Spring 3.0 URL pattern validation

Question

I'm wanting to to add an endpoint like /user/foo where foo is one of a set of values determined at runtime. I'm wondering what the best way is to do this in Spring, or indeed if it should even been done in Spring an not handled at the controller level.

I'm currently using Springs security filter chain, so I did think about putting a filter in front of /user/* to do this validation. Is this a reasonable solution or is there a more desirable solution I have missed?

Answer 1

You can use @PathVariable annotation on a method argument. @PathVariable also allows regex if you need to validate the structure of the varible.

http://static.springsource.org/spring/docs/3.0.x/spring-framework-reference/html/mvc.html#mvc-ann-requestmapping

http://static.springsource.org/spring/docs/3.0.x/javadoc-api/org/springframework/web/bind/annotation/PathVariable.html

and for the regex

http://static.springsource.org/spring/docs/3.0.x/javadoc-api/org/springframework/web/bind/annotation/RequestMapping.html