@RequestParam vs @PathVariable

Question

What is the difference between @RequestParam and @PathVariable while handling special characters?

+ was accepted by @Re

Answer 1

Both the annotations behave exactly in same manner.

Only 2 special characters '!' and '@' are accepted by the annotations @PathVariable and @RequestParam.

To check and confirm the behavior I have created a spring boot application that contains only 1 controller.

 @RestController 
public class Controller 
{
    @GetMapping("/pvar/{pdata}")
    public @ResponseBody String testPathVariable(@PathVariable(name="pdata") String pathdata)
    {
        return pathdata;
    }

    @GetMapping("/rpvar")
    public @ResponseBody String testRequestParam(@RequestParam("param") String paramdata)
    {
        return paramdata;
    }
}

Hitting following Requests I got the same response:

1. localhost:7000/pvar/!@#$%^&*()_+-=[]{}|;':",./<>?
2. localhost:7000/rpvar?param=!@#$%^&*()_+-=[]{}|;':",./<>?

!@ was received as response in both the requests