud provider related to WebSocket support.

3.1.1. HTTP Versus WebSocket

Even though WebSocket is designed to be HTTP-compatible and starts with an HTTP request, it is important to understand that the
two protocols lead to very different architectures and application programming models.

In HTTP and REST, an application is modeled as many URLs. To interact with the application, clients access those URLs, request-
response style. Servers route requests to the appropriate handler based on the HTTP URL, method, and headers.

By contrast, in WebSockets, there is usually only one URL for the initial connect. Subsequently, all application messages flow on that
same TCP connection. This points to an entirely different asynchronous, event-driven, messaging architecture.

WebSocket is also a low-level transport protocol, which, unlike HTTP, does not prescribe any semantics to the content of messages.
That means that there is no way to route or process a message unless the client and the server agree on message semantics.

WebSocket clients and servers can negotiate the use of a higher-level, messaging protocol (for example, STOMP), through the Sec-
WebSocket-Protocol header on the HTTP handshake request. In the absence of that, they need to come up with their own conventions.

3.1.2. When to Use WebSockets

WebSockets can make a web page be dynamic and interactive. However, in many cases, a combination of Ajax and HTTP streaming
or long polling can provide a simple and effective solution.

For example, news, mail, and social feeds need to update dynamically, but it may be perfectly okay to do so every few minutes.
Collaboration, games, and financial apps, on the other hand, need to be much closer to real-time.

Latency alone is not a deciding factor. If the volume of messages is relatively low (for example, monitoring network failures) HTTP
streaming or polling can provide an effective solution. It is the combination of low latency, high frequency, and high volume that
make the best case for the use of WebSocket.

Keep in mind also that over the Internet, restrictive proxies that are outside of your control may preclude WebSocket interactions,
either because they are not configured to pass on the Upgrade header or because they close long-lived connections that appear idle.
This means that the use of WebSocket for internal applications within the firewall is a more straightforward decision than it is for
public facing applications.

3.2. WebSocket API

Same as in the Servlet stack

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The Spring Framework provides a WebSocket API that you can use to write client- and server-side applications that handle
WebSocket messages.

3.2.1. Server
Same as in the Servlet stack

To create a WebSocket server, you can first create a WebSocketHandler . The following example shows how to do so:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
import org.springframework.web.reactive.socket.WebSocketHandler;
import org.springframework.web.reactive.socket.WebSocketSession;

public class MyWebSocketHandler implements WebSocketHandler {

@Override
public Mono<Void> handle(WebSocketSession session) {
// ...
}
}

Then you can map it to a URL and add a WebSocketHandlerAdapter , as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Configuration
class WebConfig {

@Bean
public HandlerMapping handlerMapping() {
Map<String, WebSocketHandler> map = new HashMap<>();
map.put("/path", new MyWebSocketHandler());
int order = -1; // before annotated controllers

return new SimpleUrlHandlerMapping(map, order);

}

@Bean
public WebSocketHandlerAdapter handlerAdapter() {
return new WebSocketHandlerAdapter();
}
}

3.2.2. WebSocketHandler
The handle method of WebSocketHandler takes WebSocketSession and returns Mono<Void> to indicate when application handling of
the session is complete. The session is handled through two streams, one for inbound and one for outbound messages. The
following table describes the two methods that handle the streams:

WebSocketSession method Description

Flux<WebSocketMessage> receive() Provides access to the inbound message stream and

completes when the connection is closed.

Mono<Void> send(Publisher<WebSocketMessage>) Takes a source for outgoing messages, writes the messages,
and returns a Mono<Void> that completes when the source
completes and writing is done.

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A WebSocketHandler must compose the inbound and outbound streams into a unified flow and return a Mono<Void> that reflects the
completion of that flow. Depending on application requirements, the unified flow completes when:

Either the inbound or the outbound message stream completes.

The inbound stream completes (that is, the connection closed), while the outbound stream is infinite.

At a chosen point, through the close method of WebSocketSession .

When inbound and outbound message streams are composed together, there is no need to check if the connection is open, since
Reactive Streams signals terminate activity. The inbound stream receives a completion or error signal, and the outbound stream
receives a cancellation signal.

