Posting XML to REST service, Not marshalled to object

[mcoventon]

I am attempting to enhance my Controllers to accept/return XML in addition to Form/HTML data. I am using mvc:annotation-driven and I'm not clear on what exactly I need to configure to accept XML.

I have configured a ContentNegotiatingViewResolver to return XML or HTML based on the Accept header and this works great. But if I POST XML then my controller method is called with a Customer object that has all elements set to null. What could be wrong? If it matters my application was generated with Roo, but I don't think this is a Roo issue.

I have the following webmvc-config.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
	xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
	xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd
		http://www.springframework.org/schema/context http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.0.xsd
		http://www.springframework.org/schema/oxm http://www.springframework.org/schema/oxm/spring-oxm-3.0.xsd
		http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc-3.0.xsd"
	xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
	xmlns:oxm="http://www.springframework.org/schema/oxm"
	xmlns:p="http://www.springframework.org/schema/p"
	xmlns:mvc="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc">
				
	<!-- The controllers are autodetected POJOs labeled with the @Controller annotation. -->
	<context:component-scan base-package="com.foo" use-default-filters="false">
		<context:include-filter expression="org.springframework.stereotype.Controller" type="annotation"/>
	</context:component-scan>

	<oxm:jaxb2-marshaller id="marshaller">
		<oxm:class-to-be-bound name="com.foo.domain.Customer"/>
	</oxm:jaxb2-marshaller>

	<!-- Turns on support for mapping requests to Spring MVC @Controller methods
	     Also registers default Formatters and Validators for use across all @Controllers -->
	<mvc:annotation-driven/>
	
	<!-- <bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.annotation.AnnotationMethodHandlerAdapter">
		<property name="messageConverters">
			<list>
				<ref bean="marshallingHttpMessageConverter"/>
			</list>
		</property>
	</bean> -->

	<!-- register "global" interceptor beans to apply to all registered HandlerMappings -->
	<mvc:interceptors>
		<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.theme.ThemeChangeInterceptor"/>
		<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.i18n.LocaleChangeInterceptor" p:paramName="lang"/>
	</mvc:interceptors>
	
	<!-- selects a static view for rendering without the need for an explicit controller -->
	<mvc:view-controller path="/login"/>
    <mvc:view-controller path="/index"/>
	<mvc:view-controller path="/uncaughtException"/>
	<mvc:view-controller path="/resourceNotFound"/>
	<mvc:view-controller path="/dataAccessFailure"/>

	<!-- Content negotiating view resolver definition -->
	<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.ContentNegotiatingViewResolver">
		<property name="mediaTypes">
			<map>
				<entry key="xml" value="application/xml"/>
				<entry key="html" value="text/html"/>
			</map>
		</property>
		<property name="defaultViews">
			<list>
				<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.xml.MarshallingView" p:marshaller-ref="marshaller"/>
			</list>
		</property>
	</bean>
	
	<!-- Resolves logical view names returned by Controllers to Tiles; a view
		 name to resolve is treated as the name of a tiles definition -->
	<bean class="org.springframework.js.ajax.AjaxUrlBasedViewResolver" id="tilesViewResolver">
		<property name="viewClass" value="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.tiles2.TilesView"/>
	</bean>

	<!-- Configures the Tiles layout system -->
	<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.tiles2.TilesConfigurer" id="tilesConfigurer">
		<property name="definitions">
			<list>
				<value>/WEB-INF/layouts/layouts.xml</value>
				<!-- Scan views directory for Tiles configurations -->
				<value>/WEB-INF/views/**/views.xml</value>
			</list>
		</property>
	</bean>

	<!-- Resolves localized messages*.properties and application.properties files in the application to	allow for internationalization. 
		The messages*.properties files translate Roo generated messages which are part of the admin interface, the application.properties
		resource bundle localizes all application specific messages such as entity names and menu items. -->
	<bean class="org.springframework.context.support.ReloadableResourceBundleMessageSource" id="messageSource" p:basenames="WEB-INF/i18n/messages,WEB-INF/i18n/application" p:fallbackToSystemLocale="false"/>
	
	<!-- store preferred language configuration in a cookie -->
	<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.i18n.CookieLocaleResolver" id="localeResolver" p:cookieName="locale"/>	
	
	<!-- resolves localized <theme_name>.properties files in the classpath to allow for theme support -->
	<bean class="org.springframework.ui.context.support.ResourceBundleThemeSource" id="themeSource"/>
	
	<!-- store preferred theme configuration in a cookie -->
	<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.theme.CookieThemeResolver" id="themeResolver" p:cookieName="theme" p:defaultThemeName="standard"/>

	<!-- This bean resolves specific types of exceptions to corresponding logical - view names for error views. 
	     The default behaviour of DispatcherServlet - is to propagate all exceptions to the servlet container: 
	     this will happen - here with all other types of exceptions. -->
	<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.handler.SimpleMappingExceptionResolver" p:defaultErrorView="uncaughtException">
		<property name="exceptionMappings">
			<props>
				<prop key=".DataAccessException">dataAccessFailure</prop>
				<prop key=".NoSuchRequestHandlingMethodException">resourceNotFound</prop>
				<prop key=".TypeMismatchException">resourceNotFound</prop>
				<prop key=".MissingServletRequestParameterException">resourceNotFound</prop>
			</props>
		</property>
	</bean>
	
	<!-- allows for integration of file upload functionality -->
	<bean class="org.springframework.web.multipart.commons.CommonsMultipartResolver" id="multipartResolver"/>
</beans>

My controller method I am posting to looks like this:

    @RequestMapping(value = "/customer", method = RequestMethod.POST)
    public String create(/*@Valid*/ Customer customer, BindingResult result, ModelMap modelMap) {
        if (customer == null) throw new IllegalArgumentException("A customer is required");
        if (result.hasErrors()) {
            modelMap.addAttribute("customer", customer);
            return "customer/create";
        }
        customer.persist();
        return "redirect:/customer/" + customer.getId();
    }

Any and all help is appreciated...Thanks.

[mcoventon]

I resolved this. The issue was that I did not realize that I needed to use @RequestBody on the method paramater for the message converter to be invoked. Since @RequestBody is not required for Form input with data binding.

I ended up with two methods that process POSTs. One is for the Form input and uses the @Valid annotation, the other is for the XML input and uses @RequestBody.

[rajkumar_pb]

^^

Posting the code will be helpful for some who is looking for the exact issue.