text: Spring is one of the most widely used Java EE frameworks. We have earlier seen how to use Spring MVC to create Java-based web applications. Today we will learn to create Spring Restful Web Services using Spring MVC and then test it out with the Rest client. In the end, we will also look into how to invoke Spring Restful web service using Spring RestTemplate API.
  Table of Contents
  Spring REST
  We will use Spring latest version 4.0.0.RELEASE and utilize Spring Jackson JSON integration to send JSON response in the rest call response. The tutorial is developed in Spring STS IDE for creating Spring MVC skeleton code easily and then extended to implement Restful architecture.
  Create a new Spring MVC Project in the STS, our final project will look like the below image. We will look into each of the components one by one.
  Spring REST Configuration XML Files
  Our pom.xml file looks like below.
  Copy<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <project xmlns="" xmlns: <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion> <groupId>com.journaldev</groupId> <artifactId>SpringRestExample</artifactId> <name>SpringRestExample</name> <packaging>war</packaging> <version>1.0.0-BUILD-SNAPSHOT</version> <properties> <java-version>1.6</java-version> <org.springframework-version>4.0.0.RELEASE</org.springframework-version> <org.aspectj-version>1.7.4</org.aspectj-version> <org.slf4j-version>1.7.5</org.slf4j-version> <jackson.databind-version>2.2.3</jackson.databind-version> </properties> <dependencies> <!-- Jackson --> <dependency> <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.core</groupId> <artifactId>jackson-databind</artifactId> <version>${jackson.databind-version}</version> <> <!-- AspectJ --> <dependency> <groupId>org.aspectj</groupId> <artifactId>aspectjrt</artifactId> <version>${org.aspectj-version}<.15</version> > <build> <plugins> > <plugin> <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId> <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId> <version>2.5.1</version> <configuration> <source>1.6</source> <target>1.6</target> <compilerArgument>-Xlint:all</compilerArgument> <showWarnings>true</showWarnings> <showDeprecation>true</showDeprecation> </configuration> </plugin> <plugin> <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId> <artifactId>exec-maven-plugin</artifactId> <version>1.2.1</version> <configuration> <mainClass>org.test.int1.Main</mainClass> </configuration> </plugin> </plugins> </build> </project>
  STS tool generates the pom.xml file for us. However, I have updated the Spring Framework, AspectJ, SLF4J and Jackson version to the latest one as of today. Most of the part is common and generated automatically, the important point to note is that I have added Jackson JSON libraries in the dependency because we will use that to convert Objects to JSON and vice versa.
  Copy<> <!--> </web-app>
  This file is generated automatically and I haven’t changed anything in that. However, if you want to change context configuration files and their location, you can do it in the web.xml file.
  Copy<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <beans xmlns="" xmlns: <!-- Root Context: defines shared resources visible to all other web components --> </beans>
  This file contains the shared resources that will be visible to all the web components, we will be developing a simple rest service and that’s why I haven’t changed anything here.
  Copy<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <beans:beans <!-- DispatcherServlet Context: defines this servlet's request-processing infrastructure --> <!-- Enables the Spring MVC @Controller programming model --> <annotation-driven /> <!-- Handles HTTP GET requests for /resources/** by efficiently serving up static resources in the ${webappRoot}/resources directory --> <resources mapping="/resources/**" location="/resources/" /> <!-- Resolves views selected for rendering by @Controllers to .jsp resources in the /WEB-INF/views directory --> <beans:bean <beans:property <beans:property </beans:bean> <!--> <context:component-scan </beans:beans>
  Most of the part is auto generated and contains boiler-plate configurations. However important points to note are annotation-driven element to support annotations based configuration and plugging in
  MappingJackson2HttpMessageConverter to the
  RequestMappingHandlerAdapter
  messageConverters so that Jackson API kicks in and converts JSON to Java Beans and vice versa. By having this configuration, we will be using JSON in request body and we will receive JSON data in the response.
  Spring REST Model Classes
  Let’s write a simple POJO class that will serve as input and output to our Restful web service methods.
  Copypackage com.journaldev.spring.model; import java.io.Serializable; import java.util.Date; import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.annotation.JsonSerialize; import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.std.DateSerializer; public class Employee implements Serializable{ private static final long serialVersionUID = -7788619177798333712L; private int id; private String name; private Date createdDate; public int getId() { return id; } public void setId(int id) { this.id = id; } public String getName() { return name; } public void setName(String name) { this.name = name; } @JsonSerialize(using=DateSerializer.class) public Date getCreatedDate() { return createdDate; } public void setCreatedDate(Date createdDate) { this.createdDate = createdDate; } }
  The only important point to note is the use of
  @JsonSerialize annotation to use
  DateSerializer class for Date conversion from Java type to JSON format and vice versa.
  Spring Restful web service End Points
  We will have the following rest web services endpoints.
  We have a class defining all these URI as String constants.
  Copypackage com.journaldev.spring.controller; public class EmpRestURIConstants { public static final String DUMMY_EMP = "/rest/emp/dummy"; public static final String GET_EMP = "/rest/emp/{id}"; public static final String GET_ALL_EMP = "/rest/emps"; public static final String CREATE_EMP = "/rest/emp/create"; public static final String DELETE_EMP = "/rest/emp/delete/{id}"; }
  Spring Restful web service Controller class
  Our EmployeeController class will publish all the web service endpoints mentioned above. Let’s look at the code of the class and then we will learn about each of the methods in detail.