The most basic implementation of a handler is one that handles the inbound stream. The following example shows such an
implementation:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
class ExampleHandler implements WebSocketHandler {

@Override
public Mono<Void> handle(WebSocketSession session) {
return session.receive() 1

.doOnNext(message -> {
// ... 2
})
.concatMap(message -> {
// ... 3
})
.then(); 4
}
}

1 Access the stream of inbound messages.

2 Do something with each message.
3 Perform nested asynchronous operations that use the message content.
4 Return a Mono<Void> that completes when receiving completes.

For nested, asynchronous operations, you may need to call message.retain() on underlying servers that use pooled data
buffers (for example, Netty). Otherwise, the data buffer may be released before you have had a chance to read the data. For
more background, see Data Buffers and Codecs.

The following implementation combines the inbound and outbound streams:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
class ExampleHandler implements WebSocketHandler {

@Override
public Mono<Void> handle(WebSocketSession session) {

Flux<WebSocketMessage> output = session.receive() 1

.doOnNext(message -> {
// ...
})
.concatMap(message -> {
// ...
})

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.map(value -> session.textMessage("Echo " + value)); 2

return session.send(output); 3
}
}

1 Handle the inbound message stream.

2 Create the outbound message, producing a combined flow.
3 Return a Mono<Void> that does not complete while we continue to receive.

Inbound and outbound streams can be independent and be joined only for completion, as the following example shows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
class ExampleHandler implements WebSocketHandler {

@Override
public Mono<Void> handle(WebSocketSession session) {

Mono<Void> input = session.receive() 1

.doOnNext(message -> {
// ...
})
.concatMap(message -> {
// ...
})
.then();

Flux<String> source = ... ;

Mono<Void> output = session.send(source.map(session::textMessage)); 2

return Mono.zip(input, output).then(); 3

}
}

1 Handle inbound message stream.

2 Send outgoing messages.
3 Join the streams and return a Mono<Void> that completes when either stream ends.

3.2.3. DataBuffer
DataBuffer is the representation for a byte buffer in WebFlux. The Spring Core part of the reference has more on that in the section
on Data Buffers and Codecs. The key point to understand is that on some servers like Netty, byte buffers are pooled and reference
counted, and must be released when consumed to avoid memory leaks.

When running on Netty, applications must use DataBufferUtils.retain(dataBuffer) if they wish to hold on input data buffers in
order to ensure they are not released, and subsequently use DataBufferUtils.release(dataBuffer) when the buffers are consumed.

3.2.4. Handshake
Same as in the Servlet stack

WebSocketHandlerAdapter delegates to a WebSocketService . By default, that is an instance of HandshakeWebSocketService , which

performs basic checks on the WebSocket request and then uses RequestUpgradeStrategy for the server in use. Currently, there is
built-in support for Reactor Netty, Tomcat, Jetty, and Undertow.

HandshakeWebSocketService exposes a sessionAttributePredicate property that allows setting a Predicate<String> to extract

attributes from the WebSession and insert them into the attributes of the WebSocketSession .

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3.2.5. Server Con gation

Same as in the Servlet stack

The RequestUpgradeStrategy for each server exposes WebSocket-related configuration options available for the underlying
WebSocket engine. The following example sets WebSocket options when running on Tomcat:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Configuration
class WebConfig {

@Bean
public WebSocketHandlerAdapter handlerAdapter() {
return new WebSocketHandlerAdapter(webSocketService());
}

@Bean
public WebSocketService webSocketService() {
TomcatRequestUpgradeStrategy strategy = new TomcatRequestUpgradeStrategy();
strategy.setMaxSessionIdleTimeout(0L);
return new HandshakeWebSocketService(strategy);
}
}

Check the upgrade strategy for your server to see what options are available. Currently, only Tomcat and Jetty expose such options.

3.2.6. CORS
Same as in the Servlet stack

The easiest way to configure CORS and restrict access to a WebSocket endpoint is to have your WebSocketHandler implement
CorsConfigurationSource and return a CorsConfiguraiton with allowed origins, headers, and other details. If you cannot do that, you
can also set the corsConfigurations property on the SimpleUrlHandler to specify CORS settings by URL pattern. If both are specified,
they are combined by using the combine method on CorsConfiguration .

3.2.7. Client
Spring WebFlux provides a WebSocketClient abstraction with implementations for Reactor Netty, Tomcat, Jetty, Undertow, and
standard Java (that is, JSR-356).

The Tomcat client is effectively an extension of the standard Java one with some extra functionality in the WebSocketSession
handling to take advantage of the Tomcat-specific API to suspend receiving messages for back pressure.

