HttpServletRequest variable with slash vs %2f

Question

Here is my controller: ``` @RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.GET, value="/test/**", headers="Accept=*/*") public @ResponseBody ResponseEntity<byte[]> getRequest(HttpServletRequest request) { System.out.println((String) request.getAttribute( HandlerMapping.PATH_WITHIN_HANDLER_MAPPING_ATTRIBUTE )); } ``` Whenever I want to create `GET`request looking like this: `localhost:8080/test/some/request/given/in` My system out write in console: `some/request/given/in` As I want it to. Problem comes when I have instead of slash - `/` symbol `%2F` or `%2f`. When I have those symbols in my path request is not handled by controller at all. Is there any way to fix this?

Accepted Answer

Typically most of the application server will not not treat `%2F` as `/` if `%2F` is found in URL. But as the specs declare `%2F` is one of the ways a path delimiter can be specified, for handling this scenario, tomcat provides system level property

For tomcat, if

```
org.apache.tomcat.util.buf. UDecoder.ALLOW_ENCODED_SLASH = true
```

then `%2F` and `%5C` will be permitted as path delimiters. Refer to the documentation. This can be set as `JAVA_OPTS` in tomcat batch files as follows

```
set JAVA_OPTS=%JAVA_OPTS% %LOGGING_CONFIG%   -Dorg.apache.tomcat.util.buf.UDecoder.ALLOW_ENCODED_SLASH=true
```

This is specifically for Tomcat. I am sure there would be similar arrangement for other application servers as well.

HttpServletRequest variable with slash vs %2f

Solution

Problem