What are the attributes available in @RequestMapping?

Question

Accepted Answer

@RequestMapping accepts several attributes that together define exactly which requests a handler matches, going beyond just the URL. Understanding these attributes explains how Spring narrows down which method should process a given request.

Key Points:
• value or path specifies the URL pattern(s) the method should match.
• method restricts matching to specific HTTP verbs, such as RequestMethod.GET or RequestMethod.POST.
• params requires certain request parameters to be present (or absent, or equal to a value) for the mapping to match.
• headers requires specific HTTP headers to be present for the mapping to match.
• consumes restricts matching based on the request's Content-Type, and produces restricts matching based on the response's Content-Type via the Accept header.
• name assigns a logical name to the mapping, useful for generating URLs elsewhere in the app.

Example:
@RequestMapping(value = "/orders", method = RequestMethod.POST, consumes = "application/json", produces = "application/json") only matches POST requests to /orders that send and expect JSON.

Code Example:
```
@RequestMapping(
    value = "/orders",
    method = RequestMethod.POST,
    consumes = "application/json",
    produces = "application/json"
)
public Order createOrder(@RequestBody Order order) { ... }
```

Interview Tip:
A concise interview answer is:

"@RequestMapping supports value or path for the URL, method for the HTTP verb, and consumes/produces to restrict matching by content type. It also has params and headers for finer-grained matching, and name to give the mapping a reusable identifier."