Spring MVC - HTTP status code 400 (Bad Request) for missing field which is defined as being not required

Question

I have Spring MVC application with this controller method.

@RequestMapping(value = "/add", method = RequestMethod.POST)
public String addNumber(@RequestParam(value="number", required=false) Long number) {
   ...
   return "redirect:/showAll/";
}

In my JSP I have a standard HTML form which is posting a value named "number" to the controller method above. However, if I leave out the value (do not enter anything into the text field) and POST the data to the controller, before the controller method is called my browser shows

HTTP Status 400 - Required Long parameter 'number' is not present

although the controller method annotation clearly defines the "number"-parameter as not required.

Does anyone have a slight idea of what could be going on?

Thank you.

PS: The exception that is being thrown is as follows:

org.springframework.web.bind.MissingServletRequestParameterException: Required Long parameter 'number' is not present

EDIT: This is a Spring 3.2.3.RELEASE bug ( see here). With version 3.1.4.RELEASE I do not have this problem anymore.

It is saying that post request not contain name parameter. Cross check with firebug fire fox. — Vinit Prajapati, Jul 25 '13 at 12:56
Sorry, this is a typo carried over from my real world test app. It should be "number" as it is in the (edited) example above now. — AlexLiesenfeld, Jul 25 '13 at 12:59
It's strange. I just tested with 3.2.0.RELEASE and 3.2.3.RELEASE and in both cases your code works as expected. — Bart, Jul 25 '13 at 14:19

score 20 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 06 '13 at 21:09

20

I came across the same situation, and this happens when your parameter is present in the request with an empty value.

That is, if your POST body contains "number=" (with empty value), then Spring throws this exception. However, if the parameter is not present at all in the request, it should work without any errors.

answered Oct 06 '13 at 21:09

Yohan Liyanage

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Yeah, this is a total bug right? Still getting this issue in 2014. Is it supposed to do this? – Fraggle Dec 18 '14 at 04:41
2

This happens in Spring 4.1, too. However, if you set the `defaultValue` in the `RequestParam` annotation, no exception is thrown. – Giulio Piancastelli Apr 08 '15 at 13:04
In my code, I am receiving a JSON object and the problem was that does not exists a default constructor in this object. After create it, works fine! – deldev Oct 27 '15 at 18:27

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 11 '20 at 17:58

1

My problem was that some of the headers in a request I was sending with Postman were not present (were unchecked):

When I checked back the Content-Length header, the request worked fine (200 OK response).

answered Sep 11 '20 at 17:58

parsecer

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Spring MVC - HTTP status code 400 (Bad Request) for missing field which is defined as being not required

2 Answers2

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