  Copypackage com.journaldev.spring.controller; import java.util.ArrayList; import java.util.Date; import java.util.HashMap; import java.util.List; import java.util.Map; import java.util.Set; import org.slf4j.Logger; import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;.ResponseBody; import com.journaldev.spring.model.Employee; /** * Handles requests for the Employee service. */ @Controller public class EmployeeController { private static final Logger logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(EmployeeController.class); //Map to store employees, ideally we should use database Map<Integer, Employee> empData = new HashMap<Integer, Employee>(); @RequestMapping(value = EmpRestURIConstants.DUMMY_EMP, method = RequestMethod.GET) public @ResponseBody Employee getDummyEmployee() { logger.info("Start getDummyEmployee"); Employee emp = new Employee(); emp.setId(9999); emp.setName("Dummy"); emp.setCreatedDate(new Date()); empData.put(9999, emp); return emp; } @RequestMapping(value = EmpRestURIConstants.GET_EMP, method = RequestMethod.GET) public @ResponseBody Employee getEmployee(@PathVariable("id") int empId) { logger.info("Start getEmployee. ID="+empId); return empData.get(empId); } @RequestMapping(value = EmpRestURIConstants.GET_ALL_EMP, method = RequestMethod.GET) public @ResponseBody List<Employee> getAllEmployees() { logger.info("Start getAllEmployees."); List<Employee> emps = new ArrayList<Employee>(); Set<Integer> empIdKeys = empData.keySet(); for(Integer i : empIdKeys){ emps.add(empData.get(i)); } return emps; } @RequestMapping(value = EmpRestURIConstants.CREATE_EMP, method = RequestMethod.POST) public @ResponseBody Employee createEmployee(@RequestBody Employee emp) { logger.info("Start createEmployee."); emp.setCreatedDate(new Date()); empData.put(emp.getId(), emp); return emp; } ; } }
  For simplicity, I am storing all the employee’s data in the HashMap empData. @RequestMapping annotation is used to map the request URI to the handler method. We can also specify the HTTP method that should be used by client application to invoke the rest method.
  @ResponseBody annotation is used to map the response object in the response body. Once the response object is returned by the handler method, MappingJackson2HttpMessageConverter kicks in and convert it to JSON response.
  @PathVariable annotation is the easy way to extract the data from the rest URI and map it to the method argument.
  @RequestBody annotation is used to map the request body JSON data into the Employee object, again this is done by the MappingJackson2HttpMessageConverter mapping.
  Rest of the code is simple and self-understood, our application is ready for deployment and testing. Just export as WAR file and copy it in the servlet container web app directory. If you have the server configured in the STS, you can simply run it on the server to get it deployed.
  I am using WizTools RestClient to invoke the rest calls but you can also use Chrome extension Postman.
  Below screenshots shows the different invocations of the rest APIs exposed by our application and it’s output.
  Health Check – Get Dummy Employee Rest Call
  Create Employee POST Rest Call: Make sure request Content-Type is set to “application/json” otherwise you will get HTTP Error Code 415.
  Delete Employee Rest Call
  Get All Employees Rest Call
  Spring Rest Client Program
  Rest Clients are good to test our rest web service but most of the times, we need to invoke rest services through our program. We can use Spring
  RestTemplate to invoke these methods easily. Below is a simple program invoking our application rest methods using RestTemplate API.
  Copypackage com.journaldev.spring; import java.util.LinkedHashMap; import java.util.List; import org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate; import com.journaldev.spring.controller.EmpRestURIConstants; import com.journaldev.spring.model.Employee; public class TestSpringRestExample { public static final String SERVER_URI = ""; public static void main(String args[]){ testGetDummyEmployee(); System.out.println("*****"); testCreateEmployee(); System.out.println("*****"); testGetEmployee(); System.out.println("*****"); testGetAllEmployee(); } private static void testGetAllEmployee() { RestTemplate restTemplate = new RestTemplate(); //we can't get List<Employee> because JSON convertor doesn't know the type of //object in the list and hence convert it to default JSON object type LinkedHashMap List<LinkedHashMap> emps = restTemplate.getForObject(SERVER_URI+EmpRestURIConstants.GET_ALL_EMP, List.class); System.out.println(emps.size()); for(LinkedHashMap map : emps){ System.out.println("ID="+map.get("id")+",Name="+map.get("name")+",CreatedDate="+map.get("createdDate"));; } } private static void testCreateEmployee() { RestTemplate restTemplate = new RestTemplate(); Employee emp = new Employee(); emp.setId(1);emp.setName("Pankaj Kumar"); Employee response = restTemplate.postForObject(SERVER_URI+EmpRestURIConstants.CREATE_EMP, emp, Employee.class); printEmpData(response); } private static void testGetEmployee() { RestTemplate restTemplate = new RestTemplate(); Employee emp = restTemplate.getForObject(SERVER_URI+"/rest/emp/1", Employee.class); printEmpData(emp); } private static void testGetDummyEmployee() { RestTemplate restTemplate = new RestTemplate(); Employee emp = restTemplate.getForObject(SERVER_URI+EmpRestURIConstants.DUMMY_EMP, Employee.class); printEmpData(emp); } public static void printEmpData(Employee emp){ System.out.println("ID="+emp.getId()+",Name="+emp.getName()+",CreatedDate="+emp.getCreatedDate()); } }
  Most of the program is simple to understand, however when invoking rest method returning a Collection, we need to use
  LinkedHashMap because JSON to object conversion doesn’t know about the Employee object and converts it to the collection of
  LinkedHashMap. We can write a utility method to convert from
  LinkedHashMap to our Java Bean object.
