Spring MVC does not handle RequestMethod.OPTIONS

Question

I am in the context of a Rest API. As I am performing cross domain request, I need to send back the header "Access-Control-Allow-Origin".

I have a controller such:

@Controller
@RequestMapping("/api")
public class PackageManagerRestController {


    @RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.OPTIONS, value = "/test")
    public void commonOptions(HttpServletResponse theHttpServletResponse) throws IOException {
        theHttpServletResponse.addHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Headers", "origin, content-type, accept, x-requested-with");
        theHttpServletResponse.addHeader("Access-Control-Max-Age", "60"); // seconds to cache preflight request --> less OPTIONS traffic
        theHttpServletResponse.addHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Methods", "GET, POST, OPTIONS");
        theHttpServletResponse.addHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Origin", "*");
    }

    @RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.GET, value = "/test")
    public void getPtions(HttpServletResponse theHttpServletResponse) throws IOException {
        theHttpServletResponse.addHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Headers", "origin, content-type, accept, x-requested-with");
        theHttpServletResponse.addHeader("Access-Control-Max-Age", "60"); // seconds to cache preflight request --> less OPTIONS traffic
        theHttpServletResponse.addHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Methods", "GET, POST, OPTIONS");
        theHttpServletResponse.addHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Origin", "*");
    }
}

If I run a test with GET, the result is as expected:

$ curl -i -X GET http://localhost:8081/api/test
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: Apache-Coyote/1.1
Access-Control-Allow-Headers: origin, content-type, accept, x-requested-with
Access-Control-Max-Age: 60
Access-Control-Allow-Methods: GET, POST, OPTIONS
Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
Content-Length: 0
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2014 08:18:38 GMT

However, if I send the request with OPTIONS, the controller never handles the request:

$ curl -i -X OPTIONS http://localhost:8081/api/test
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: Apache-Coyote/1.1
Allow: GET, HEAD, POST, PUT, DELETE, TRACE, OPTIONS, PATCH
Content-Length: 0
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2014 08:19:56 GMT

Anyone has any clue of why I am receiving this "default response" and why I cannot customize it ?

Answer 1

For default Spring DispatcherServlet supports GET, HEAD, POST, PUT, PATCH and DELETE only; if you want to support TRACE and OPTIONS you have to put "dispatchOptionsRequest" and "dispatchTraceRequest" properties to "true"; check here docs.spring.io/spring/docs/4.0.3.RELEASE/javadoc-api

In order to support OPTIONS too in your web.xml you have to put this:

<init-param>
<param-name>dispatchOptionsRequest</param-name>
<param-value>true</param-value>
</init-param>

By adding it I can handle OPTIONS:

~$ curl -i -X OPTIONS http://localhost:8180/sample/api/test
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: Apache-Coyote/1.1
Access-Control-Allow-Headers: origin, content-type, accept, x-requested-with
Access-Control-Max-Age: 60
Access-Control-Allow-Methods: GET, POST, OPTIONS
Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
Allow: GET, HEAD, POST, PUT, DELETE, TRACE, OPTIONS, PATCH
Content-Length: 0
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2014 08:44:55 GMT

Angelo