RESTful Web Services

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 RESTful Web Services

About the Tutorial

RESTful Web Services are basically REST Architecture based Web Services. In REST
Architecture everything is a resource. RESTful web services are light weight, highly
scalable and maintainable and are very commonly used to create APIs for web-based
applications.

This tutorial will teach you the basics of RESTful Web Services and contains chapters
discussing all the basic components of RESTful Web Services with suitable examples.

Audience
This tutorial is designed for Software Professionals who are willing to learn RESTful Web
Services in simple and easy steps. This tutorial will give you great understanding on
RESTful Web Services concepts and after completing this tutorial you will be at
intermediate level of expertise from where you can take yourself at higher level of
expertise.

Prerequisites
Before proceeding with this tutorial, you should have a basic understanding of Java
Language, Text Editor, etc. Because we are going to develop web services applications
using RESTful, so it will be good if you have understanding on other web technologies like
HTML, CSS, AJAX, etc.

Copyright & Disclaimer

 Copyright 2016 by Tutorials Point (I) Pvt. Ltd.

All the content and graphics published in this e-book are the property of Tutorials Point (I)
Pvt. Ltd. The user of this e-book is prohibited to reuse, retain, copy, distribute or republish
any contents or a part of contents of this e-book in any manner without written consent
of the publisher.

We strive to update the contents of our website and tutorials as timely and as precisely as
possible, however, the contents may contain inaccuracies or errors. Tutorials Point (I) Pvt.
Ltd. provides no guarantee regarding the accuracy, timeliness or completeness of our
website or its contents including this tutorial. If you discover any errors on our website or
in this tutorial, please notify us at [email protected]

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 RESTful Web Services

Table of Contents
About the Tutorial .................................................................................................................................... i

Audience .................................................................................................................................................. i

Prerequisites ............................................................................................................................................ i

Copyright & Disclaimer............................................................................................................................. i

Table of Contents .................................................................................................................................... ii

1. RESTFUL WEB SERVICES – INTRODUCTION .......................................................................... 1

What is REST? ......................................................................................................................................... 1

RESTFul Web Services ............................................................................................................................. 1

Creating RESTFul Web Service ................................................................................................................. 1

2. RESTFUL WEB SERVICES – ENVIRONMENT SETUP ............................................................... 3

Setup Java Development Kit (JDK) ........................................................................................................... 3

Setup Eclipse IDE ..................................................................................................................................... 3

Setup Jersey Framework Libraries ........................................................................................................... 4

Setup Apache Tomcat ............................................................................................................................. 5

3. RESTFUL WEB SERVICES – FIRST APPLICATION .................................................................... 7

Creating a Java Project ............................................................................................................................ 7

Creating the Source Files ......................................................................................................................... 9

Creating the Web.xml configuration File ............................................................................................... 13

4. RESTFUL WEB SERVICES – RESOURCES .............................................................................. 16

What is a Resource? .............................................................................................................................. 16

5. RESTFUL WEB SERVICES – MESSAGES................................................................................ 18

6. RESTFUL WEB SERVICES – ADDRESSING ............................................................................ 21

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 RESTful Web Services

7. RESTFUL WEB SERVICES – METHODS ................................................................................ 22

Testing the Web Service ........................................................................................................................ 31

8. RESTFUL WEB SERVICES – STATELESSNESS ........................................................................ 35

9. RESTFUL WEB SERVICES – CACHING .................................................................................. 36

10. RESTFUL WEB SERVICES – SECURITY.................................................................................. 38

11. RESTFUL WEB SERVICES – JAVA (JAX-RS) ........................................................................... 40

Specifications ........................................................................................................................................ 40

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1. RESTful Web Services – Introduction RESTful Web Services

What is REST?
REST stands for REpresentational State Transfer. REST is a web standards based
architecture and uses HTTP Protocol for data communication. It revolves around resources
where every component is a resource and a resource is accessed by a common interface
using HTTP standard methods. REST was first introduced by Roy Fielding in year 2000.

In REST architecture, a REST Server simply provides access to resources and the REST
client accesses and presents the resources. Here each resource is identified by URIs/
Global IDs. REST uses various representations to represent a resource like Text, JSON and
XML. JSON is now the most popular format being used in Web Services.

HTTP Methods
The following HTTP methods are most commonly used in a REST based architecture.

 GET - Provides a read only access to a resource.

 PUT - Used to create a new resource.

 DELETE - Used to remove a resource.

 POST - Used to update an existing resource or create a new resource.

 OPTIONS - Used to get the supported operations on a resource.

RESTFul Web Services

A web service is a collection of open protocols and standards used for exchanging data
between applications or systems. Software applications written in various programming
languages and running on various platforms can use web services to exchange data over
computer networks like the Internet in a manner similar to inter-process communication
on a single computer. This interoperability (e.g., between Java and Python, or Windows
and Linux applications) is due to the use of open standards.

