RequestBody POJO always empty - angularjs

Question

I want to store some data from an HTML form (working with AngularJS) into my database, using Spring.
For this, I'm using the #RequestBody annotation with a POJO, but I can't make it work: my POJO is instancied, but it looks like the POJO attributes are not mapped with my form values (they are all null).
Controller :
#RequestMapping(value = "/createEntities", method = RequestMethod.POST)
#ResponseBody
public List<Entity> createEntities(#RequestBody final EntityList resource, #RequestParam final String kind) {
System.out.println("Creating entity for: " + kind);
Preconditions.checkNotNull(resource);
List<Entity> newEntities = new ArrayList<Entity>();
System.out.println("Entity test = " + resource.getTest()); // Prints "Entity test = null"
// Code below returns NullException
//System.out.println("Entity list nb = " + resource.getEntity().size());
if (resource.getEntities() != null && !resource.getEntities().isEmpty()) {
System.out.println("Entity list is OK");
for (EntityForm eForm : resource.getEntities()) {
if (eForm.getGrant() != null) {
Entity ent = new Entity();
if ("RTS".equals(kind)) {
ent.setDept(deptService.findByAbr(DeptEnum.RTS.name()));
} else {
ent.setDept(deptService.findByAbr(DeptEnum.RTB.name()));
}
ent.setGrant(eForm.getGrant());
ent.setCountry(eForm.getCountry());
ent.setName(eForm.getName());
ent = service.create(ent);
newEntities.add(ent);
}
}
}
return newEntities;
}
EntityList is the POJO for my form. This POJO contains a list of EntityForm (+ a string for test purpose), which is a DTO for my database entity Entity.
EntityList POJO :
public class EntityList implements Serializable {
private static final long serialVersionUID = 6335318686899794229L;
private List<EntityForm> entities;
private String test;
public EntityList() {
super();
}
public EntityList(List<EntityForm> entities, String test) {
super();
this.entities = entities;
this.test = test;
}
public List<EntityForm> getEntities() {
return entities;
}
public void setEntities(List<EntityForm> entities) {
this.entities = entities;
}
public String getTest() {
return test;
}
public void setTest(String test) {
this.test = test;
}
}
I thought the problem came from a bad mapping between my list of entities in my form and my List<EntityForm> in my POJO, that's why I added a simple String to my POJO.
AngularJS side
Service :
app.factory("Entities", function($resource) {
return $resource("api/auth/entities", null,
{
createEntities: {method:'POST', url: "api/auth/entities/createEntities", params: { kind: '#kind' }, isArray:true}
});
})
Controller :
$scope.EntForm = {};
$scope.EntForm.entities = [];
$scope.EntForm.test = "myTest";
/* ... */
$scope.saveEnt= function() {
console.log($scope.EntForm);
Entities.createEntities($scope.EntForm,{kind:"RTS"},function(res) {
var msg = 'Entities created...';
ngToast.create(msg);
$location.path("/entities");
});
}
In my firefox console, I see that $scope.EntForm is correctly set (I have all my entity objects with the fields set, as well as the test string defined in the controller).
Result
All this code will display :
Creating entity for: RTS
Entity test = null
What am I doing wrong ?

Answer 1

Have you checked out the POST payload with Firefox developer tools, is your custom createEntities method working correctly?
(Would have added this as a comment, but unfortunately I don't yet have enough reputation for that.)

Answer 2

I had to remove the #RequestParam final String kind part from my Spring controller, and the param in AngularJS code.
To get the kind, I just added $scope.EntForm.kind = "theValueIWant" in my AngularJS controller.
I don't know if it's a good way to make it work in terms of good practice, but I get the #RequestBody content now.