  When we run the above program, we get the following output in the console.
  CopyID=9999,Name=Dummy,CreatedDate=Tue Mar 04 21:02:41 PST 2014 ***** ID=1,Name=Pankaj Kumar,CreatedDate=Tue Mar 04 21:02:41 PST 2014 ***** ID=1,Name=Pankaj Kumar,CreatedDate=Tue Mar 04 21:02:41 PST 2014 ***** 2 ID=1,Name=Pankaj Kumar,CreatedDate=1393995761654 ID=9999,Name=Dummy,CreatedDate=1393995761381
  Another point is that
  RestTemplate put methods doesn’t have option to set response object because PUT method should be used to store something on the server and a simple HTTP 200 status code should be sufficient.
  That’s all for the Spring Restful web application tutorial. Download the sample project from the above link and play around with it to learn more.
  UPDATE: Because of so many requests to provide similar example with XML as well as supporting both XML and JSON, I have extended this application in Spring REST XML JSON Example to support both XML and JSON requests and response. I strongly suggest you go through that to see the beauty of the spring framework and how easy it is to achieve this.
  kalyani says
  I am getting below error when try to execute the abovespringrestproject
  Exception in thread “main” org.springframework.web.client.ResourceAccessException:
  Exception in thread “main” org.springframework.web.client.ResourceAccessException: I/O error on GET request for “”:Connection refused: connect; nested exception is java.net.ConnectException: Connection refused: connect
  at org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate.doExecute(RestTemplate.java:543)
  at org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate.execute(RestTemplate.java:489)
  at org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate.getForObject(RestTemplate.java:226)
  at com.journaldev.spring.TestSpringRestExample.testGetDummyEmployee(TestSpringRestExample.java:53)
  at com.journaldev.spring.TestSpringRestExample.main(TestSpringRestExample.java:17)..(Unknown Source)
  at sun.net.(Unknown Source)
  at sun.net.(Unknown Source)
  at sun.net.(Unknown Source)
  at sun.net.(Unknown Source)
  at sun.net.(Unknown Source)
  at sun.net.(Unknown Source)
  at org.springframework.http.client.SimpleBufferingClientHttpRequest.executeInternal(SimpleBufferingClientHttpRequest.java:78)
  at org.springframework.http.client.AbstractBufferingClientHttpRequest.executeInternal(AbstractBufferingClientHttpRequest.java:46)
  at org.springframework.http.client.AbstractClientHttpRequest.execute(AbstractClientHttpRequest.java:52)
  at org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate.doExecute(RestTemplate.java:527)
  … 4 more
  fqyuan says
  try running the project on the local tomcat first, then run the main method, you can get the expected result.
  Gaurank says
  How I can make post api with Oracle11g using same approach
  Tanvir Islam says
  Great Tutorial Pankaj. Would you please take some time to help me with pagination on spring core ( not on Spring MVC/Boot) using Pageable Object, please ?
  Shailesh says
  Pankaj, Nice tutorial. All your tutorials are very well written and easy to understand useful concept without unnecessary complexities. Thanks.
  Kadapa Kishore Kumar Reddy says
  Hi Pankaj,
  actually i have doubt , if i use @RestController then i can write my response directly to HTTP Response object. But, i want to serve that response to JSP. how to serve this response to JSP? please , help me on this, i searched and read so many blogs and websites still i didnt get any clarification. #STACKOVERFLOW Click on this link
  same question asked by some one but here also i didnt get any clarification. if you know then give a replay as soon as possible b’cz i need it . thanks
  Pankaj says
  1. You can reuse the business logic of your code by providing a Spring MVC wrapper that will serve JSP page and call the already defined methods to generate the response data. This should work easily if your Controller class and business logic are in separate methods/class.
  2. Another option is to define JSP pages and use Ajax to call the REST web service and parse JSON response to generate HTML page.
  prasad says
  I am a beginer to spring, Not under standing 1 %. waste of my time.
  Pankaj says
  If you have no idea about Spring framework, please go through the basic tutorials first on Spring Dependency Injection, Spring Beans, IoC Container, Spring MVC and then try to build Spring REST web service. You should also have basic understanding of Restful web services.
  Raj Baral says
  Hi, Pankaj.
  I’m trying to deplying this WAR to a JBoss application server.
  The WAR is deployed but “The requested resource is not available.” page. The same is returned for other API end points too.
  In the server log I can see “No Spring WebApplicationInitializer types detected on classpath”.
  abhinavlight says
  you should check what properties you have added to your pom file. they must relate to all the dependencies you have added to your pom file
  J Manas Kumar says
  How can I sent xml data and also json data both and get whatever response I want to get in xml or json???
  Can anyone please help me??
  with complete crud application using hibernate or what is possible…
  Regards
  Manas
  Pankaj says
  check this tutorial:
  J Manas Kumar says
  I have tried that but it showing this below error.
  WARN : org.springframework.web.servlet.PageNotFound – No mapping found for HTTP request with URI [/SpringRestExample/] in DispatcherServlet with name ‘appServlet’
  How to resolve that?? i have tried a little but unable to do that.
  i have changed the url pattern to ” /* ” but still no effect.
  Can u suggest any solution for this.
  sumit says
  i am getting same error pls advice fast???
