415 Unsupported Media Type, when NOT sending an optional request body with POST request

Question

I have a REST controller that defines an interface which takes an optional request body.

@RestController
@RequestMapping(ExampleRest.EXAMPLE_URI)
public class ExampleRest {
    public static final String EXAMPLE_URI = "/examples";

    @RequestMapping(value = "/search", method = POST)
    public Page<ExampleDto> search(@RequestBody(required = false) Searchable searchable, Pageable pageable) {
        return exampleService.findAll(searchable, pageable);
    }
}

The Searchable object contains information to create a JPASpecification. It's pretty much a dto. I would like to make this searchable optional. I understood that @RequestBody(required = false) should do the trick.

I have the following test, where I want to test a request without any request body.

@Test
public void post_NoCriteria_Ok() {
    RequestEntity requestEntity = new RequestEntity(HttpMethod.POST, URI.create(ExampleRest.EXAMPLE_URI + "/search"));
    ResponseEntity <RestResponsePage<ExampleDto>> response = restTemplate.exchange(requestEntity, new ParameterizedTypeReference <RestResponsePage<ExampleDto>> () {});
    Assert.assertEquals(HttpStatus.OK, response.getStatusCode());
}

If I run this test, it keeps failing with this response from the RestController:

<415 Unsupported Media Type,Page 1 of 1 containing UNKNOWN instances,{Content-Type=[application/json;charset=UTF-8], Transfer-Encoding=[chunked], Date=[Wed, 13 Sep 2017 10:10:22 GMT]}>

The Code execution does not even enter search method implementation inside of the RestController.

As soon I provide an empty Searchable for the test, it runs through.

Is the implementation of @RequestBody(required = false) buggy, or what am I doing wrong here?

Answer 1

You need to set Content-Type as "application/json" in your request while sending from @Test file.