To start a WebSocket session, you can create an instance of the client and use its execute methods:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
WebSocketClient client = new ReactorNettyWebSocketClient();

URI url = new URI("ws://localhost:8080/path");

client.execute(url, session ->
session.receive()
.doOnNext(System.out::println)
.then());

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Some clients, such as Jetty, implement Lifecycle and need to be stopped and started before you can use them. All clients have
constructor options related to configuration of the underlying WebSocket client.

4. Testing
Same in Spring MVC

The spring-test module provides mock implementations of ServerHttpRequest , ServerHttpResponse , and ServerWebExchange . See
Spring Web Reactive for a discussion of mock objects.

WebTestClient builds on these mock request and response objects to provide support for testing WebFlux applications without an
HTTP server. You can use the WebTestClient for end-to-end integration tests, too.

5. RSocket
This section describes Spring Framework’s support for the RSocket protocol.

5.1. Overview
RSocket is an application protocol for multiplexed, duplex communication over TCP, WebSocket, and other byte stream transports,
using one of the following interaction models:

Request-Response — send one message and receive one back.

Request-Stream — send one message and receive a stream of messages back.

Channel — send streams of messages in both directions.

Fire-and-Forget — send a one-way message.

Once the initial connection is made, the "client" vs "server" distinction is lost as both sides become symmetrical and each side can
initiate one of the above interactions. This is why in the protocol calls the participating sides "requester" and "responder" while the
above interactions are called "request streams" or simply "requests".

These are the key features and benefits of the RSocket protocol:

Reactive Streams semantics across network boundary — for streaming requests such as Request-Stream and Channel , back
pressure signals travel between requester and responder, allowing a requester to slow down a responder at the source, hence
reducing reliance on network layer congestion control, and the need for buffering at the network level or at any level.

Request throttling — this feature is named "Leasing" after the LEASE frame that can be sent from each end to limit the total
number of requests allowed by other end for a given time. Leases are renewed periodically.

Session resumption — this is designed for loss of connectivity and requires some state to be maintained. The state management
is transparent for applications, and works well in combination with back pressure which can stop a producer when possible and
reduce the amount of state required.

Fragmentation and re-assembly of large messages.

Keepalive (heartbeats).

RSocket has implementations in multiple languages. The Java library is built on Project Reactor, and Reactor Netty for the transport.
That means signals from Reactive Streams Publishers in your application propagate transparently through RSocket across the
network.

5.1.1. The Protocol

One of the benefits of RSocket is that it has well defined behavior on the wire and an easy to read specification along with some
protocol extensions. Therefore it is a good idea to read the spec, independent of language implementations and higher level
framework APIs. This section provides a succinct overview to establish some context.

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Connecting

Initially a client connects to a server via some low level streaming transport such as TCP or WebSocket and sends a SETUP frame to
the server to set parameters for the connection.

The server may reject the SETUP frame, but generally after it is sent (for the client) and received (for the server), both sides can begin
to make requests, unless SETUP indicates use of leasing semantics to limit the number of requests, in which case both sides must
wait for a LEASE frame from the other end to permit making requests.

Making Requests

Once a connection is established, both sides may initiate a request through one of the frames REQUEST_RESPONSE , REQUEST_STREAM ,
REQUEST_CHANNEL , or REQUEST_FNF . Each of those frames carries one message from the requester to the responder.

The responder may then return PAYLOAD frames with response messages, and in the case of REQUEST_CHANNEL the requester may also
send PAYLOAD frames with more request messages.

When a request involves a stream of messages such as as Request-Stream and Channel , the responder must respect demand
signals from the requester. Demand is expressed as a number of messages. Initial demand is specified in REQUEST_STREAM and
REQUEST_CHANNEL frames. Subsequent demand is signaled via REQUEST_N frames.

Each side may also send metadata notifications, via the METADATA_PUSH frame, that do not pertain to any individual request but
rather to the connection as a whole.

Message Format

RSocket messages contain data and metadata. Metadata can be used to send a route, a security token, etc. Data and metadata can
be formatted differently. Mime types for each are declared in the SETUP frame and apply to all requests on a given connection.

While all messages can have metadata, typically metadata such as a route are per-request and therefore only included in the first
message on a request, i.e. with one of the frames REQUEST_RESPONSE , REQUEST_STREAM , REQUEST_CHANNEL , or REQUEST_FNF .