  Shweta Chaudhari says
  Hi Pankaj,
  I am getting following error after deploying the application on Tomcat Server.
  SEVERE: Invalid message received with signature 18245
  Please help.
  Thanks,
  Shweta
  Manoranjan Varsney says
  Dont think to much Baby
  Santhosh K S says
  Thank you very much for giving very much useful post.
  raaz says
  I am trying to run this project am getting this warn message
  WARN : org.springframework.web.servlet.PageNotFound – No mapping found for HTTP request with URI [/spring/] in DispatcherServlet with name ‘appServlet’
  Could you please help me.
  kd says
  How can. I secure these web services?
  Sumit says
  In the testGetAllEmployees method we can use Employee[] in place of LinkedHashMap. It will give us the employee objects directly. Modified code is below:-
  private static void testGetAllEmployee() {
  RestTemplate restTemplate = new RestTemplate();
  Employee[] emps = restTemplate.getForObject(SERVER_URI+EmpRestURIConstants.GET_ALL_EMP, Employee[].class);
  System.out.println(emps.length);
  for(Employee emp : emps){
  System.out.println(“ID=”+emp.getId()+”,Name=”+emp.getName()+”,CreatedDate=”+emp.getCreatedDate());;
  }
  }
  Jaz says
  Very helpful ….Thanks
  Shaswat Talati says
  So HttpMessageConverter are already there by default
  Why we need to add HttpMessageConverter and RequestMappingHandlerAdapter explicitly ?
  aayush says
  hi
  I am learning rest web services.I go through this example ,its easy to understand thanks for it.
  Can you please tell me where actually use web services? it returns output in form like above
  e.eg
  {“employees”:[
  { “firstName”:”John”, “lastName”:”Doe” },
  { “firstName”:”Anna”, “lastName”:”Smith” },
  { “firstName”:”Peter”, “lastName”:”Jones” }
  ]}
  what its use?why it requires in such form
  please clarify this i am confused.
  thanks
  Yogesh says
  its very easy. there is nothing in this
  Alejandro Barrero says
  To clarify. the error is “GET request for “” although I have in the pom.xml
  FIRST_REST
  FIRST_REST
  Pankaj says
  What is your WAR file name? That becomes the servlet context of the WAR. It should be FIRST_REST.war to work.
  Uttam K Nanda says
  Hi Pankaj,
  your tutorials are very good and helpful. keep up the good work.
  I have one small query –
  why the date in Rest client displayed in Long format but not in proper date format ?
  Even i face the same problem.
  I appreciate your help on this. thank you.
  Alejandro Barrero says
  I am getting a 404 error on the client
  private static void testGetDummyEmployee() {
  RestTemplate restTemplate = new RestTemplate();
  Employee emp = restTemplate.getForObject(SERVER_URI+EmpRestURIConstants.DUMMY_EMP, Employee.class);
  printEmpData(emp);
  }
  Running on Tomcat
  Murali says
  Please verify SERVER_URI is not correct.
  nikhil says
  I am getting below error can anyone help. Thanks
  Inside Create EMployee
  WARN : org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate – POST request for “” resulted in 405 (Method Not Allowed); invoking error handler
  Exception in thread “main” org.springframework.web.client.HttpClientErrorException: 405 Method Not Allowed
  at org.springframework.web.client.DefaultResponseErrorHandler.handleError(DefaultResponseErrorHandler.java:91)
  at org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate.handleResponseError(RestTemplate.java:576)
  at org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate.doExecute(RestTemplate.java:532)
  at org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate.execute(RestTemplate.java:489)
  at org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate.postForObject(RestTemplate.java:318)
  at com.journaldev.spring.TestSpringRestExample.testCreateEmployee(TestSpringRestExample.java:43)
  at com.journaldev.spring.TestSpringRestExample.main(TestSpringRestExample.java:19)
  Dmytro says
  Dear mr.Kumar !
  Thank you a lot for helpful tutorial and detaled notes.
  eli says
  thanks alot for your useful tutorial.really thanks.
  nagaraj says
  I am trying the above project the getting some error please known any one reply me
  Downloading:
  May 17, 2016 6:49:53:49:53 PM org.apache.maven.wagon.providers.http.httpclient.impl.execchain.RetryExec execute
  INFO: Retrying request to {tls}->->
  May 17, 2016 6:50:03:03 PM org.apache.maven.wagon.providers.http.httpclient.impl.execchain.RetryExec execute
  INFO: Retrying request to {tls}->->
  May 17, 2016 6:50:05:05 PM org.apache.maven.wagon.providers.http.httpclient.impl.execchain.RetryExec execute
  INFO: Retrying request to {tls}->->
  Downloaded:(5394 KB at 106.1 KB/sec)
  [INFO] Generating project in Batch mode
  Downloading:
  start-1.0.jar
  [INFO] ————————————————————————
  [INFO] BUILD FAILURE
  [INFO] ————————————————————————
  [INFO] Total time: 01:14 min
  [INFO] Finished at: 2016-05-17T18:50:56+05:30
  [INFO] Final Memory: 10M/40M
  [INFO] ————————————————————————
  [ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-archetype-plugin:2.4:generate (default-cli) on project SpringRestExa
  mple: The desired archetype does not exist (org.apache.maven.archetypes:Maven-archetype-quickstart:1.0) -> ]
  C:\nagaraj\SpringRestExample>:49:53 PM org.apache.maven.wagon.providers.http.httpclient.impl.execchain.RetryExec execute
  C:\nagaraj\SpringRestExample> request to {tls}->->
  The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect.
