RequestContextListener with Spring Session

[cemo]

We need to access some session bean scope beans but this is causing an error in our side. Since org.springframework.web.context.request.RequestContextListener is setting Request very early, Accessing a SessionScope bean is throwing an exception. org.springframework.web.context.request.RequestContextHolder must be set after wrapping Request by SessionRepository.

Using org.springframework.web.filter.RequestContextFilter instead of org.springframework.web.context.request.RequestContextListener is a solution but this is not common practice. For example even Spring Boot is using RequestContextListener.

It seems that RequestContextListener should not be used with Spring Session. What do you think?

[rwinch]

Thanks for the report.

As you pointed out, at this time there is no integration with Spring Session and ServletRequestListener which means it is essentially a no go with Spring Session.

Are their any particular reasons Spring Boot uses the RequestContextListener @philwebb or is this something that could be changed to use the RequestContextFilter?

One possible option for supporting something like this is to ensure you decorate the ServletRequestListener instead of using the ServletRequestListener directly. For example:

public class RequestContextListener implements ServletRequestListener {
    private ServletRequestListener delegate;

    public void requestInitialized(ServletRequestEvent requestEvent) {
        delegate.requestInitialized(wrap(requestEvent));
    }

    public void requestDestroyed(ServletRequestEvent requestEvent) {
        delegate.requestDestroyed(wrap(requestEvent);
    }

    private ServletRequestEvent wrap(ServletRequestEvent e) {
        return new ServletRequestEvent(e.getServletContext(), wrap(e.getServletRequest());
    }

    private ServletRequest wrap(ServletRequest r) {
        return new SessionRepositoryRequestWrapper(...);
    }
}

The problem right now is that SessionRepositoryRequestWrapper is private so would not work.

I'm not sure if I really like this as an option since it seems like we should be able to use a Filter which already works. I guess it probably depends on what @philwebb replies with.

[philwebb]

@rwinch We'd have to do some testing if we switched from RequestContextListener to RequestContextFilter and it probably couldn't happen until 1.3. I'm not aware of any specific reason why we chose one over the other.

[cemo]

Having both RequestContextListener and RequestContextFiltertogether seems harmless at first glance. Maybe in case a existing Spring Session Filter and ContextListener beans, RequestContextFilter can be registered as well.

[cemo]

@philwebb, @rwinch Is there anything I can provide for this issue? There is not any issue for this in Spring Boot yet.

[philwebb]

@cemo A Spring Boot issue would be appreciated. We could take a look for 1.3