Protocol extensions define common metadata formats for use in applications:

Composite Metadata-- multiple, independently formatted metadata entries.

Routing — the route for a request.

5.1.2. Java Implementation

The Java implementation for RSocket is built on Project Reactor. The transports for TCP and WebSocket are built on Reactor Netty. As
a Reactive Streams library, Reactor simplifies the job of implementing the protocol. For applications it is a natural fit to use Flux
and Mono with declarative operators and transparent back pressure support.

The API in RSocket Java is intentionally minimal and basic. It focuses on protocol features and leaves the application programming
model (e.g. RPC codegen vs other) as a higher level, independent concern.

The main contract io.rsocket.RSocket models the four request interaction types with Mono representing a promise for a single
message, Flux a stream of messages, and io.rsocket.Payload the actual message with access to data and metadata as byte
buffers. The RSocket contract is used symmetrically. For requesting, the application is given an RSocket to perform requests with.
For responding, the application implements RSocket to handle requests.

This is not meant to be a thorough introduction. For the most part, Spring applications will not have to use its API directly. However it
may be important to see or experiment with RSocket independent of Spring. The RSocket Java repository contains a number of
sample apps that demonstrate its API and protocol features.

5.1.3. Spring Support

The spring-messaging module contains the following:

RSocketRequester — fluent API to make requests through an io.rsocket.RSocket with data and metadata encoding/decoding.

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Annotated Responders — @MessageMapping annotated handler methods for responding.

The spring-web module contains Encoder and Decoder implementations such as Jackson CBOR/JSON, and Protobuf that RSocket
applications will likely need. It also contains the PathPatternParser that can be plugged in for efficient route matching.

Spring Boot 2.2 supports standing up an RSocket server over TCP or WebSocket, including the option to expose RSocket over
WebSocket in a WebFlux server. There is also client support and auto-configuration for an RSocketRequester.Builder and
RSocketStrategies . See the RSocket section in the Spring Boot reference for more details.

Spring Security 5.2 provides RSocket support.

Spring Integration 5.2 provides inbound and outbound gateways to interact with RSocket clients and servers. See the Spring
Integration Reference Manual for more details.

Spring Cloud Gateway supports RSocket connections.

5.2. RSocketRequester
RSocketRequester provides a fluent API to perform RSocket requests, accepting and returning objects for data and metadata instead
of low level data buffers. It can be used symmetrically, to make requests from clients and to make requests from servers.

5.2.1. Client Requester

To obtain an RSocketRequester on the client side requires connecting to a server along with preparing and sending the initial
RSocket SETUP frame. RSocketRequester provides a builder for that. Internally uses RSocket Java’s RSocketFactory .

This is the most basic way to connect with default settings:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
Mono<RSocketRequester> requesterMono = RSocketRequester.builder()
.connectTcp("localhost", 7000);

Mono<RSocketRequester> requesterMono = RSocketRequester.builder()

.connectWebSocket(URI.create("https://example.org:8080/rsocket"));

The above is deferred. To actually connect and use the requester:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
// Connect asynchronously
RSocketRequester.builder().connectTcp("localhost", 7000)
.subscribe(requester -> {
// ...
});

// Or block
RSocketRequester requester = RSocketRequester.builder()
.connectTcp("localhost", 7000)
.block(Duration.ofSeconds(5));

Connection Setup
RSocketRequester.Builder provides the following to customize the initial SETUP frame:

dataMimeType(MimeType) — set the mime type for data on the connection.

metadataMimeType(MimeType) — set the mime type for metadata on the connection.

setupData(Object) — data to include in the SETUP .

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setupRoute(String, Object…) — route in the metadata to include in the SETUP .

setupMetadata(Object, MimeType) — other metadata to include in the SETUP .

For data, the default mime type is derived from the first configured Decoder . For metadata, the default mime type is composite
metadata which allows multiple metadata value and mime type pairs per request. Typically both don’t need to be changed.

Data and metadata in the SETUP frame is optional. On the server side, @ConnectMapping methods can be used to handle the start
of a connection and the content of the SETUP frame. Metadata may be used for connection level security.

