Spring - RequestMapping default method documentation ambiguity/confusion?

Question

From Spring Framework Reference 5.2.7.RELEASE:

For a @RequestMapping without HTTP method declarations, the Allow header is set to GET,HEAD,POST,PUT,PATCH,DELETE,OPTIONS.

Which certainly meets our day-to-day coding experiences.

But, in Spring Framework API Documentation [5.2.7.RELEASE] of RequestMapping:

The default value for the element method is presented as

Default:

{}

I am confused by this. What am I missing here?

Answer 1

The method argument can be used to limit the accepted HTTP methods. The default is that there is no limit. So by default it allows all HTTP methods.

Now this is exactly what the reference guide is telling you.

For a @RequestMapping without HTTP method declarations, the Allow header is set to GET,HEAD,POST,PUT,PATCH,DELETE,OPTIONS.

There is no method declaration to limit it, hence everything is accepted.