[java] Trying to use Spring Boot REST to Read JSON String from POST

Am using the latest version of Spring Boot to read in a sample JSON via Restful Web Service...

Here's my pom.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"       
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 
         http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd"
         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">

    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

    <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
    <artifactId>myservice</artifactId>
    <version>0.1.0</version>

    <parent>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
        <version>1.2.2.RELEASE</version>
    </parent>

    <properties>
        <java.version>1.7</java.version>
        <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
        <project.reporting.outputEncoding>UTF-8</project.reporting.outputEncoding>
    </properties>

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.data</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-data-rest-webmvc</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
    </dependencies>

    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>

    <repositories>
        <repository>
            <id>spring-releases</id>
            <name>Spring Releases</name>
            <url>https://repo.spring.io/libs-release</url>
        </repository>
        <repository>
            <id>org.jboss.repository.releases</id>
            <name>JBoss Maven Release Repository</name>
            <url>https://repository.jboss.org/nexus/content/repositories/releases</url>
        </repository>
    </repositories>

    <pluginRepositories>
        <pluginRepository>
            <id>spring-releases</id>
            <name>Spring Releases</name>
            <url>https://repo.spring.io/libs-release</url>
        </pluginRepository>
    </pluginRepositories>

</project>

Here's my web service code:

import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestBody;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMethod;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RestController;

@RestController
@RequestMapping("/myservice")
public class BaseService {  

    @RequestMapping(value="/process", method = RequestMethod.POST)
    public void process(@RequestBody String payload) throws Exception {
        System.out.println(payload);
    }
}

When I invoke it using the following command:

curl -H "Accept: application/json" -H "Content-type: application/json" 
-X POST -d '{"name":"value"}' http://localhost:8080/myservice/process

I get this error message:

{"timestamp":1427515733546,"status":400,
 "error":"Bad Request",

"exception":
"org.springframework.http.converter.HttpMessageNotReadableException","
 message":
 "Could not read JSON: Can not deserialize instance of java.lang.String
  out of START_OBJECT token\n at 

 [Source: java.io.PushbackInputStream@8252f; line: 1, column: 1]; 
  nested    exception is com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.JsonMappingException:
  Can not deserialize instance of java.lang.String out of START_OBJECT token\n    
  at [Source: java.io.PushbackInputStream@8252f; line: 1, column: 1]",
  "path":"/myservice/process"

The only thing I am trying to do is pass in some valid JSON (as a string via curl) and to see if the String payload enters the process method as {"name":"value"}

What am I possibly doing wrong?

Thank you for taking the time to read this...

To further work with array of maps, the followings could help:

@RequestMapping(value = "/process", method = RequestMethod.POST, headers = "Accept=application/json")
public void setLead(@RequestBody Collection<? extends Map<String, Object>> payload) throws Exception {

  List<Map<String,Object>> maps = new ArrayList<Map<String,Object>>();
  maps.addAll(payload);

}

The issue appears with parsing the JSON from request body, tipical for an invalid JSON. If you're using curl on windows, try escaping the json like -d "{"name":"value"}" or even -d "{"""name""":"value"""}"

On the other hand you can ommit the content-type header in which case whetewer is sent will be converted to your String argument

To receive arbitrary Json in Spring-Boot, you can simply use Jackson's JsonNode. The appropriate converter is automatically configured.

    @PostMapping(value="/process")
    public void process(@RequestBody com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.JsonNode payload) {
        System.out.println(payload);
    }

To add on to Andrea's solution, if you are passing an array of JSONs for instance

[
    {"name":"value"},
    {"name":"value2"}
]

Then you will need to set up the Spring Boot Controller like so:

@RequestMapping(
    value = "/process", 
    method = RequestMethod.POST)
public void process(@RequestBody Map<String, Object>[] payload) 
    throws Exception {

    System.out.println(payload);

}