Strategies
RSocketRequester.Builder accepts RSocketStrategies to configure the requester. You’ll need to use this to provide encoders and
decoders for (de)-serialization of data and metadata values. By default only the basic codecs from spring-core for String , byte[] ,
and ByteBuffer are registered. Adding spring-web provides access to more that can be registered as follows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
RSocketStrategies strategies = RSocketStrategies.builder()
.encoders(encoders -> encoders.add(new Jackson2CborEncoder))
.decoders(decoders -> decoders.add(new Jackson2CborDecoder))
.build();

Mono<RSocketRequester> requesterMono = RSocketRequester.builder()

.rsocketStrategies(strategies)
.connectTcp("localhost", 7000);

RSocketStrategies is designed for re-use. In some scenarios, e.g. client and server in the same application, it may be preferable to
declare it in Spring configuration.

Client Responders
RSocketRequester.Builder can be used to configure responders to requests from the server.

You can use annotated handlers for client-side responding based on the same infrastructure that’s used on a server, but registered
programmatically as follows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
RSocketStrategies strategies = RSocketStrategies.builder()
.routeMatcher(new PathPatternRouteMatcher()) 1
.build();

ClientHandler handler = new ClientHandler(); 2

Mono<RSocketRequester> requesterMono = RSocketRequester.builder()

.rsocketFactory(RSocketMessageHandler.clientResponder(strategies, handler)) 3
.connectTcp("localhost", 7000);

1 Use PathPatternRouteMatcher , if spring-web is present, for efficient route matching.

2 Create responder that contains @MessageMaping or @ConnectMapping methods.
3 Use static factory method in RSocketMessageHandler to register one or more responders.

Note the above is only a shortcut designed for programmatic registration of client responders. For alternative scenarios, where
client responders are in Spring configuration, you can still declare RSocketMessageHandler as a Spring bean and then apply as
follows:

Java Kotlin

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JAVA
ApplicationContext context = ... ;
RSocketMessageHandler handler = context.getBean(RSocketMessageHandler.class);

Mono<RSocketRequester> requesterMono = RSocketRequester.builder()

.rsocketFactory(factory -> factory.acceptor(handler.responder()))
.connectTcp("localhost", 7000);

For the above you may also need to use setHandlerPredicate in RSocketMessageHandler to switch to a different strategy for detecting
client responders, e.g. based on a custom annotation such as @RSocketClientResponder vs the default @Controller . This is necessary
in scenarios with client and server, or multiple clients in the same application.

See also Annotated Responders, for more on the programming model.

Advanced
RSocketRequesterBuilder provides a callback to expose the underlying ClientRSocketFactory from RSocket Java for further
configuration options for keepalive intervals, session resumption, interceptors, and more. You can configure options at that level as
follows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
Mono<RSocketRequester> requesterMono = RSocketRequester.builder()
.rsocketFactory(factory -> {
// ...
})
.connectTcp("localhost", 7000);

5.2.2. Server Requester

To make requests from a server to connected clients is a matter of obtaining the requester for the connected client from the server.

In Annotated Responders, @ConnectMapping and @MessageMapping methods support an RSocketRequester argument. Use it to access
the requester for the connection. Keep in mind that @ConnectMapping methods are essentially handlers of the SETUP frame which
must be handled before requests can begin. Therefore, requests at the very start must be decoupled from handling. For example:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@ConnectMapping
Mono<Void> handle(RSocketRequester requester) {
requester.route("status").data("5")
.retrieveFlux(StatusReport.class)
.subscribe(bar -> { 1

// ...
});
return ... 2
}

1 Start the request asynchronously, independent from handling.

2 Perform handling and return completion Mono<Void> .

5.2.3. Requests
Once you have a client or server requester, you can make requests as follows:

Java Kotlin

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JAVA
ViewBox box = ... ;

Flux<AirportLocation> locations = requester.route("locate.radars.within") 1

.data(viewBox) 2
.retrieveFlux(AirportLocation.class); 3

1 Specify a route to include in the metadata of the request message.

2 Provide data for the request message.
3 Declare the expected response.

The interaction type is determined implicitly from the cardinality of the input and output. The above example is a Request-Stream
because one value is sent and a stream of values is received. For the most part you don’t need to think about this as long as the
choice of input and output matches an RSocket interaction type and the types of input and output expected by the responder. The
only example of an invalid combination is many-to-one.

