Spring mvc and jquery produces 415 error

Question

I have following jquery

<script>
var response = '';
$.ajax({ type: "POST",   
     url: "http://localhost:8080/hsv06/checkUserExists",   
     async: false,
     data: "title=foo",
     success : function(text)
     {
         response = text;
     }
});

console.log(response);
</script> 

And here is the rest controller:

@RequestMapping(value="/checkUserExists", method=RequestMethod.POST, consumes="application/json")
public @ResponseBody boolean checkUser(@RequestBody Object title){
    System.out.println(title);
    return true;        
}

However this produces the following error:

POST http://localhost:8080/hsv06/checkUserExists 415 (Unsupported Media Type)
 send @ jquery.min.js:2
ajax @ jquery.min.js:2
(anonymous) @ (index):57

What is the problem? What is wrong with the way I am sending the data?

Answer 1

415 means unsupported media type. Your server consumes application/json, so you client must provide application/json data. To fix it, just add the type to your jquery like the following.

$.ajax({ type: "POST",   
     url: "http://localhost:8080/hsv06/checkUserExists",   
     async: false,
     data: JSON.stringify({title: "food"}),
     // specifying data type
     contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
     success : function(text)
     {
         response = text;
     }
});

contentType (default: 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=UTF-8')

When sending data to the server, use this content type. Default is "application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=UTF-8"

Your Spring REST backend should be like the following. Since the post data is {title: "food"}, Spring will parse it into a Map.

@RequestMapping(value="/checkUserExists", method=RequestMethod.POST, consumes="application/json")
public @ResponseBody boolean checkUser(@RequestBody Map<String, String> param){
    System.out.println(param);
    return true;        
}