How to suppress url encoding with spring boot

Question

I have created a GET/POST API using Spring boot which has a http url parameter say refid. Now this parameter is already encoded before invoking GET/POST request eg http://localhost:8080/users/TESTFNkJXiQAH%2FJBKxigBx

But, when I deploy this through Spring Boot, the encoded refid is encoded again and the refid changes. ie it becomes:

http://localhost:8080/users/TESTFNkJXiQAH%252FJBKxigBx

I want to suppress this 2nd encoding by Spring boot. Can anyone advise here?

Answer 1

Don't know if you are still having this problem or you found out why it's happening, but because I was trying to explain to someone the phenomenon, I looked if there is already a good explanation. But since you also ask and I didn't find any, here is my answer.

So you encode your refid

TESTFNkJXiQAH%2FJBKxigBx

before you send it through the url, which then you give into a browser. Now this is only the encoded refid. When you call it through a URL directly you have to encode it again, according to the HTML URL encoding standards. That's why the double escape. Also read this . Eg so if your refid looks like this

test%123

and you encode it you turn it into

test%25123

now if you also want to pass it through a url on the browser you'd have to encode it again.

test%2525123

But if a service A is using this service and service A encodes this refid properly then you wont have this problem. It's happening only because you are trying to call this api endpoint through the browser.

Of course I take for granted that you are doing this:

String decoded = URLDecoder.decode(refid, "UTF-8");

in your controller

Answer 2

Pass the decoded URL in first place instead of doing inconvenient things to stop double encoding. You get already decoded field in rest controller. Example if you pass www.xyz.com?name=nilesh%20salpe

you will get value of param name as "nilesh salpe" and not "nilesh%20salpe"

Answer 3

This is a basic example of URLDecoder:

   @RequestMapping(value = "/users/{refId}", method = GET)
   public void yourMethod(@PathVariable("refId") String refId) {
      // This is what you get in Spring Boot
      String encoded = refId; //"TESTFNkJXiQAH%252FJBKxigBx"

      String decoded = URLDecoder.decode(encoded, "UTF-8");

      System.out.println(decoded);

      // Result TESTFNkJXiQAH%2FJBKxigBx
   }