What’s the difference between getRequestURI and getPathInfo methods in HttpServletRequest?

I will put a small comparison table here (just to have it somewhere):

Servlet is mapped as /test%3F/* and the application is deployed under /app.

http://30thh.loc:8480/app/test%3F/a%3F+b;jsessionid=S%3F+ID?p+1=c+d&p+2=e+f#a

Method              URL-Decoded Result           
----------------------------------------------------
getContextPath()        no      /app
getLocalAddr()                  127.0.0.1
getLocalName()                  30thh.loc
getLocalPort()                  8480
getMethod()                     GET
getPathInfo()           yes     /a?+b
getProtocol()                   HTTP/1.1
getQueryString()        no      p+1=c+d&p+2=e+f
getRequestedSessionId() no      S%3F+ID
getRequestURI()         no      /app/test%3F/a%3F+b;jsessionid=S+ID
getRequestURL()         no      http://30thh.loc:8480/app/test%3F/a%3F+b;jsessionid=S+ID
getScheme()                     http
getServerName()                 30thh.loc
getServerPort()                 8480
getServletPath()        yes     /test?
getParameterNames()     yes     [p 2, p 1]
getParameter("p 1")     yes     c d

In the example above the server is running on the localhost:8480 and the name 30thh.loc was put into OS hosts file.

Comments

• “+” is handled as space only in the query string

• Anchor “#a” is not transferred to the server. Only the browser can work with it.

• If the url-pattern in the servlet mapping does not end with * (for example /test or *.jsp), getPathInfo() returns null.

If Spring MVC is used

• Method getPathInfo() returns null.

• Method getServletPath() returns the part between the context path and the session ID. In the example above the value would be /test?/a?+b

• Be careful with URL encoded parts of @RequestMapping and @RequestParam in Spring. It is buggy (current version 3.2.4) and is usually not working as expected.