What is difference between @FormDataParam and @FormParam

Question

What is the difference between @FormDataParam and @FormParam?

I was using multiple @FormDataParam in a method but it was throw

Answer 1

• @FormDataParam is supposed to be used with Multipart type data (i.e. multipart/form-data or MediaType.MULTIPART_FORM_DATA), which in its raw form looks something like

  Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=AaB03x
  
  --AaB03x
  Content-Disposition: form-data; name="submit-name"
  
  Larry
  --AaB03x
  Content-Disposition: form-data; name="files"; filename="file1.txt"
  Content-Type: text/plain
  
  ... contents of file1.txt ...
  --AaB03x--
  

  Multipart is mainly used for sending binary data, like non-text files.

• @FormParam is for url-encoded request parameters (i.e. application/x-www-form-urlencoded or MediaType.APPLICATION_FORM_URLENCODED), which in raw form looks like

  param1=value1¶m2=value2
  

Both of these types are mainly used in client side forms. For example

the above would send the request parameters as application/x-www-form-urlencoded. It would get sent in raw form as

gender=male&name=peeskillet

On the server side, we can use a @FormParam for each named parameter in the form

@FormParam("gender") String gender, @FormParam("name") String name

But if we need to send say an image along with the parameters, application/x-form-url-encoded data type is not sufficient, as it only deals with text. So we need to use Multipart

Here the Multipart type is specified, now the browser will send out the request with something like

Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=AaB03x

--AaB03x
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="gender"

Male
--AaB03x
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="name"

Peskillet
--AaB03x
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="avatar"; filename="image.png"
Content-Type: image/png

... binary content of image file ...
--AaB03x--

On the server, similar with the application/x-www-form-urlencoded example above, for each Multipart parameter (or field to be more precise), we can use @FormDataParam to signify each parameter

@FormDataParam("gender") String gender,
@FormDataParam("name") String name,
@FormDataParam("avatar") InputStream avatar

See Also:

• Forms in HTML Documents