How do you set cache headers in Spring MVC?

Question

In an annotation-based Spring MVC controller, what is the preferred way to set cache headers for a specific path?

Answer 1

Starting with Spring 4.2 you can do this:

import org.springframework.http.CacheControl;
import org.springframework.http.MediaType;
import org.springframework.http.ResponseEntity;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMethod;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RestController;

import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;

@RestController
public class CachingController {
    @RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.GET, path = "/cachedapi")
    public ResponseEntity getPermissions() {

        MyDto body = new MyDto();

        return ResponseEntity.ok()
            .cacheControl(CacheControl.maxAge(20, TimeUnit.SECONDS))
            .body(body);
    }
}

CacheControl object is a builder with many configuration options, see JavaDoc