Web services based on REST Architecture are known as RESTful Web Services. These web
services use HTTP methods to implement the concept of REST architecture. A RESTful web
service usually defines a URI (Uniform Resource Identifier), which is a service that provides
resource representation such as JSON and a set of HTTP Methods.

Creating RESTFul Web Service

In this tutorial, we will create a web service called User Management with the following
functionalities:

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 RESTful Web Services

Sr. HTTP
URI Operation Operation Type
No. Method

1 GET /UserService/users Get list of users Read Only

2 GET /UserService/users/1 Get User with Id 1 Read Only

3 PUT /UserService/users/2 Insert User with Id 2 Idempotent

4 POST /UserService/users/2 Update User with Id 2 N/A

5 DELETE /UserService/users/1 Delete User with Id 1 Idempotent

List the supported

6 OPTIONS /UserService/users operations in web Read Only
service

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2. RESTful Web Services – Environment Setup RESTful Web Services

This tutorial will guide you on how to prepare a development environment to start your
work with Jersey Framework to create RESTful Web Services. Jersey framework
implements JAX-RS 2.0 API, which is a standard specification to create RESTful Web
Services. This tutorial will also teach you how to setup JDK, Tomcat and Eclipse on your
machine before you the Jersey Framework is setup.

Setup Java Development Kit (JDK)

You can download the latest version of SDK from Oracle's Java site: Java SE Downloads.
You will find the instructions for installing JDK in the downloaded files. Follow the given
instructions to install and configure the setup. Finally set the PATH and JAVA_HOME
environment variables to refer to the directory that contains Java and Javac, typically
java_install_dir/bin and java_install_dir respectively.

If you are running Windows and installed the JDK in C:\jdk1.7.0_75, you would have to
put the following line in your C:\autoexec.bat file.

set PATH=C:\jdk1.7.0_75\bin;%PATH%
set JAVA_HOME=C:\jdk1.7.0_75

Alternatively, on Windows NT/2000/XP, you could also right-click on My Computer  select

Properties  then Advanced  then Environment Variables. Then, you would update the
PATH value and press the OK button.

On Unix (Solaris, Linux, etc.), if the SDK is installed in /usr/local/jdk1.7.0_75 and you use
the C Shell, you would put the following into your .cshrc file.

setenv PATH /usr/local/jdk1.7.0_75/bin:$PATH

setenv JAVA_HOME /usr/local/jdk1.7.0_75

Alternatively, if you use an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) like Borland

JBuilder, Eclipse, IntelliJ IDEA, or Sun ONE Studio, compile and run a simple program to
confirm that the IDE knows where you installed Java, otherwise do proper setup as given
document of the IDE.

Setup Eclipse IDE

All the examples in this tutorial have been written using the Eclipse IDE. So, I would
suggest you should have the latest version of Eclipse installed on your machine.

To install Eclipse IDE, download the latest Eclipse binaries

from http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/. Once you downloaded the installation, unpack
the binary distribution to a convenient location. For example, in C:\eclipse on windows, or
/usr/local/eclipse on Linux/Unix and finally set the PATH variable appropriately.

Eclipse can be started by executing the following commands on a windows machine, or

you can simply double click on eclipse.exe

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 RESTful Web Services

%C:\eclipse\eclipse.exe

Eclipse can be started by executing the following commands on Unix (Solaris, Linux, etc.)
machine:

$/usr/local/eclipse/eclipse

After a successful startup, if everything is fine, then your screen should display the
following result:

Setup Jersey Framework Libraries

Now, if everything is fine, then you can proceed to setup the Jersey framework. Following
are a few simple steps to download and install the framework on your machine.

 Make a choice whether you want to install Jersey on Windows, or Unix and then
proceed to the next step to download the .zip file for windows and then the .tz file
for Unix.

 Download the latest version of Jersey framework binaries from the following link –
https://jersey.java.net/download.html.

 At the time of writing this tutorial, I downloaded jaxrs-ri-2.17.zip on my Windows

machine and when you unzip the downloaded file it will give you the directory
structure inside E:\jaxrs-ri-2.17\jaxrs-ri as shown in the following screenshot.
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 RESTful Web Services

You will find all the Jersey libraries in the directories C:\jaxrs-ri-2.17\jaxrs-ri\lib and
dependencies in C:\jaxrs-ri-2.17\jaxrs-ri\ext. Make sure you set your CLASSPATH
variable on this directory properly otherwise you will face problem while running your
application. If you are using Eclipse, then it is not required to set the CLASSPATH because
all the settings will be done through Eclipse.

Setup Apache Tomcat

You can download the latest version of Tomcat from http://tomcat.apache.org/. Once you
downloaded the installation, unpack the binary distribution into a convenient location. For
example in C:\apache-tomcat-7.0.59 on windows, or /usr/local/apache-tomcat-7.0.59 on
Linux/Unix and set CATALINA_HOME environment variable pointing to the installation
locations.

Tomcat can be started by executing the following commands on a windows machine, or

you can simply double click on startup.bat.

