Suvarna Garge (Editor)

Java API for RESTful Web Services

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Development status
  
Active

Operating system
  
Cross-platform

Written in
  
Java

Platform
  
Java Virtual Machine

Developer(s)
  
Oracle Corporation (initial code from Sun Microsystems)

Stable release
  
2.0 / May 24, 2013 (2013-05-24)

JAX-RS: Java API for RESTful Web Services (JAX-RS) is a Java programming language API spec that provides support in creating web services according to the Representational State Transfer (REST) architectural pattern. JAX-RS uses annotations, introduced in Java SE 5, to simplify the development and deployment of web service clients and endpoints.

Contents

From version 1.1 on, JAX-RS is an official part of Java EE 6. A notable feature of being an official part of Java EE is that no configuration is necessary to start using JAX-RS. For non-Java EE 6 environments a (small) entry in the web.xml deployment descriptor is required.

Specification

JAX-RS provides some annotations to aid in mapping a resource class (a POJO) as a web resource. The annotations include:

  • @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 Internet media types (used for content negotiation).
  • @Consumes specifies the accepted request Internet 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 method parameter to a path segment.
  • @QueryParam binds the method parameter to the value of an HTTP query parameter.
  • @MatrixParam binds the method parameter to the value of an HTTP matrix parameter.
  • @HeaderParam binds the method parameter to an HTTP header value.
  • @CookieParam binds the method parameter to a cookie value.
  • @FormParam binds the method parameter to a form value.
  • @DefaultValue specifies a default value for the above bindings when the key is not found.
  • @Context returns the entire context of the object (for example @Context HttpServletRequest request).

    • JAX-RS 2.0

    In January 2011 the JCP formed the JSR 339 expert group to work on JAX-RS 2.0. The main targets are (among others) a common client API and support for Hypermedia following the HATEOAS-principle of REST. In May 2013, it reached the Final Release stage.

    Implementations

    Implementations of JAX-RS include:

  • Apache CXF, an open source Web service framework
  • Jersey, the reference implementation from Sun (now Oracle)
  • RESTeasy, JBoss's implementation
  • Restlet
  • Apache Wink, Apache Software Foundation Incubator project, the server module implements JAX-RS
  • WebSphere Application Server from IBM:
  • Version 7.0: via the "Feature Pack for Communications Enabled Applications"
  • Version 8.0 onwards: natively
  • WebLogic Application Server from Oracle, see notes
  • Apache Tuscany (http://tuscany.apache.org/documentation-2x/sca-java-bindingrest.html)
  • Cuubez framework (http://www.cuubez.com)
  • Everrest, Codenvy's Implementation
  • Jello-Framework, Java Application Framework optimized for Google App Engine, including a powerful RESTful engine and comprehensive Data Authorization model.

    • Tutorials

  • http://docs.oracle.com/javaee/6/tutorial/doc/giepu.html
  • http://www.vogella.com/tutorials/REST/article.html
  • http://www.mkyong.com/tutorials/jax-rs-tutorials/
  • http://www.coderpanda.com/jax-rs-tutorial/

    • References

    Java API for RESTful Web Services Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA