bind Spring HandlerInterceptor only to one controller

Question

Using Spring 3.0.2.RELEASE. I'm having 2 Controllers in package com.myCompany. The Controllers are activated via Component-scan

<context:component-scan base-package="com.myCompany" />

then I'm having a interceptor bind to the 2 controllers via

<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.annotation.DefaultAnnotationHandlerMapping">
   <property name="interceptors">
     <list>
       <ref bean="myInterceptor"/>
     </list>
   </property>
 </bean>

How can i bind the interceptor to only one specific Controller or to only certain methods inside a Controller? Background: I want to inspect the URL that it contains certain parameters

Docu Link

Answer 1

When you inject interceptors into a HamdlerMapping bean, those interceptors apply to every handler mapped by that HandlerMapping. That was fine in the pre-annotation days, since you'd just have confgiure multiple HandlerMapping beans. However, with annotations, we tend to have a single DefaultAnnotationHandlerMapping mapping everything, so this model doesn't work.

The solution is to use <mvc:interceptors>, where you explicitly map paths to interceptor beans. See the docs, and this example:

<mvc:interceptors>
    <mvc:interceptor>
        <mapping path="/secure/*"/>
        <bean class="org.example.SecurityInterceptor" />
    </mvc:interceptor>
</mvc:interceptors>