The data(Object) method also accepts any Reactive Streams Publisher , including Flux and Mono , as well as any other producer of
value(s) that is registered in the ReactiveAdapterRegistry . For a multi-value Publisher such as Flux which produces the same types
of values, consider using one of the overloaded data methods to avoid having type checks and Encoder lookup on every element:

JAVA
data(Object producer, Class<?> elementClass);
data(Object producer, ParameterizedTypeReference<?> elementTypeRef);

The data(Object) step is optional. Skip it for requests that don’t send data:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
Mono<AirportLocation> location = requester.route("find.radar.EWR"))
.retrieveMono(AirportLocation.class);

Extra metadata values can be added if using composite metadata (the default) and if the values are supported by a registered
Encoder . For example:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
String securityToken = ... ;
ViewBox viewBox = ... ;
MimeType mimeType = MimeType.valueOf("message/x.rsocket.authentication.bearer.v0");

Flux<AirportLocation> locations = requester.route("locate.radars.within")

.metadata(securityToken, mimeType)
.data(viewBox)
.retrieveFlux(AirportLocation.class);

For Fire-and-Forget use the send() method that returns Mono<Void> . Note that the Mono indicates only that the message was
successfully sent, and not that it was handled.

5.3. Annotated Responders

RSocket responders can be implemented as @MessageMapping and @ConnectMapping methods. @MessageMapping methods handle
individual requests, and @ConnectMapping methods handle connection-level events (setup and metadata push). Annotated
responders are supported symmetrically, for responding from the server side and for responding from the client side.

5.3.1. Server Responders

To use annotated responders on the server side, add RSocketMessageHandler to your Spring configuration to detect @Controller
beans with @MessageMapping and @ConnectMapping methods:

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Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Configuration
static class ServerConfig {

@Bean
public RSocketMessageHandler rsocketMessageHandler() {
RSocketMessageHandler handler = new RSocketMessageHandler();
handler.routeMatcher(new PathPatternRouteMatcher());
return handler;
}
}

Then start an RSocket server through the Java RSocket API and plug the RSocketMessageHandler for the responder as follows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
ApplicationContext context = ... ;
RSocketMessageHandler handler = context.getBean(RSocketMessageHandler.class);

CloseableChannel server =
RSocketFactory.receive()
.acceptor(handler.responder())
.transport(TcpServerTransport.create("localhost", 7000))
.start()
.block();

RSocketMessageHandler supports composite and routing metadata by default. You can set its MetadataExtractor if you need to switch
to a different mime type or register additional metadata mime types.

You’ll need to set the Encoder and Decoder instances required for metadata and data formats to support. You’ll likely need the
spring-web module for codec implementations.

By default SimpleRouteMatcher is used for matching routes via AntPathMatcher . We recommend plugging in the
PathPatternRouteMatcher from spring-web for efficient route matching. RSocket routes can be hierarchical but are not URL paths.
Both route matchers are configured to use "." as separator by default and there is no URL decoding as with HTTP URLs.

RSocketMessageHandler can be configured via RSocketStrategies which may be useful if you need to share configuration between a
client and a server in the same process:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Configuration
static class ServerConfig {

@Bean
public RSocketMessageHandler rsocketMessageHandler() {
RSocketMessageHandler handler = new RSocketMessageHandler();
handler.setRSocketStrategies(rsocketStrategies());
return handler;
}

@Bean
public RSocketStrategies rsocketStrategies() {
return RSocketStrategies.builder()
.encoders(encoders -> encoders.add(new Jackson2CborEncoder))
.decoders(decoders -> decoders.add(new Jackson2CborDecoder))
.routeMatcher(new PathPatternRouteMatcher())
.build();

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}
}

5.3.2. Client Responders

Annotated responders on the client side need to be configured in the RSocketRequester.Builder . For details, see Client Responders.

5.3.3. @MessageMapping
Once server or client responder configuration is in place, @MessageMapping methods can be used as follows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
@Controller
public class RadarsController {

@MessageMapping("locate.radars.within")
public Flux<AirportLocation> radars(MapRequest request) {
// ...
}
}

You don’t need to explicit specify the RSocket interaction type. Simply declare the expected input and output, and a route pattern.
The supporting infrastructure will adapt matching requests.

The following additional arguments are supported for @MessageMapping methods:

RSocketRequester — the requester for the connection associated with the request, to make requests to the remote end.

@DestinationVariable — the value for a variable from the pattern, e.g. @MessageMapping("find.radar.{id}") .