%CATALINA_HOME%\bin\startup.bat

or

C:\apache-tomcat-7.0.59\bin\startup.bat

Tomcat can be started by executing the following commands on a Unix (Solaris, Linux,
etc.) machine:

$CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh

or

/usr/local/apache-tomcat-7.0.59/bin/startup.sh

After a successful startup, the default web applications included with Tomcat will be
available by visiting http://localhost:8080/. If everything is fine then it should display
the following result:

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 RESTful Web Services

Further information about configuring and running Tomcat can be found in the
documentation included on this page. This information can also be found on the Tomcat
website: http://tomcat.apache.org.

Tomcat can be stopped by executing the following commands on a windows machine:

%CATALINA_HOME%\bin\shutdown

or

C:\apache-tomcat-7.0.59\bin\shutdown

Tomcat can be stopped by executing the following commands on Unix (Solaris, Linux, etc.)
machine:

$CATALINA_HOME/bin/shutdown.sh

or

/usr/local/apache-tomcat-7.0.59/bin/shutdown.sh

Once you are done with this last step, you are ready to proceed for your first Jersey
example which you will see in the next chapter.

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3. RESTful Web Services – First Application RESTful Web Services

Let us start writing the actual RESTful web services with Jersey Framework. Before you
start writing your first example using the Jersey Framework, you have to make sure that
you have setup your Jersey environment properly as explained in the RESTful Web
Services - Environment Setup chapter. Here, I am also assuming that you have a little
working knowledge of Eclipse IDE.

So, let us proceed to write a simple Jersey Application which will expose a web service
method to display the list of users.

Creating a Java Project

The first step is to create a Dynamic Web Project using Eclipse IDE. Follow the option File
 New  Project and finally select the Dynamic Web Project wizard from the wizard
list. Now name your project as UserManagement using the wizard window as shown in
the following screenshot:

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RESTful Web Services

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 RESTful Web Services

Once your project is created successfully, you will have the following content in
your Project Explorer:

Adding the Required Libraries

As a second step let us add Jersey Framework and its dependencies (libraries) in our
project. Copy all jars from following directories of download jersey zip folder in WEB-INF/lib
directory of the project.

 \jaxrs-ri-2.17\jaxrs-ri\api

 \jaxrs-ri-2.17\jaxrs-ri\ext

 \jaxrs-ri-2.17\jaxrs-ri\lib

Now, right click on your project name UserManagement and then follow the option
available in context menu: Build Path  Configure Build Path to display the Java Build
Path window.

Now use Add JARs button available under Libraries tab to add the JARs present in WEB-
INF/lib directory.

Creating the Source Files

Now let us create the actual source files under the UserManagement project. First we
need to create a package called com.tutorialspoint. To do this, right click on src in
package explorer section and follow the option: New  Package.

Next we will create UserService.java, User.java,UserDao.java files under the

com.tutorialspoint package.
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 RESTful Web Services

User.java
package com.tutorialspoint;

import java.io.Serializable;

import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlElement;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlRootElement;
@XmlRootElement(name = "user")
public class User implements Serializable {

private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

private int id;
private String name;
private String profession;

public User(){}

public User(int id, String name, String profession){

this.id = id;
this.name = name;
this.profession = profession;
}

public int getId() {

return id;
}

@XmlElement
public void setId(int id) {
this.id = id;
}
public String getName() {
return name;
}
@XmlElement

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 RESTful Web Services

public void setName(String name) {

this.name = name;
}
public String getProfession() {
return profession;
}
@XmlElement
public void setProfession(String profession) {
this.profession = profession;
}
}

UserDao.java
package com.tutorialspoint;

import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;

import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.ObjectInputStream;
import java.io.ObjectOutputStream;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

public class UserDao {

public List<User> getAllUsers(){
List<User> userList = null;
try {
File file = new File("Users.dat");
if (!file.exists()) {
User user = new User(1, "Mahesh", "Teacher");
userList = new ArrayList<User>();
userList.add(user);
saveUserList(userList);

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}
else{
FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream(file);
ObjectInputStream ois = new ObjectInputStream(fis);
userList = (List<User>) ois.readObject();
ois.close();
}
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
} catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
return userList;
}
private void saveUserList(List<User> userList){
try {
File file = new File("Users.dat");
FileOutputStream fos;

fos = new FileOutputStream(file);

ObjectOutputStream oos = new ObjectOutputStream(fos);
oos.writeObject(userList);
oos.close();
} catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}

UserService.java
package com.tutorialspoint;

import java.util.List;

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 RESTful Web Services

import javax.ws.rs.GET;
import javax.ws.rs.Path;
import javax.ws.rs.Produces;
import javax.ws.rs.core.MediaType;

@Path("/UserService")
public class UserService {

UserDao userDao = new UserDao();

@GET
@Path("/users")
@Produces(MediaType.APPLICATION_XML)
public List<User> getUsers(){
return userDao.getAllUsers();
}
}

There are two important points to be noted about the main program,

UserService.java
 The first step is to specify a path for the web service using @Path annotation to the
UserService.

 The second step is to specify a path for the particular web service method using
@Path annotation to method of UserService.

