Question

I want to create a base controller class that my other controllers will inherit from. I have a simple public api that takes the authentication token via the query string, so I want to do this:

public class MyBaseController {
   private String token = "";
   public MyBaseController() {
   }
}

And then my real controller would be like:

@Controller
@RequestMapping("/api/users")
public class UserController extends MyBaseControler {

  // controller methods here
}

My question is, how can i get access to the HttpServletRequest in my base controller, and get the querystring parameter “?token=abc123” value and set the token var with the value.

Is this thread safe? It is my understanding that there will be a new controller instance per request correct?

Answer 1

Your controllers are better off if they’re stateless.

You can inject them with Spring services as needed, but I don’t see any reason why they have to hang onto the value of the token as a member variable.

It’s far more likely that you’ll want to store the token in session scope. I think your idea is wrong-headed.

I’ll point out that Spring itself has moved away from inheritance for controllers. They’re all annotation-based now, with no common base class or interface. Why do you think devolving back to the design they abandoned is a good thing?

You don’t need a base controller, either.