  Millan says
  check ur internet connection
  clear ur local repository(.m2)
  clean ur project, import again
  Niranjan says
  delete your local repository jar files and redownload the jars(i.e ,make any changes in pom.xml and save it)it will automatically download the jars
  LINSEY TIRADO says
  Nice comments – BTW , if someone is interested in merging of two PDF files , my employees came upon article here.
  vishal says
  whenever am running am getting this error with 404 status
  org.springframework.web.servlet.PageNotFound – No mapping found for HTTP request with URI [/spring/] in DispatcherServlet with name ‘appServlet’
  Vipul says
  Hi,
  I want to pass image also in REST API how can i do it ?
  Can you please help me ?
  Thanks
  Wu says
  Thanks for sharing Pankaj. Could you tell me what the url to get home.jsp page?
  Mrunmay says
  just put the JSP page name in double quotes while returning ModelView Object.
  For e.g.
  return new model1(“Home”,”msg”,”Hello this is Home page”);
  Debasish says
  Thank you for sharing your knowledge! That message converter part was missing and service was not working for me – this resolved the issue.
  srinivas says
  The example is good one.
  It would be helpful if you show with hibernate
  Mamuka says
  Hi All
  to produce xml
  I added in pom.xml :
  org.codehaus.jackson
  jackson-mapper-asl
  1.9.13
  and in requestmapping :
  @RequestMapping(value = EmpRestURIConstants.DUMMY_EMP, method = RequestMethod.GET
  ,produces={“application/xml”, “application/json”})
  now depending on headers : accepts – application/xml , or application/json
  I am getting xml as well as json
  Regards
  sunil says
  Can you please let me know why put used for delete operation.Is there any specific reason?
  ;
  }
  Pankaj says
  No, we could have used POST or DELETE also.
  Abimael says
  Great job!
  James says
  Thank you, this helped me very much in learning rest with Spring.
  Abdul Manaf C J says
  Hi pankaj,
  iam a buginner in spring framework. i need to create a restful webservices using spring mvc. the response in diffrent format like xml, json, plaintext. iam download your souce code. it working fine. but how to add xml serialization to this project. please reply
  Vibhav says
  I am new to spring .Following your tutorials are a real joy and I am really confident that all Spring mistry will be solved with this. Really you are doing a great work . Hats off to you and keep up the good work.
  Mamuka says
  what do you mean don’t copy it’s bad karma ?
  kasun silva says
  Hi Pankaj,
  It’s great example. Is there any related maven archetype for your example?
  Shailesh says
  If we want to process data before passing to one of the method of controller then how we can do this in spring framework
  Ricardo Tannure says
  Hi Pankaj,
  I have the problem below:
  The @RequestBody object is null when I use POST Service.
  The client is over IIS with .Net.
  The RestService is over JBoss 7.0 and the code is the same yours.
  Could you help me with that?
  Thanks,
  Ricardo
  Patil says
  when i post rest service, it is coming as string instead of object in parameter. i have copied the same code. do i need to add any configuration ?
  Patil says
  Hi All,
  when i post service, it is coming as string instead of object. I have copied the same example.
  Thanks,
  -Patil
  sujit says
  Thank’s a lot,It is very helpful.
  BrahmaReddy says
  When i try to fetch the lazy load entites i am getting this error,
  HTTP Status 500 – Could not write JSON: could not initialize proxy – no Session (through reference chain: java.util.ArrayList[0]->org.commerce.hibernate.Tblcategory[“tblcreation”]->org.commerce.hibernate.Tblcreation_$$_jvstcd9_5[“createdByUserid”]); nested exception is com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.JsonMappingException: could not initialize proxy – no Session (through reference chain:
  Dxtr says
  any solution for this?
  Sankardoss says
  Thanks for the post. I have tried the Employee example mentioned above. I get org.springframework.web.client.HttpClientErrorException: 405 Method Not Allowed exception while executing the test program. Please help. Thanks
  Riley says
  first-rate tutorial. thank you sir.
  Krishanu says
  How to run the .jar file….
  i got error while running the jar file creating by Spring tools suite maven.
  Error message is “no main manifest attribute “..
  plz help me out… or tell me other process to run.
  Pankaj says
  Ivan says
  For createEmployee() method after setting Content-Type to “application/json” I always get HTTP Status 400 “The request sent by the client was syntactically incorrect.” How to fix this?
  Navaneet says
  Thanks…Great way of explanation..Very useful.
  Navaneet says
  Thanks…great way of explanation. very useful.
  Rosyid
  Hi Pankaj, for posting an xml file, I have written a function as
  @RequestMapping(value = EmpRestURIConstants.UPLOAD_FILE, method = RequestMethod.POST, consumes=MediaType.MULTIPART_FORM_DATA_VALUE)
  public @ResponseBody byte[] testPost(@RequestParam(“file”) MultipartFile file, HttpServletResponse response){
  }
  and Client program is written as,
  MultiValueMap parts = new LinkedMultiValueMap();
  parts.add(“Content-Type”, MediaType.APPLICATION_XML);
  parts.add(“file”, resource);
  ResponseEntity re = template.exchange(url, HttpMethod.POST,
  new HttpEntity<MultiValueMap>(parts),
  String.class);
  But I am getting org.springframework.web.client.HttpServerErrorException: 500 Internal Server Error
  Whats wrong with Client Code or Server Side Program?
  abhilash
  Its Solved and working fine. now
  srvjena7@gmail.com says
  how u sloved the issue …..i am also geting same error can u please help me
  mohan says
  check your scan controller package.
  change if you change the according to your controller package
  David Brown says
  Howdy Pankaj, very well done, good clean presentation. Only 1 oddity. The TestSpringRestExample client runs correctly. Using postman all the GETs work but not the POST for creating a new employee. Return status: 400 The request sent by the client was syntactically incorrect. I suppose I could try to capture the actual POST request but Postman seems to not have this feature.