@Header — access to a metadata value registered for extraction, as described in MetadataExtractor.

@Headers Map<String, Object> — access to all metadata values registered for extraction, as described in MetadataExtractor.

5.3.4. @ConnectMapping
@ConnectMapping handles the SETUP frame at the start of an RSocket connection, and any subsequent metadata push notifications
through the METADATA_PUSH frame, i.e. metadataPush(Payload) in io.rsocket.RSocket .

@ConnectMapping methods support the same arguments as @MessageMapping but based on metadata and data from the SETUP
and METADATA_PUSH frames. @ConnectMapping can have a pattern to narrow handling to specific connections that have a route in the
metadata, or if no patterns are declared then all connections match.

@ConnectMapping methods cannot return data and must be declared with void or Mono<Void> as the return value. If handling returns
an error for a new connection then the connection is rejected. Handling must not be held up to make requests to the
RSocketRequester for the connection. See Server Requester for details.

5.4. MetadataExtractor
Responders must interpret metadata. Composite metadata allows independently formatted metadata values (e.g. for routing,
security, tracing) each with its own mime type. Applications need a way to configure metadata mime types to support, and a way to
access extracted values.

MetadataExtractor is a contract to take serialized metadata and return decoded name-value pairs that can then be accessed like
headers by name, for example via @Header in annotated handler methods.

DefaultMetadataExtractor can be given Decoder instances to decode metadata. Out of the box it has built-in support for
"message/x.rsocket.routing.v0" which it decodes to String and saves under the "route" key. For any other mime type you’ll need to
provide a Decoder and register the mime type as follows:

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Java Kotlin
JAVA
DefaultMetadataExtractor extractor = new DefaultMetadataExtractor(metadataDecoders);
extractor.metadataToExtract(fooMimeType, Foo.class, "foo");

Composite metadata works well to combine independent metadata values. However the requester might not support composite
metadata, or may choose not to use it. For this, DefaultMetadataExtractor may needs custom logic to map the decoded value to the
output map. Here is an example where JSON is used for metadata:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
DefaultMetadataExtractor extractor = new DefaultMetadataExtractor(metadataDecoders);
extractor.metadataToExtract(
MimeType.valueOf("application/vnd.myapp.metadata+json"),
new ParameterizedTypeReference<Map<String,String>>() {},
(jsonMap, outputMap) -> {
outputMap.putAll(jsonMap);
});

When configuring MetadataExtractor through RSocketStrategies , you can let RSocketStrategies.Builder create the extractor with the
configured decoders, and simply use a callback to customize registrations as follows:

Java Kotlin
JAVA
RSocketStrategies strategies = RSocketStrategies.builder()
.metadataExtractorRegistry(registry -> {
registry.metadataToExtract(fooMimeType, Foo.class, "foo");
// ...
})
.build();

6. Reactive Libraries
spring-webflux depends on reactor-core and uses it internally to compose asynchronous logic and to provide Reactive Streams
support. Generally, WebFlux APIs return Flux or Mono (since those are used internally) and leniently accept any Reactive Streams
Publisher implementation as input. The use of Flux versus Mono is important, because it helps to express cardinality — for
example, whether a single or multiple asynchronous values are expected, and that can be essential for making decisions (for
example, when encoding or decoding HTTP messages).

For annotated controllers, WebFlux transparently adapts to the reactive library chosen by the application. This is done with the help
of the ReactiveAdapterRegistry , which provides pluggable support for reactive library and other asynchronous types. The registry
has built-in support for RxJava and CompletableFuture , but you can register others, too.

For functional APIs (such as Functional Endpoints, the WebClient , and others), the general rules for WebFlux APIs apply — Flux and
Mono as return values and a Reactive Streams Publisher as input. When a Publisher , whether custom or from another reactive
library, is provided, it can be treated only as a stream with unknown semantics (0..N). If, however, the semantics are known, you can
wrap it with Flux or Mono.from(Publisher) instead of passing the raw Publisher .

For example, given a Publisher that is not a Mono , the Jackson JSON message writer expects multiple values. If the media type
implies an infinite stream (for example, application/json+stream ), values are written and flushed individually. Otherwise, values are
buffered into a list and rendered as a JSON array.

Version 5.2.1.RELEASE
Last updated 2019-11-02 08:08:52 UTC

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