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Spring HATEOAS - Wrapping domain objects with Resource And Resources Classes

[Last Updated: Jul 6, 2018]

Spring HATEOAS provides Resource and Resources helper classes to wrap a domain object or collection of domain objects instead of extending ResourceSupport (as seen in previous tutorials). The links can be added via instance of these classes.

Example

Domain Object

public class Employee {
  private long employeeId;
  private String name;
  private String dept;
  private int salary;
    .............
}

Controller

@RestController
@RequestMapping("/employees")
public class EmployeeController {

  @GetMapping(value = "/{employeeId}")
  public Resource<Employee> getEmployeeById(@PathVariable long employeeId) {
      Link selfRelLink = ControllerLinkBuilder.linkTo(
              ControllerLinkBuilder.methodOn(EmployeeController.class)
                                   .getEmployeeById(employeeId))
                                              .withSelfRel();
      Employee employee = getEmployee(employeeId);
      Resource<Employee> resource = new Resource<>(employee);
      resource.add(selfRelLink);
      return resource;
  }

  @GetMapping
  public Resources<Employee> getEmployees() {
      Link selfRelLink = ControllerLinkBuilder.linkTo(
              ControllerLinkBuilder.methodOn(EmployeeController.class)
                                   .getEmployees())
                                              .withSelfRel();
      List<Employee> employeeList = getEmployeeList();
      Resources<Employee> resources = new Resources<>(employeeList);
      resources.add(selfRelLink);
      return resources;
  }

  private List<Employee> getEmployeeList() {
      //todo: replace with employee service
      return List.of(getEmployee(1),
              Employee.create(2, "Tom", "IT", 4000));
  }

  private Employee getEmployee(long employeeId) {
      //todo: replace with employee service
      return Employee.create(employeeId, "Lara", "Admin", 3000);
  }
}

JavaConfig

@EnableWebMvc
@ComponentScan
@Configuration
@EnableHypermediaSupport(type = EnableHypermediaSupport.HypermediaType.HAL)
public class AppConfig {
}

Running

To try examples, run embedded tomcat (configured in pom.xml of example project below):

mvn tomcat7:run-war

Output

Accessing http://localhost:8080/employees/1 will produce following:

{  
   "employeeId":1,
   "name":"Lara",
   "dept":"Admin",
   "salary":3000,
   "_links":{  
      "self":{  
         "href":"http://localhost:8080/employees/1"
      }
   }
}

Accessing http://localhost:8080/employees will produce following:

{
   "_embedded":{
      "employeeList":[
         {
            "employeeId":1,
            "name":"Lara",
            "dept":"Admin",
            "salary":3000
         },
         {
            "employeeId":2,
            "name":"Tom",
            "dept":"IT",
            "salary":4000
         }
      ]
   },
   "_links":{
      "self":{
         "href":"http://localhost:8080/employees"
      }
   }
}

Example Project

Dependencies and Technologies Used:

  • spring-hateoas 0.24.0.RELEASE: Library to support implementing representations for hyper-text driven REST web services.
    Uses org.springframework:spring-web-mvc version 4.3.12.RELEASE
  • spring-plugin-core 1.2.0.RELEASE: Core plugin infrastructure.
  • jackson-databind 2.9.5: General data-binding functionality for Jackson: works on core streaming API.
  • javax.servlet-api 3.0.1 Java Servlet API
  • JDK 10
  • Maven 3.5.4

Resource and Resources examples Select All Download
  • spring-hateoas-wrapping-domain-object-with-resource
    • src
      • main
        • java
          • com
            • logicbig
              • example
                • EmployeeController.java

    See Also