Creating the Web.xml configuration File

You need to create a Web xml Configuration file which is an XML file and is used to specify
Jersey framework servlet for our application.

web.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee
http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_0.xsd"
id="WebApp_ID" version="3.0">
<display-name>User Management</display-name>

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<servlet>
<servlet-name>Jersey RESTful Application</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>org.glassfish.jersey.servlet.ServletContainer</servlet-
class>
<init-param>
<param-name>jersey.config.server.provider.packages</param-name>
<param-value>com.tutorialspoint</param-value>
</init-param>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>Jersey RESTful Application</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/rest/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
</web-app>

Deploying the Program

Once you are done with creating source and web configuration files, you are ready for this
step which is compiling and running your program. To do this, using Eclipse, export your
application as a war file and deploy the same in tomcat.

To create a WAR file using eclipse, follow the option File  export  Web  War File and
finally select project UserManagement and destination folder. To deploy a war file in
Tomcat, place the UserManagement.war in the Tomcat Installation Directory 
webapps directory and start the Tomcat.

Running the Program

We are using Postman, a Chrome extension, to test our webservices.

Make a request to UserManagement to get list of all the users. Put

http://localhost:8080/UserManagement/rest/UserService/users in POSTMAN with GET
request and see the following result.

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Congratulations, you have created your first RESTful Application successfully.

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 4. RESTful Web Services – Resources RESTful Web Services

What is a Resource?
REST architecture treats every content as a resource. These resources can be Text Files,
Html Pages, Images, Videos or Dynamic Business Data. REST Server simply provides
access to resources and REST client accesses and modifies the resources. Here each
resource is identified by URIs/ Global IDs. REST uses various representations to represent
a resource where Text, JSON, XML. The most popular representations of resources are
XML and JSON.

Representation of Resources
A resource in REST is a similar Object in Object Oriented Programming or is like an Entity
in a Database. Once a resource is identified then its representation is to be decided using
a standard format so that the server can send the resource in the above said format and
client can understand the same format.

For example, in RESTful Web Services - First Application chapter, a user is a resource
which is represented using the following XML format:

<user>
<id>1</id>
<name>Mahesh</name>
<profession>Teacher</profession>
</user>

The same resource can be represented in JSON format as follows:

{
"id":1,
"name":"Mahesh",
"profession":"Teacher"
}

Good Resources Representation

REST does not impose any restriction on the format of a resource representation. A client
can ask for JSON representation whereas another client may ask for XML representation
of the same resource to the server and so on. It is the responsibility of the REST server to
pass the client the resource in the format that the client understands.

Following are some important points to be considered while designing a representation

format of a resource in RESTful Web Services.

 Understandability: Both the Server and the Client should be able to understand
and utilize the representation format of the resource.

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 RESTful Web Services

 Completeness: Format should be able to represent a resource completely. For

example, a resource can contain another resource. Format should be able to
represent simple as well as complex structures of resources.

 Linkablity: A resource can have a linkage to another resource, a format should be

able to handle such situations.

However, at present most of the web services are representing resources using either XML
or JSON format. There are plenty of libraries and tools available to understand, parse, and
modify XML and JSON data.

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 5. RESTful Web Services – Messages RESTful Web Services

RESTful Web Services make use of HTTP protocols as a medium of communication between
client and server. A client sends a message in form of a HTTP Request and the server
responds in the form of an HTTP Response. This technique is termed as Messaging. These
messages contain message data and metadata i.e. information about message itself. Let
us have a look on the HTTP Request and HTTP Response messages for HTTP 1.1.

HTTP Request

An HTTP Request has five major parts:

 Verb – Indicates the HTTP methods such as GET, POST, DELETE, PUT, etc.

 URI – Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) to identify the resource on the server.

 HTTP Version – Indicates the HTTP version. For example, HTTP v1.1.

 Request Header – Contains metadata for the HTTP Request message as key-value
pairs. For example, client (or browser) type, format supported by the client, format
of the message body, cache settings, etc.

 Request Body – Message content or Resource representation.

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 RESTful Web Services

HTTP Response

An HTTP Response has four major parts:

 Status/Response Code – Indicates the Server status for the requested resource.
For example, 404 means resource not found and 200 means response is ok.

 HTTP Version – Indicates the HTTP version. For example HTTP v1.1.

 Response Header – Contains metadata for the HTTP Response message as key-
value pairs. For example, content length, content type, response date, server type,
etc.

 Response Body – Response message content or Resource representation.

Example
As we have explained in the RESTful Web Services - First Application chapter, let us put
http://localhost:8080/UserManagement/rest/UserService/users in the POSTMAN with a
GET request. If you click on the Preview button which is near the send button of Postman
and then click on the Send button, you may see the following output.

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 RESTful Web Services

Here you can see, the browser sent a GET request and received a response body as XML.

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 6. RESTful Web Services – Addressing RESTful Web Services

Addressing refers to locating a resource or multiple resources lying on the server. It is

analogous to locate a postal address of a person.

