jakartaee / jakartaee/servlet

Return value from getLastModified is not truncated to seconds

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Dominant language
Java
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Description

Consider this servlet:

```kotlin
package org.acme

import jakarta.servlet.annotation.WebServlet
import jakarta.servlet.http.HttpServlet
import jakarta.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest
import jakarta.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse

@WebServlet(urlPatterns = ["/test"])
class TestServlet : HttpServlet() {
override fun doGet(req: HttpServletRequest, resp: HttpServletResponse) {
resp.contentType = "text/plain"
resp.writer.write("Hello")
}

override fun getLastModified(req: HttpServletRequest): Long {
return 1750746812123
}
}
```

Run up an application with this servlet then follow these steps:

1. Run `curl -v http://localhost:8080/test`.
2. Observe that the response includes the header `Last-Modified: Tue, 24 Jun 2025 06:33:32 GMT`.
3. Run `curl -v http://localhost:8080/test -H 'If-Modified-Since: Tue, 24 Jun 2025 06:33:32 GMT'`.

Expected result:

A 304 not modified response is returned.

Actual result:

A 200 response is returned.

If you then modify the servlet to return `1750746812000` from `getLastModified` then the last curl command returns the 304 as expected.

Compare your implementation to Tomcat’s for example; they truncate the value returned by `getLastModified` to the second before comparing it with the `If-Modified-Since` timestamp because that’s the precision of HTTP dates.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by locating the servlet handling for getLastModified and the comparison with the If-Modified-Since request header. Reproduce the behavior with the two curl commands from the report, then verify that a sub-second return value produces the expected 304 response.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
java
Domain
api, backend
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
48/100

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