  POST /rest/emp/create HTTP/1.1
  Host: localhost:8080
  Content-Type: application/json
  Cache-Control: no-cache
  Pankaj says
  If test java program is working, then your project is having no issues. Just check if you are missing payload in the POST?
  Mario amado says
  I read carefully your posts i i found them very good!
  So i would like to know how can i write a json with this format:
  {
  “people”: [
  {
  “data”: {
  “name”: “José Sócrates”,
  “genre”: “male”,
  “birthdate”: “1930/8/25”,
  “profession”: “Político”,
  “image”: “image1.png”,
  “wikipediaUrl”: “”,
  “desc”: “José Sócrates Carvalho Pinto de Sousa é um político português. Foi secretário- geral do Partido Socialista, de Setembro de 2004 a Julho de 2011 e Primeiro-ministro de Portugal de 12 de março de 2005 a 21 de junho de 2011.”,
  “Known_as”: “José Sócrates “,
  “Equivalente_webpage”: “”,
  “Oficial_website”: “”,
  “social_media_presence”: “JealHouse “,
  “Description”: “Description “,
  “Place_of_birth”: “Portugal”,
  “Nationality”: “Portuguese”,
  “Ethnicity”: ” Unknow”,
  “Parents”: “Motherr”,
  “Children”: ” 2″,
  “Sibling_s”: ” other pages”
  }
  }
  ]
  }
  Vivek says
  It should be simple. create a model class,
  public class Person implements Serializable {
  List data;
  }
  create another class called as Data which has all attributes like name, birthdate,profession.
  Use this model class to map data from Dao, and assign it to the person.setData(AnotherModelClass);
  return it from controller. Thats it.
  ashok says
  hi,
  how can pass the uri to the rest template dynamically
  thanks,
  ashok
  Ashwin says
  Nice Article
  suppose if i want to send messages in xml format?? Is it possible
  karthick says
  Thanks for this article, it really helps. But i am not able to build this project, i haven’t used maven before. Can you please explain the steps on how to build this project using maven ?
  Ashwin says
  If you are working on eclipse, download Maven, and Spring tool suite. from Eclipse market place.
  then click on new project, Spring mvc.
  specify the top level package and click finish.. You will see every bit of code which is showsn above.
  Anmol says
  Thanks a lot Pankaj!!! your example was really easy to follow unlike many other examples on web which are hard to understand.
  thxill says
  Where is the download link? I can’t see any.
  Naveen says
  Hi PK,
  You are making our life simple. Thanks alot for your great effort.
  Umang Rathod says
  can we do this example with different two model class?like employee and Student ?
  Ashwin says
  yes you can..
  you can write a different controller class and create new urls to access your other model class.
  you can then send your new model object in @requestbody and @responsebody.
  rajan says
  Hello sir,
  This tutorial very helpful, I learned a lot. I want to display json data into jsp page. how do I do that. please can you alter this tutorial and consume rest json to display from jsp
  page.
  expecting your help sir,
  thanks
  rajan
  hairale says
  hi. Can i help me create project with sub project use maven . you can for me sample .thank you .
  ritesh says
  can anybody plz tell me step by step. because i dont have any idea. ow to create a spring mvc rest service….plzz
  Pankaj says
  Every step is given in the tutorial, even project is available for download. What else you are looking for?
  Ashwin says
  Check my reply to Karthick. Once downloaded, you can proceed with all the steps Pankaj has mentioned.
  Chandan says
  i am getting this warning
  WARN : org.springframework.web.servlet.PageNotFound – No mapping found for HTTP request with URI [/SpringRestExample/] in DispatcherServlet with name ‘appServlet’
  how to solve it
  Ashwin says
  Check of you have configured the @requestMapping properly.
  Also check the base scan package in your dispatcher servlet is indeed scanning your controller class.
  Hemant Mali says
  Hi Pankaj,
  Thanks for the tutorial.I have one questions : I am not using STS , then what change i have to make in my project setup to run this application.I am using eclise juno and maven.
  Pankaj says
  STS provide option to create skeletal project, you can install the Spring Framework plugin in Eclipse too, search for that in marketplace. If you don’t want to use these plugins, you will need to create a maven project yourself and add all the dependencies manually. That’s all.
  pushpendra kumar says
  Can you tell me how I can make a simple signup sample with this approach with this approach(data validations are also there)?
  pushpendra kumar says
  or how we can make android client for this .
  nitin says
  Hello Pankaj,
  Thanks for the tutorial , very helpful to understand.
  I am seeing 404 , the only warning i see is –
  INFO [http-apr-8080-exec-10] org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationContext.log No Spring WebApplicationInitializer types detected on classpath
  any idea why this could be?
  i tried project from scratch and also with your files…
  I searched on net, and tried all possible steps to eliminate it. But no luck
  i tried with jre 6,7; created new workspace etc….
  Please help.