Each resource in REST architecture is identified by its URI (Uniform Resource Identifier).
A URI is of the following format:

<protocol>://<service-name>/<ResourceType>/<ResourceID>

Purpose of an URI is to locate a resource(s) on the server hosting the web service. Another
important attribute of a request is VERB which identifies the operation to be performed on
the resource. For example, in RESTful Web Services - First Application chapter, the URI
is http://localhost:8080/UserManagement/rest/UserService/users and the
VERB is GET.

Constructing a Standard URI

The following are important points to be considered while designing a URI:

 Use Plural Noun – Use plural noun to define resources. For example, we've
used users to identify users as a resource.

 Avoid using spaces – Use underscore (_) or hyphen (-) when using a long
resource name. For example, use authorized_users instead of
authorized%20users.

 Use lowercase letters – Although URI is case-insensitive, it is a good practice to

keep the url in lower case letters only.

 Maintain Backward Compatibility – As Web Service is a public service, a URI

once made public should always be available. In case, URI gets updated, redirect
the older URI to a new URI using the HTTP Status code, 300.

 Use HTTP Verb – Always use HTTP Verb like GET, PUT and DELETE to do the
operations on the resource. It is not good to use operations name in the URI.

Example
Following is an example of a poor URI to fetch a user.

http://localhost:8080/UserManagement/rest/UserService/getUser/1

Following is an example of a good URI to fetch a user.

http://localhost:8080/UserManagement/rest/UserService/users/1

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 7. RESTful Web Services – Methods RESTful Web Services

As we have discussed in the earlier chapters that RESTful Web Service uses a lot of HTTP
verbs to determine the operation to be carried out on the specified resource(s). The
following table states the examples of the most commonly used HTTP Verbs.

S.No. HTTP Method, URI and Operation

GET
http://localhost:8080/UserManagement/rest/UserService/users
1
Gets the list of users.
(Read Only)

GET
http://localhost:8080/UserManagement/rest/UserService/users/1
2
Gets the User of Id 1
(Read Only)

PUT
http://localhost:8080/UserManagement/rest/UserService/users/2
3
Inserts User with Id 2
(Idempotent)

POST
http://localhost:8080/UserManagement/rest/UserService/users/2
4
Updates the User with Id 2
(N/A)

DELETE
http://localhost:8080/UserManagement/rest/UserService/users/1
5
Deletes the User with Id 1
(Idempotent)

OPTIONS
http://localhost:8080/UserManagement/rest/UserService/users
6
Lists out the supported operations in a web service.
(Read Only)

HEAD
http://localhost:8080/UserManagement/rest/UserService/users
7
Returns the HTTP Header only, no Body.
(Read Only)

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 RESTful Web Services

The following points are to be considered.

 GET operations are read only and are safe.

 PUT and DELETE operations are idempotent, which means their result will always
be the same, no matter how many times these operations are invoked.

 PUT and POST operation are nearly the same with the difference lying only in the
result where the PUT operation is idempotent and POST operation can cause a
different result.

Example
Let us update an Example created in the RESTful Web Services - First Application chapter
to create a Web service which can perform CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete)
operations. For simplicity, we have used a file I/O to replace Database operations.

Let us update the User.java, UserDao.java and UserService.java files under the
com.tutorialspoint package.

User.java
package com.tutorialspoint;
import java.io.Serializable;

import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlElement;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlRootElement;
@XmlRootElement(name = "user")
public class User implements Serializable {

private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

private int id;
private String name;
private String profession;

public User(){}

public User(int id, String name, String profession){

this.id = id;
this.name = name;
this.profession = profession;
}

public int getId() {

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 RESTful Web Services

return id;
}
@XmlElement
public void setId(int id) {
this.id = id;
}
public String getName() {
return name;
}
@XmlElement
public void setName(String name) {
this.name = name;
}
public String getProfession() {
return profession;
}
@XmlElement
public void setProfession(String profession) {
this.profession = profession;
}

@Override
public boolean equals(Object object){
if(object == null){
return false;
}else if(!(object instanceof User)){
return false;
}else {
User user = (User)object;
if(id == user.getId()
&& name.equals(user.getName())
&& profession.equals(user.getProfession())
){
return true;
}

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 RESTful Web Services

}
return false;
}
}

UserDao.java
package com.tutorialspoint;

import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.ObjectInputStream;
import java.io.ObjectOutputStream;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

public class UserDao {

public List<User> getAllUsers(){
List<User> userList = null;
try {
File file = new File("Users.dat");
if (!file.exists()) {
User user = new User(1, "Mahesh", "Teacher");
userList = new ArrayList<User>();
userList.add(user);
saveUserList(userList);
}
else{
FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream(file);
ObjectInputStream ois = new ObjectInputStream(fis);
userList = (List<User>) ois.readObject();
ois.close();

