JAX-RS (RESTful Web Service) - Basics

JAX-RS (RESTful Web Service)

Three Main Packages

javax.ws.rs 
javax.ws.rs.core 
javax.ws.rs.ext

Reference Implementation from (ref. from wiki):

• RESTeasy - from JBoss
• Jersey - Sun (Oracle)
• Apache CXF
• Apache Wink
• Restlet from Jerome Louvel

Primary Annotations:

@Path specifies the relative path for a resource class or method.

@GET, @PUT, @POST, @DELETE and @HEAD specify the HTTP request type of a resource.

@Produces specifies the response MIME media types.

@Consumes specifies the accepted request media types.

In addition, it provides further annotations to method parameters to pull information out of the request. All the @*Param annotations take a key of some form which is used to look up the value required.

@PathParam binds the parameter to a path segment.

@QueryParam binds the parameter to the value of an HTTP query parameter.

@MatrixParam binds the parameter to the value of an HTTP matrix parameter.

@HeaderParam binds the parameter to an HTTP header value.

@CookieParam binds the parameter to a cookie value.

@FormParam binds the parameter to a form value.

@DefaultValue specifies a default value for the above bindings when the key is not found.

Full example coming up... :)