Jersey Filters – ContainerRequestFilter and ContainerResponseFilter

Jersey Filters allow a certain functionality to the performed on every request/response. They are typically used to modify request or response parameters like headers. Jersey user guide provides a good description of what filters can do. This blog however focusses on how to set up filters in Jersey based on different jersey versions

Jersey 1.x

The core of setting up is configuring the appropriate init parameter. In Jersey 1.x, these were

setInitParameter(ResourceConfig.PROPERTY_CONTAINER_REQUEST_FILTERS, RequestResponseLoggingFilter.class.getName());
setInitParameter(ResourceConfig.PROPERTY_CONTAINER_RESPONSE_FILTERS, RequestResponseLoggingFilter.class.getName());

where the parameter keys were

public static final String PROPERTY_CONTAINER_REQUEST_FILTERS =  "com.sun.jersey.spi.container.ContainerRequestFilters";
public static final String PROPERTY_CONTAINER_RESPONSE_FILTERS =  "com.sun.jersey.spi.container.ContainerResponseFilters";

These parameters can also be set using web.xml

<servlet>  
    <servlet-name>Jersey REST Service</servlet-name>  
    <servlet-class>org.glassfish.jersey.servlet.ServletContainer</servlet-class>  
    <init-param>
        <param-name>com.sun.jersey.spi.container.ContainerRequestFilters</param-name>
        <param-value>com.company.org.jersey.filters.RequestResponseLogginFilter</param-value>
    </init-param>
</servlet>

Jersey 2.x

In Jersey 2.x the parameters changed to the following

setInitParameter("javax.ws.rs.container.ContainerRequestFilter", RequestResponseLoggingFilter.class.getName());
setInitParameter( "javax.ws.rs.container.ContainerResponseFilter", RequestResponseLoggingFilter.class.getName());