Is it possible to apply Spring annotations to private methods inside controllers?

Spring annotations such as @RequestMapping, @GetMapping, and others used for handling HTTP requests in controllers do not work with private methods.

The reason is that Spring uses proxies and reflection to invoke controller methods, and private methods are not accessible for external calls. Therefore, methods annotated for request handling must have the public access modifier.

Example:

@RestController
public class MyController {
    @GetMapping("/hello")
    public String hello() {
        return "Hello";
    }

    // This will not work as a request handler
    @GetMapping("/private")
    private String privateMethod() {
        return "Private";
    }
}

In this example, the privateMethod will not be invoked by Spring as an HTTP request handler.