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 RESTful Web Services

} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
} catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
return userList;
}

public User getUser(int id){

List<User> users = getAllUsers();

for(User user: users){

if(user.getId() == id){
return user;
}
}
return null;
}

public int addUser(User pUser){

List<User> userList = getAllUsers();
boolean userExists = false;
for(User user: userList){
if(user.getId() == pUser.getId()){
userExists = true;
break;
}
}
if(!userExists){
userList.add(pUser);
saveUserList(userList);
return 1;
}
return 0;

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 RESTful Web Services

public int updateUser(User pUser){

List<User> userList = getAllUsers();

for(User user: userList){

if(user.getId() == pUser.getId()){
int index = userList.indexOf(user);
userList.set(index, pUser);
saveUserList(userList);
return 1;
}
}
return 0;
}

public int deleteUser(int id){

List<User> userList = getAllUsers();

for(User user: userList){

if(user.getId() == id){
int index = userList.indexOf(user);
userList.remove(index);
saveUserList(userList);
return 1;
}
}
return 0;
}

private void saveUserList(List<User> userList){

try {
File file = new File("Users.dat");
FileOutputStream fos;

fos = new FileOutputStream(file);

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 RESTful Web Services

ObjectOutputStream oos = new ObjectOutputStream(fos);

oos.writeObject(userList);
oos.close();
} catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}

UserService.java
package com.tutorialspoint;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.List;

import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;
import javax.ws.rs.Consumes;
import javax.ws.rs.DELETE;
import javax.ws.rs.FormParam;
import javax.ws.rs.GET;
import javax.ws.rs.OPTIONS;
import javax.ws.rs.POST;
import javax.ws.rs.PUT;
import javax.ws.rs.Path;
import javax.ws.rs.PathParam;
import javax.ws.rs.Produces;
import javax.ws.rs.core.Context;
import javax.ws.rs.core.MediaType;

@Path("/UserService")
public class UserService {

UserDao userDao = new UserDao();

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 RESTful Web Services

private static final String SUCCESS_RESULT="<result>success</result>";

private static final String FAILURE_RESULT="<result>failure</result>";

@GET
@Path("/users")
@Produces(MediaType.APPLICATION_XML)
public List<User> getUsers(){
return userDao.getAllUsers();
}

@GET
@Path("/users/{userid}")
@Produces(MediaType.APPLICATION_XML)
public User getUser(@PathParam("userid") int userid){
return userDao.getUser(userid);
}

@PUT
@Path("/users")
@Produces(MediaType.APPLICATION_XML)
@Consumes(MediaType.APPLICATION_FORM_URLENCODED)
public String createUser(@FormParam("id") int id,
@FormParam("name") String name,
@FormParam("profession") String profession,
@Context HttpServletResponse servletResponse) throws IOException{
User user = new User(id, name, profession);
int result = userDao.addUser(user);
if(result == 1){
return SUCCESS_RESULT;
}
return FAILURE_RESULT;
}

@POST
@Path("/users")

@Produces(MediaType.APPLICATION_XML)
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 RESTful Web Services

@Consumes(MediaType.APPLICATION_FORM_URLENCODED)
public String updateUser(@FormParam("id") int id,
@FormParam("name") String name,
@FormParam("profession") String profession,
@Context HttpServletResponse servletResponse) throws IOException{
User user = new User(id, name, profession);
int result = userDao.updateUser(user);
if(result == 1){
return SUCCESS_RESULT;
}
return FAILURE_RESULT;
}

@DELETE
@Path("/users/{userid}")
@Produces(MediaType.APPLICATION_XML)
public String deleteUser(@PathParam("userid") int userid){
int result = userDao.deleteUser(userid);
if(result == 1){
return SUCCESS_RESULT;
}
return FAILURE_RESULT;
}

@OPTIONS
@Path("/users")
@Produces(MediaType.APPLICATION_XML)
public String getSupportedOperations(){
return "<operations>GET, PUT, POST, DELETE</operations>";
}
}

Now using Eclipse, export your application as a WAR File and deploy the same in Tomcat.
To create a WAR file using eclipse, follow this path – File  export  Web  War
File and finally select project UserManagement and the destination folder. To deploy a
WAR file in Tomcat, place the UserManagement.war in the Tomcat Installation
Directory  webapps directory and the start Tomcat.

30
 RESTful Web Services

Testing the Web Service

Jersey provides APIs to create a Web Service Client to test web services. We have created
a sample test class WebServiceTester.java under the com.tutorialspoint package in the
same project.