  If any one else has seen this issue , please advise…
  Thanks
  Nitin
  jun says
  Thanks ojiisan!
  Shiva says
  Can you please provide the difference between PUT and POST with respect to the article?
  Dakota says
  Great help in this tutorial. It’s really useful for people who aren’t using Spring Boot- thanks!
  Mohammad says
  Hi Pankaj,
  Thanks for your clear example, I really enjoy to read tutorials you’ve provided, it is awesome.
  I’m trying to provide an API for my project and I’ve used Jackson convertor, it works fine however I need to add xml convertor to my API as well (e.g. /api/rest/xml besides /api/rest/json and so on). I realized a message convertor like MappingJackson2HttpMessageConverter should be added but I’m not sure how can I distinguish XML requested not JSON? it seems this convertors will convert all requests to JSON and Objects vice versa. Could you please let me know how to solve it, thanks a lot.
  Guillermo says
  If somebody have this error again.
  I solve it writting manually the class for jsonMessageConverter.
  Probablly a crazy error for format in copy/paste 🙂
  Demetrio says
  WARN : org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate – GET request for “” resulted in 404 (Not Found); invoking error handler
  I am trying to debug but I am getting the warinning above. I placed a break in TestSpringRestExample and it is breaking in RestTemplate in response.close();
  protected T doExecute(URI url, HttpMethod method, RequestCallback requestCallback,
  ResponseExtractor responseExtractor) throws RestClientException {
  …
  finally {
  if (response != null) {
  response.close();
  }
  Mario M. says
  first of all good work and thanks for the effort. I have a rather silly question, if my client is a web browser like mozilla, to create an employee: What would be the proper url string for this service using JSON notation?
  ie “http: // localhost:8080/SpringRestExample/rest/emp/create ????”
  Thanks in advance
  CH says
  When I run the example the URL I must use is not. What is it that is determining “spring” vs. “SpringRestExample” in the URL? I though this was based on the application name.
  I ran your Spring MVC example and the URL is
  localhost:8080/SpringMVCExample/as expected. I have compared the two projects and I cannot see a difference that would map the url differently.
  Pankaj says
  Its because of the application context file automatically created by STS. Best option is to export as war file into separate container.
  simon says
  could you pls send me the sample project.
  I do not have a google account.
  tks for much.
  mail address: 8923040@qq.com
  chan says
  Thanks. I have one question. suppose if i use browser as my client to access – testGetAllEmployee(). i.e in broweser if i call url for testGetAllEmployee() then i want show all details in html/css format instead of json format. how can i do it?
  chan says
  Adding some doubts.
  suppose if we access the url then it will return json format response. so anybody can call this url , they can get response as json and they can use it their website/any where. how can we provide security?
  Pankaj says
  1. If you want to present HTML, then you can forward the JSON to JSP page and render it as HTML response.
  2. There are different ways to make your application secure, easiest is to ask user to send UserID and Password as header data in HTTP request and validate it against your user database.
  chan says
  Thanks.
  my website don’t have any login page at all. anybody can come and see required information. suppose i have spring controler which will return json object based on user URI. On jsp page i will render this json object and display content using front end technologies.
  My question is if anybody trying to retrive URI then it will json object, so how can i secure URI?
  example –– this will return emp record 1 in json format. so anybody can call this URI in their website and can get information and display into their website. how can i secure this one no body cant access other than my website.
  Thanks
  Sapna says
  hi Pankaj,
  do you have any thoughts on the above question.
  I too have the same thoughts in mind..
  Thanks in advance!
  Rohit More says
  Hello Pankaj,
  I appreciate your efforts for us like beginner. I went through your blog and followed instruction its working perfectly alright. I have small doubt.
  If I have controller with 1 function
  @RequestMapping(value=”/getvalue”, method=RequestMethod.GET)
  public String getStatastics(String string1, String string2, String string3, EnumDemo demo, Model model){
  String resultedString = string1 + string2 + string3;
  System.out.println(demo.enumValue1);
  return resultedString;
  }
  Now I want to create client with calling this above function.
  I would be really happy if you provide me some direction.
  Thanks.
  Vinod says
  I tried downloading the example, and importing to eclipse. When I tried running the application on server. ( after doing the mvn-clean and install – both complete successfully) I get a 404 with a warning message on the console :
  WARN : org.springframework.web.servlet.PageNotFound – No mapping found for HTTP request with URI [/SpringRestExample/] in DispatcherServlet with name ‘appServlet’
  Any idea what I’m doing wrong here?
  Pankaj says
  Check your war file name, if you are deploying on tomcat, your servlet context will be the file name (excluding .war extension)
  Vinod says
  I’m trying to run the project through eclipse. Project (Right Click) ->Run As ->Run On Server.
  And I get the 404 error. Is there something different I should be doing?
  Jayaprakash says
  I am also getting the same error.I changed the servlet-context.xml file name to SpringRestExample.xml and change the path in web.xml to /WEB-INF/spring/appServlet/SpringRestExample.xml.But getting same 404 error.Please help
  Gagz says
  i am also getting same error. please let me know how to resolve.
  No mapping found for HTTP request with URI [/spring/] in DispatcherServlet with name ‘appServlet’
  Arvind Singh says
  Hi Vinod,
  How you resolve this issue, i am facing same issue.
  gurjinder singh says
  thanks your code helps me a lot
  devloper says
  Great article! I am able to create web service using this article, thank you so much!
  lsm says
  Hi!, firstly thank you for this great work.
