Content negotiation for XML response

Given the example controller method shouldn’t XML be returned for the Firefox default Accept header "text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8"?

@RequestMapping(value = "/test", method = RequestMethod.GET)
    public ResponseEntity<String[]> test(HttpServletRequest request) {      
        String[] result = {"value 1", "value 2", "value 3"};        
        return new ResponseEntity<String[]>(result, HttpStatus.OK);             
    }

The following URLs return a content type of “application/json;charset=UTF-8”:

• http://localhost:9000/test
• http://localhost:9000/test.json

But the URL “http://localhost:9000/test.xml” results in a “406 Not Acceptable”.

Setting the Accept header, using modify headers plugin, to only accept “application/xhtml+xml” for the URL “http://localhost:9000/test” also results in the same response.

Can someone explain what is happening?

[berinle]

Ok. I was finally able to figure this out by extending ArrayList class and annotating it accordingly. Below is a solution for any others looking:

@RequestMapping("/foo2")
Foos getFoos() {
    Foos f = new Foos();
    f.add(new Foo("bar"));
    f.add(new Foo("baz"));
    f.add(new Foo("bat"));
    return f;   
}

With Foos class defined as…

@XmlRootElement
class Foos extends ArrayList<Foo> {
    public Foos() { }

   @XmlElement(name = "foo")
   public List<Foo> getFoos() {
       return this;
   }
}

Thanks Dave!

[deki]

Of course the solution works, but why is it needed? See comparison here: http://blog.codeleak.pl/2015/04/jax-rs-2x-vs-spring-mvc-returning-xml.html

Is there any better solution without wrapper?