java - Content type 'multipart/form-data;boundary=----...;charset=UTF-8' not supported

Question

I want to send an object to the controller that has several lists with files and several fields with plain text.

public class ContributionNew<T extends MovieInfoDTO> {
    private List<T> elementsToAdd;
    private Map<Long, T> elementsToUpdate;
    private Set<Long> idsToDelete;
    private Set<String> sources;
    private String comment;
}

public class Photo extends MovieInfoDTO {
    private MultipartFile photo;
}

@PostMapping(value = "/{id}/contributions/photos")
@ResponseStatus(HttpStatus.CREATED)
public
ResponseEntity<Void> createPhotoContribution(
        @ApiParam(value = "The movie ID", required = true)
        @PathVariable("id") final Long id,
        @ApiParam(value = "The contribution", required = true)
        @RequestBody @Valid final ContributionNew<Photo> contribution
) {

I am sending data using postman. However, he throws me away

org.springframework.web.HttpMediaTypeNotSupportedException: Content type 'multipart/form-data;boundary=----WebKitFormBoundarywY7ByvgonAjDoaCT;charset=UTF-8' not supported

What should I set the Content-type for this controller so that I can send an object that has fields of plain text and lists with files?

If I set the header in the header

Content-type: multipart/form-data; charset=utf-8

it throws me in the console

org.apache.tomcat.util.http.fileupload.FileUploadException: the request was rejected because no multipart boundary was found

Answer 1

As said dknight @RequestBody means use of JSON or XML data with maps your DTO bean. In case of MultipartFile you can't use JSON data so you can't use @RequestBody. Try with @ModelAttribute annotation.

Working sample :

@PostMapping("/promoters")
@Timed
public ResponseEntity<PromoterDTO> createPromoter(@ModelAttribute PromoterDTO promoterDTO) throws URISyntaxException { ... }

With PromoterDTO like this :

    public class PromoterDTO implements Serializable {

        private Long id; 

        private String name;

        private String address;

        private MultipartFile logo;
    }