1[
2 {
3 "name" : "foo",
4 "albums" : [
5 {
6 "title" : "album_one",
7 "artist" : "foo",
8 "ntracks" : 12
9 },
10 {
11 "title" : "album_two",
12 "artist" : "foo",
13 "ntracks" : 15
14 }
15 ]
16 },
17 {
18 "name" : "bar",
19 "albums" : [
20 {
21 "title" : "foo walks into a bar",
22 "artist" : "bar",
23 "ntracks" : 12
24 }
25 ]
26 },
27 {
28 "name" : "dj",
29 "albums" : [
30 ]
31 }
32]
Consuming a RESTful web service
Prerequisites:
Explore how to access a simple RESTful web service and consume its resources in Java using JSON-B and JSON-P.
What you’ll learn
artists.json
You will learn how to access a REST service, serialize a Java object that contains a list of artists and their albums, and use two different approaches to deserialize the returned JSON resources. The first approach consists of using the Java API for JSON Binding (JSON-B) to directly convert JSON messages into Java objects. The second approach consists of using the Java API for JSON Processing (JSON-P) to process the JSON.
The REST service that provides the artists and albums resources is already written for you. When the Liberty is running, this service is accessible at the http://localhost:9080/artists
endpoint, which responds with the artists.json
file.
You will implement the following two endpoints using the two deserialization approaches:
-
…/artists/total
to return the total number of artists in the JSON -
…/artists/total/<artist>
to return the total number of albums in the JSON for the particular artist
If you are interested in learning more about REST services and how you can write them, read Creating a RESTful web service.
Getting started
The fastest way to work through this guide is to clone the Git repository and use the projects that are provided inside:
git clone https://github.com/openliberty/guide-rest-client-java.git
cd guide-rest-client-java
The start
directory contains the starting project that you will build upon.
The finish
directory contains the finished project that you will build.
Before you begin, make sure you have all the necessary prerequisites.
Try what you’ll build
The finish
directory in the root of this guide contains the finished application. Give it a try before you proceed.
To try out the application, first go to the finish
directory and run the following Maven goal to build the application and deploy it to Open Liberty:
cd finish
mvn liberty:run
After you see the following message, your Liberty instance is ready:
The defaultServer server is ready to run a smarter planet.
You can find your service at the http://localhost:9080/artists endpoint.
Now, you can access the endpoint at http://localhost:9080/artists/total to see the total number of artists, and you can access the endpoint at http://localhost:9080/artists/total/<artist>
to see a particular artist’s total number of albums.
After you are finished checking out the application, stop the Liberty instance by pressing CTRL+C
in the command-line session where you ran Liberty. Alternatively, you can run the liberty:stop
goal from the finish
directory in another shell session:
mvn liberty:stop
Starting the service
Navigate to the start
directory to begin.
When you run Open Liberty in dev mode, dev mode listens for file changes and automatically recompiles and deploys your updates whenever you save a new change. Run the following goal to start Open Liberty in dev mode:
mvn liberty:dev
After you see the following message, your Liberty instance is ready in dev mode:
************************************************************** * Liberty is running in dev mode.
Dev mode holds your command-line session to listen for file changes. Open another command-line session to continue, or open the project in your editor.
The application that you’ll build upon was created for you. After your Liberty instance is ready, you can access the service at the http://localhost:9080/artists URL.
Creating POJOs
Artist.java
Album.java
To deserialize a JSON message, start with creating Plain Old Java Objects (POJOs) that represent what is in the JSON and whose instance members map to the keys in the JSON.
For the purpose of this guide, you are given two POJOs. The Artist
object has two instance members name
and albums
, which map to the artist name and the collection of the albums they have written. The Album
object represents a single object within the album collection, and contains three instance members title
, artistName
, and totalTracks
, which map to the album title, the artist who wrote the album, and the number of tracks the album contains.
Introducing JSON-B and JSON-P
JSON-B is a feature introduced with Java EE 8 and strengthens Java support for JSON. With JSON-B you directly serialize and deserialize POJOs. This API gives you a variety of options for working with JSON resources.
In contrast, you need to use helper methods with JSON-P to process a JSON response. This tactic is more straightforward, but it can be cumbersome with more complex classes.
JSON-B is built on top of the existing JSON-P API. JSON-B can do everything that JSON-P can do and allows for more customization for serializing and deserializing.
Using JSON-B
Artist.java
JSON-B requires a POJO to have a public default no-argument constructor for deserialization and binding to work properly.
The JSON-B engine includes a set of default mapping rules, which can be run without any customization annotations or custom configuration. In some instances, you might find it useful to deserialize a JSON message with only certain fields, specific field names, or classes with custom constructors. In these cases, annotations are necessary and recommended:
-
The
@JsonbProperty
annotation to map JSON keys to class instance members and vice versa. Without the use of this annotation, JSON-B will attempt to do POJO mapping, matching the keys in the JSON to the class instance members by name. JSON-B will attempt to match the JSON key with a Java field or method annotated with@JsonbProperty
where the value in the annotation exactly matches the JSON key. If no annotation exists with the given JSON key, JSON-B will attempt to find a matching field with the same name. If no match is found, JSON-B attempts to find a matching getter method for serialization or a matching setter method for de-serialization. A match occurs when the property name of the method matches the JSON key. If no matching getter or setter method is found, serialization or de-serialization, respectively, fails with an exception. The Artist POJO does not require this annotation because all instance members match the JSON keys by name. -
The
@JsonbCreator
and@JsonbProperty
annotations to annotate a custom constructor. These annotations are required for proper parameter substitution when a custom constructor is used. -
The
@JsonbTransient
annotation to define an object property that does not map to a JSON property. While the use of this annotation is good practice, it is only necessary for serialization.
