simplify/robustify WebSocketHttpHeaders.java getSecWebSocketProtocol() ?

Author: jonenstCreated Sep 16, 2026Updated Sep 16, 2026
Labelsstatus: waiting-for-triage

Hi, while browsing the code, I was suprised by the logic in https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-framework/blob/main/spring-websocket/src/main/java/org/springframework/web/socket/WebSocketHttpHeaders.java#L162

java
	public List<String> getSecWebSocketProtocol() {
		List<String> values = get(SEC_WEBSOCKET_PROTOCOL);
		if (CollectionUtils.isEmpty(values)) {
			return Collections.emptyList();
		}
		else if (values.size() == 1) {
			return getValuesAsList(SEC_WEBSOCKET_PROTOCOL);
		}
		else {
			return values;
		}
	}

it would make the code "fail" when request comes with protocol: foo protocol: bar, baz

return ["foo", "bar, baz"] instead of ["foo", "bar", "baz"]

Also unify the quote handling (even though the rfc explicitly forbids quotes for sec-websocket-protocol, but at least this would be uniform. but even better would maybe be to reject or just ignore quotes ?) : protocol: "foo", "bar" returns ["foo", "bar"] vs protocol: "foo" protocol: "bar" returns [""foo"", ""bar""]

It looks like it's the only place in the whole codebase with this extra check for size() == 1

bash
$ git grep -C 3 "size() == 1" | grep -i AsList
spring-websocket/src/main/java/org/springframework/web/socket/WebSocketHttpHeaders.java-			return getValuesAsList(SEC_WEBSOCKET_PROTOCOL);

seems like it was iterated on in https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-framework/commit/55dae618a64da520d9154fe17f1529acab45873a#diff-e2d6218e6585f8b7e32682f6f8f7aed22dbd76d862ec92e86e0902243889556aL462-R471 and

It's obviously an edge case, but unless I missed somthing, it becomes simpler/more robust to just change it to

java
	public List<String> getSecWebSocketProtocol() {
			return getValuesAsList(SEC_WEBSOCKET_PROTOCOL);
	}

like in all methods in the parent class HttpHeaders.java (e.g. https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-framework/blob/main/spring-web/src/main/java/org/springframework/http/HttpHeaders.java#L706

java
	public List<String> getAccessControlAllowHeaders() {
		return getValuesAsList(ACCESS_CONTROL_ALLOW_HEADERS);
	}

I just saw this in passing, just though it'd mention it (obviously I'm leaving all the hard work of knowing what to do to you...). Feel free to close if appropriate

Source: spring-projects/spring-framework