WebServiceTester.java
package com.tutorialspoint;

import java.util.List;
import javax.ws.rs.client.Client;
import javax.ws.rs.client.ClientBuilder;
import javax.ws.rs.client.Entity;
import javax.ws.rs.core.Form;
import javax.ws.rs.core.GenericType;
import javax.ws.rs.core.MediaType;

public class WebServiceTester {

private Client client;

private String REST_SERVICE_URL =
"http://localhost:8080/UserManagement/rest/UserService/users";
private static final String SUCCESS_RESULT="<result>success</result>";
private static final String PASS = "pass";
private static final String FAIL = "fail";

private void init(){

this.client = ClientBuilder.newClient();
}

public static void main(String[] args){

WebServiceTester tester = new WebServiceTester();
//initialize the tester

tester.init();

//test get all users Web Service Method

tester.testGetAllUsers();
//test get user Web Service Method
tester.testGetUser();

31
 RESTful Web Services

//test update user Web Service Method

tester.testUpdateUser();
//test add user Web Service Method
tester.testAddUser();
//test delete user Web Service Method
tester.testDeleteUser();
}
//Test: Get list of all users
//Test: Check if list is not empty
private void testGetAllUsers(){
GenericType<List<User>> list = new GenericType<List<User>>() {};
List<User> users = client
.target(REST_SERVICE_URL)
.request(MediaType.APPLICATION_XML)
.get(list);
String result = PASS;
if(users.isEmpty()){
result = FAIL;
}
System.out.println("Test case name: testGetAllUsers, Result: " + result
);
}
//Test: Get User of id 1
//Test: Check if user is same as sample user
private void testGetUser(){
User sampleUser = new User();
sampleUser.setId(1);

User user = client

.target(REST_SERVICE_URL)

.path("/{userid}")

.resolveTemplate("userid", 1)
.request(MediaType.APPLICATION_XML)
.get(User.class);
String result = FAIL;
if(sampleUser != null && sampleUser.getId() == user.getId()){

32
 RESTful Web Services

result = PASS;
}
System.out.println("Test case name: testGetUser, Result: " + result );
}
//Test: Update User of id 1
//Test: Check if result is success XML.
private void testUpdateUser(){
Form form = new Form();
form.param("id", "1");
form.param("name", "suresh");
form.param("profession", "clerk");

String callResult = client

.target(REST_SERVICE_URL)
.request(MediaType.APPLICATION_XML)
.post(Entity.entity(form,
MediaType.APPLICATION_FORM_URLENCODED_TYPE),
String.class);
String result = PASS;
if(!SUCCESS_RESULT.equals(callResult)){
result = FAIL;
}

System.out.println("Test case name: testUpdateUser, Result: " + result);

}
//Test: Add User of id 2
//Test: Check if result is success XML.
private void testAddUser(){
Form form = new Form();

form.param("id", "2");

form.param("name", "naresh");
form.param("profession", "clerk");

String callResult = client

.target(REST_SERVICE_URL)
.request(MediaType.APPLICATION_XML)

33
 RESTful Web Services

.put(Entity.entity(form,
MediaType.APPLICATION_FORM_URLENCODED_TYPE),
String.class);

String result = PASS;

if(!SUCCESS_RESULT.equals(callResult)){
result = FAIL;
}

System.out.println("Test case name: testAddUser, Result: " + result );

}
//Test: Delete User of id 2
//Test: Check if result is success XML.
private void testDeleteUser(){
String callResult = client
.target(REST_SERVICE_URL)
.path("/{userid}")
.resolveTemplate("userid", 2)
.request(MediaType.APPLICATION_XML)
.delete(String.class);

String result = PASS;

if(!SUCCESS_RESULT.equals(callResult)){
result = FAIL;
}
System.out.println("Test case name: testDeleteUser, Result: " + result);
}

Now run the tester using Eclipse. Right click on the file and follow the option Run as 
Java Application. You will see the following result in the Eclipse console:

Test case name: testGetAllUsers, Result: pass

Test case name: testGetUser, Result: pass
Test case name: testUpdateUser, Result: pass
Test case name: testAddUser, Result: pass
Test case name: testDeleteUser, Result: pass

34
8. RESTful Web Services – Statelessness RESTful Web Services

As per the REST architecture, a RESTful Web Service should not keep a client state on the
server. This restriction is called Statelessness. It is the responsibility of the client to pass
its context to the server and then the server can store this context to process the client's
further request. For example, session maintained by server is identified by session
identifier passed by the client.

RESTful Web Services should adhere to this restriction. We have seen this in the RESTful
Web Services - Methods chapter, that the web service methods are not storing any
information from the client they are invoked from.

Consider the following URL:

http://localhost:8080/UserManagement/rest/UserService/users/1

If you hit the above url using your browser or using a java based client or using Postman,
result will always be the User XML whose Id is 1 because the server does not store any
information about the client.

<user>
<id>1</id>
<name>mahesh</name>
<profession>1</profession>
</user>

Advantages of Statelessness
Following are the benefits of statelessness in RESTful Web Services:

 Web services can treat each method request independently.

 Web services need not maintain the client's previous interactions. It simplifies the
application design.

 As HTTP is itself a statelessness protocol, RESTful Web Services work seamlessly

with the HTTP protocols.

Disadvantages of Statelessness
Following are the disadvantages of statelessness in RESTful Web Services:

 Web services need to get extra information in each request and then interpret to
get the client's state in case the client interactions are to be taken care of.

35
 9. RESTful Web Services – Caching RESTful Web Services

Caching refers to storing the server response in the client itself, so that a client need not
make a server request for the same resource again and again. A server response should
have information about how caching is to be done, so that a client caches the response
for a time-period or never caches the server response.

