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Chapter 45. Creating Resources

Abstract

In RESTful Web services all requests are handled by resources. The JAX-RS APIs implement resources as a Java class. A resource class is a Java class that is annotated with one, or more, RAX-RS annotations. The core of a RESTful Web service implemented using JAX-RS is a root resource class. The root resource class is the entry point to the resource tree exposed by a service. It may handle all requests itself, or it may provide access to sub-resources that handle requests.

45.1. Introduction

Overview

RESTful Web services implemented using JAX-RS APIs provide responses as representations of a resource implemented by Java classes. A resource class is a class that uses JAX-RS annotations to implement a resource. For most RESTful Web services, there is a collection of resources that need to be accessed. The resource class' annotations provide information such as the URI of the resources and which HTTP verb each operation handles.

Types of resources

The JAX-RS APIs allow you to create two basic types of resources:
  • A Section 45.3, “Root resource classes” is the entry point to a service's resource tree. It is decorated with the @Path annotation to define the base URI for the resources in the service.
  • Section 45.5, “Working with sub-resources” are accessed through the root resource. They are implemented by methods that are decorated with the @Path annotation. A sub-resource's @Path annotation defines a URI relative to the base URI of a root resource.

Example

Example 45.1, “Simple resource class” shows a simple resource class.

Example 45.1. Simple resource class

package demo.jaxrs.server;

import javax.ws.rs.GET;
import javax.ws.rs.Path;
import javax.ws.rs.PathParam;

@Path("/customerservice") 1
public class CustomerService
{
  public CustomerService()
  {
  }

  @GET 2
  public Customer getCustomer(@QueryParam("id") String id)
  {
    ...
  }

  ...
}
Two items make the class defined in Example 45.1, “Simple resource class” a resource class:
1
The @Path annotation specifies the base URI for the resource.
2
The @GET annotation specifies that the method implements the HTTP GET method for the resource.