In the Mapping Requests exercise, we discussed several parameters for the @RequestMapping data annotation. One of the arguments mentioned was the method argument. As a reminder, the method argument is used to specify which HTTP method the given method should use. However, the method argument is optional. If we forget to specify it, our method defaults to responding to GET requests. For this reason, we should always specify the HTTP method type.
In addition to using the method argument of the @RequestMapping annotation, Spring also offers several annotations which can be used to map to common request types. These annotations perform the same function as @RequestMapping. As shown in the example below, using the path and method argument of the @RequestMapping annotation is equivalent to just passing in a path to one of the HTTP method annotations. The four common HTTP methods we use to interact with resources are GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE. Check out the table below to see how each method interacts with a resource.
…is equivalent to…
See below for a table of helper methods and the requests to which they map.
| HTTP Method Annotation | Usage |
|---|---|
@GetMapping |
Used to specify GET requests to retrieve resources |
@PostMapping |
Used to specify POST requests to create new resources |
@PutMapping |
Used to specify PUT requests to update existing resources |
@DeleteMapping |
Used to specify DELETE requests to remove specific resources |
Instructions
Specify the HTTP method for each method by replacing @RequestMapping annotations with one of the four common HTTP method annotations.