For more information on customization with JSON-B, see the official JSON-B site.
Consuming the REST resource
Artist.java
Album.java
The Artist
and Album
POJOs are ready for deserialization.
Next, we’ll learn to consume the JSON response from your REST service.
Create theConsumer
class.src/main/java/io/openliberty/guides/consumingrest/Consumer.java
Consumer.java
Processing JSON using JSON-B
Consumer.java
pom.xml
JSON-B is a Java API that is used to serialize Java objects to JSON messages and vice versa.
Open Liberty’s JSON-B feature on Maven Central includes the JSON-B provider through transitive dependencies. The JSON-B APIs are provided by the MicroProfile dependency in your pom.xml
file. Look for the dependency with the microprofile
artifact ID.
The consumeWithJsonb()
method in the Consumer
class makes a GET
request to the running artist service and retrieves the JSON. To bind the JSON into an Artist
array, use the Artist[]
entity type in the readEntity
call.
Processing JSON using JSON-P
Consumer.java
The consumeWithJsonp()
method in the Consumer
class makes a GET
request to the running artist service and retrieves the JSON. This method then uses the collectArtists
and collectAlbums
helper methods. These helper methods will parse the JSON and collect its objects into individual POJOs. Notice that you can use the custom constructors to create instances of Artist
and Album
.
Creating additional REST resources
Consumer.java
Now that you can consume a JSON resource you can put that data to use.
Replace theArtistResource
class.src/main/java/io/openliberty/guides/consumingrest/service/ArtistResource.java
ArtistResource.java
-
The
getArtists()
method provides the raw JSON data service that you accessed at the beginning of this guide. -
The
getJsonString()
method uses JSON-B to return the JSON as a string that will be used later for testing. -
The
getTotalAlbums()
method uses JSON-B to return the total number of albums present in the JSON for a particular artist. The method returns -1 if this artist does not exist. -
The
getTotalArtists()
method uses JSON-P to return the total number of artists present in the JSON.
The methods that you wrote in the Consumer
class could be written directly in the ArtistResource
class. However, if you are consuming a REST resource from a third party service, you should separate your GET
/POST
requests from your data consumption.
Running the application
The Open Liberty was started in dev mode at the beginning of the guide and all the changes were automatically picked up.
You can find your service at http://localhost:9080/artists.
Now, you can access the endpoint at http://localhost:9080/artists/total to see the total number of artists, and you can access the endpoint at http://localhost:9080/artists/total/<artist>
to see a particular artist’s total number of albums.
Testing deserialization
Create theConsumingRestIT
class.src/test/java/it/io/openliberty/guides/consumingrest/ConsumingRestIT.java
ConsumingRestIT.java
Maven finds and executes all tests under the src/test/java/it/
directory, and each test method must be marked with the @Test
annotation.
You can use the @BeforeAll
and @AfterAll
annotations to perform any one-time setup and teardown tasks before and after all of your tests run. You can also use the @BeforeEach
and @AfterEach
annotations to perform setup and teardown tasks for individual test cases.
Testing the binding process
ConsumingRestIT.java
pom.xml
The yasson
dependency was added in your pom.xml
file so that your test classes have access to JSON-B.
The testArtistDeserialization
test case checks that Artist
instances created from the REST data and those that are hardcoded perform the same.
The assertResponse
helper method ensures that the response code you receive is valid (200).
Processing with JSON-B test
ConsumingRestIT.java
The testJsonBAlbumCount
and testJsonBAlbumCountForUnknownArtist
tests both use the total/{artist}
endpoint which invokes JSON-B.
The testJsonBAlbumCount
test case checks that deserialization with JSON-B was done correctly and that the correct number of albums is returned for each artist in the JSON.
The testJsonBAlbumCountForUnknownArtist
test case is similar to testJsonBAlbumCount
but instead checks an artist that does not exist in the JSON and ensures that a value of -1
is returned.
Processing with JSON-P test
ConsumingRestIT.java
The testJsonPArtistCount
test uses the total
endpoint which invokes JSON-P. This test checks that deserialization with JSON-P was done correctly and that the correct number of artists is returned.
Running the tests
Becayse you started Open Liberty in dev mode at the start of the guide, press the enter/return
key to run the tests.
If the tests pass, you see a similar output to the following example:
-------------------------------------------------------
T E S T S
-------------------------------------------------------
Running it.io.openliberty.guides.consumingrest.ConsumingRestIT
Tests run: 4, Failures: 0, Errors: 0, Skipped: 0, Time elapsed: 1.59 sec - in it.io.openliberty.guides.consumingrest.ConsumingRestIT
Results :
Tests run: 4, Failures: 0, Errors: 0, Skipped: 0
When you are done checking out the service, exit dev mode by pressing CTRL+C
in the command-line session where you ran Liberty.
Building the application
If you are satisfied with your application, run the Maven package
goal to build the WAR file in the target
directory:
mvn package
Great work! You’re done!
You just accessed a simple RESTful web service and consumed its resources by using JSON-B and JSON-P in Open Liberty.
Guide Attribution
Consuming a RESTful web service by Open Liberty is licensed under CC BY-ND 4.0
Prerequisites:
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