Following are the headers which a server response can have in order to configure a client's
caching:

S. No. Header & Description

Date
1
Date and Time of the resource when it was created.

Last Modified
2
Date and Time of the resource when it was last modified.

Cache-Control
3
Primary header to control caching.

Expires
4
Expiration date and time of caching

Age
5
Duration in seconds from when resource was fetched from the server.

Cache-Control Header
Following are the details of a Cache-Control header:

S. No. Directive & Description

Public
1
Indicates that resource is cacheable by any component.

36
 RESTful Web Services

Private
2 Indicates that resource is cacheable only by the client and the server, no
intermediary can cache the resource.

no-cache/no-store
3
Indicates that a resource is not cacheable.

max-age
4 Indicates the caching is valid up to max-age in seconds. After this, client has to
make another request.

must-revalidate
5
Indication to server to revalidate resource if max-age has passed.

Best Practices
 Always keep static contents like images, CSS, JavaScript cacheable, with expiration
date of 2 to 3 days.

 Never keep expiry date too high.

 Dynamic content should be cached for a few hours only.

37
 10. RESTful Web Services – Security RESTful Web Services

As RESTful Web Services work with HTTP URL Paths, it is very important to safeguard a
RESTful Web Service in the same manner as a website is secured.

Following are the best practices to be adhered to while designing a RESTful Web Service:

 Validation – Validate all inputs on the server. Protect your server against SQL or
NoSQL injection attacks.

 Session Based Authentication – Use session based authentication to

authenticate a user whenever a request is made to a Web Service method.

 No Sensitive Data in the URL – Never use username, password or session token
in a URL, these values should be passed to Web Service via the POST method.

 Restriction on Method Execution – Allow restricted use of methods like GET,

POST and DELETE methods. The GET method should not be able to delete data.

 Validate Malformed XML/JSON – Check for well-formed input passed to a web

service method.

 Throw generic Error Messages – A web service method should use HTTP error
messages like 403 to show access forbidden, etc.

HTTP Code
S. No. HTTP Code & Description

200
1
OK – shows success.

201
2 CREATED – when a resource is successfully created using POST or PUT request.
Returns link to the newly created resource using the location header.

204
3
NO CONTENT – when response body is empty. For example, a DELETE request.

304

4 NOT MODIFIED – used to reduce network bandwidth usage in case of

conditional GET requests. Response body should be empty. Headers should
have date, location, etc.

38
 RESTful Web Services

400
5 BAD REQUEST – states that an invalid input is provided. For example,
validation error, missing data.

401

6 UNAUTHORIZED – states that user is using invalid or wrong authentication

token.

403
7 FORBIDDEN – states that the user is not having access to the method being
used. For example, Delete access without admin rights.

404
8
NOT FOUND – states that the method is not available.

409
9 CONFLICT – states conflict situation while executing the method. For example,
adding duplicate entry.

500
10 INTERNAL SERVER ERROR – states that the server has thrown some
exception while executing the method.

39
11. RESTful Web Services – Java (JAX-RS) RESTful Web Services

JAX-RS stands for JAVA API for RESTful Web Services. JAX-RS is a JAVA based
programming language API and specification to provide support for created RESTful Web
Services. Its 2.0 version was released on the 24th May 2013. JAX-RS uses annotations
available from Java SE 5 to simplify the development of JAVA based web services creation
and deployment. It also provides supports for creating clients for RESTful Web Services.

Specifications
Following are the most commonly used annotations to map a resource as a web service
resource.

S. No. Annotation & Description

@Path
1
Relative path of the resource class/method.

@GET
2
HTTP Get request, used to fetch resource.

@PUT
3
HTTP PUT request, used to create resource.

@POST
4
HTTP POST request, used to create/update resource.

@DELETE
5
HTTP DELETE request, used to delete resource.

@HEAD
6
HTTP HEAD request, used to get status of method availability.

@Produces
7 States the HTTP Response generated by web service. For example,
APPLICATION/XML, TEXT/HTML, APPLICATION/JSON etc.

8 @Consumes

40
 RESTful Web Services

States the HTTP Request type. For example, application/x-www-form-

urlencoded to accept form data in HTTP body during POST request.

@PathParam
9
Binds the parameter passed to the method to a value in path.

@QueryParam
10
Binds the parameter passed to method to a query parameter in the path.

@MatrixParam
11
Binds the parameter passed to the method to a HTTP matrix parameter in path.

@HeaderParam
12
Binds the parameter passed to the method to a HTTP header.

@CookieParam
13
Binds the parameter passed to the method to a Cookie.

@FormParam
14
Binds the parameter passed to the method to a form value.

@DefaultValue
15
Assigns a default value to a parameter passed to the method.

@Context
16
Context of the resource. For example, HTTPRequest as a context.

Note: We have used Jersey, a reference implementation of JAX-RS 2.0 by Oracle, in the
RESTful Web Services - First Application and RESTful Web Services - Methods chapters.

41