What are the advantages of @MatrixVariable over @RequestParam?

Question

I am reading in this article http://www.kscodes.com/spring-mvc/spring-mvc-matrix-variable-example/ that one advantage is that you can use the variable type Map for the matrix variable and you can't use this type when using @RequestParam. But aside from that, are there any other reasons for why I should use @MatrixVariable instead of @RequestParam?

Thank you

Answer 1

Unlike the @RequestParam the @MatrixVariable is separated by a semicolon ; and multiple values are separated by a comma ,. Read its documentation:

Annotation which indicates that a method parameter should be bound to a name-value pair within a path segment. Supported for RequestMapping annotated handler methods.

There are plenty of examples and variations of the usage. Here are some exapmles:

• URL: localhost:8080/person/Tom;age=25;height=175 and Controller:

  @GetMapping("/person/{name}")
  @ResponseBody
  public String person(
      @PathVariable("name") String name, 
      @MatrixVariable("age") int age,
      @MatrixVariable("height") int height) {
  
      // ...
  }
  

• It can be even mapped to String[].

  URL: localhost:8080/person/Tom;languages=JAVA,JAVASCRIPT,CPP,C and Controller

  public String person(
      @PathVariable("name") String name, 
      @MatrixVariable("languages") String[] languages) {
  
      // ...
  }