  And secondly, could you post something about how to serialize a Hibernate model class (make a JSON), please.
  I tried to convert the Employee class model to a Hibernate class model, and then get data directly from a database. But a get this error : “Could not write JSON:”]); nested exception is com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.JsonMappingException:”])”
  All works great if I make a data bind between a new POJO Employee model and his Hibernate model counterpart.
  Thanks!
  devloper says
  implement Serializable interface
  Jorel says
  Hello! Really good job! it’s the first project which work without editing somethings.
  I have a question how to create an user without the Java program, I tryed this request but without success…. Have you got an issue?
  curl -X POST -H “Content-type:application/json” -H “Accept:application/json” -d ‘{“id”:2,”name”:”JBlabel”}’
  Lars says
  I got the same problem here on a Win 7 System. I read that there could be some problems with curl for windows (if you use that). In that case the syntax :
  curl -X POST -H "Content-type:application/json" -d @json.txt
  worked for me with the json inside the txt file.
  Seems to be an issue with the single quotes in win command line. Cygwin should also do the job.
  Best regards,
  Lars
  Shiv says
  How could we have XML as Response. I have a requirement to have my GET call response back with Json or XML as per client request. Please advise.
  Rohit says
  Thank you for this article.
  This is really helpful.
  Thanks a ton.
  Volodia says
  This line can be changed
  restTemplate.getForObject(SERVER_URI+EmpRestURIConstants.GET_ALL_EMP, List.class
  to
  restTemplate.getForObject(SERVER_URI+EmpRestURIConstants.GET_ALL_EMP, Employee[].class
  Now you have aray of mapped Employees and can easily create any collection.
  Rahul says
  Extremely helpful tutorial 🙂
  I have a small doubt :
  In pom.xml I ad to comment this :
  <!–
  org.springframework
  spring-context
  ${org.springframework-version}
  Exclude Commons Logging in favor of SLF4j
  commons-logging
  commons-logging
  –>
  and instead have to add this :
  org.springframework
  spring-tx
  4.0.0.RELEASE
  And then why pom.xml reports “ArtifactTransferException: Failure to transfer org.springframework:spring-context:jar:4.0.0.RELEASE from was cached in
  the local repository,………” ?
  I have cleared the local repository after that, but the problem still persists.
  Any suggestions please 🙂
  Pankaj says
  You need to force update the dependencies.
  you need to have constant defined for yhe versions.
  Wendy says
  Hi Pankaj,
  Thank you very much for this nice and thorough article. I followed it through and was able to successfully test it without using WizTools RestClient.
  I just have one question: I found your article by search “Spring Rest service eclipse json” on google. I was expecting the response format is in Json. When you get a chance, could you explain how to get the response in Json?
  Thanks,
  Wendy
  smartboy says
  Good explanation
  but I don’t find any URL to download your project after following you on twitter
  Víctor Hernández says
  First of all thanks for the tutorial, it has helped me a lot, try to test the createEmployee method, however I did not succeed, try it through a jsp with ajax and then try using postman, I think the problem is trying to send objects and hope you can help me, greetings from Mexico.
  Sam says
  Your download link still has a problem. After downloading, the file size is only 9K and nothing in the zip file except “.settings” directory. Could you please verify? Thank you.
  Pankaj says
  Sorry about that, I have fixed it and verified myself, it should be working fine now.
  Sudha says
  Hi ,
  I want to write a jersey client for file upload (which is a spring rest)
  @RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.POST,consumes = “multipart/form-data”)
  @ResponseBody
  public String upload(@RequestParam(“file”) MultipartFile file)
  this is how my code will look like.
  Please provide me some idea.I tried with some example but i am getting this error
  org.glassfish.jersey.message.internal.MessageBodyProviderNotFoundException: MessageBodyWriter not found for media type=multipart/form-data, type=class com.sun.jersey.multipart.MultiPart, genericType=class com.sun.jersey.multipart.MultiPart.
  Nagaraju says
  nothing is there in u r downloaded file yaar………..
  Pankaj says
  it was an issue with the plugin I use for managing downloads, solved it. Please try now.
  mallikarjuna rao says
  HI Pankaj,
  Its really great article. there are no files in the zip file when I open that. could you please share the complete project.
  Best Regards
  Mallik
  Nagaraj says
  Today changed jre settings and deployed. I could see some errors in the console. Please let me know if you are getting any idea based on the error trace below.
  SEVERE: ContainerBase.addChild: start:
  org.apache.catalina.LifecycleException: Failed to start component [StandardEngine[Catalina].StandardHost[localhost].StandardContext[/spring]]
  Caused by: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/springframework/web/context/WebApplicationContext
  SEVERE: Error deploying configuration descriptor C:\MarketPlace\DevTools\SpecialProject\springsource\vfabric-tc-server-developer-2.9.3.RELEASE\base-instance\conf\Catalina\localhost\spring.xml
  java.lang.IllegalStateException: ContainerBase.addChild: start: org.apache.catalina.LifecycleException: Failed to start component [StandardEngine[Catalina].StandardHost[localhost].StandardContext[/spring]]
  Anand says
  Nagaraj , did u get any soln reg this i tried many soln which mentionedin hte net.
  like
  1. remove all servers and clear the servers folder in eclipse workspace folder
  2. clean, publish, etc,
  3. adding common-loggins jar to dependency.
  None woks out, could u please help me with your soln..
  Nagaraj says
  Its a good example to begin with. Easy to understand than other tutorials related to Spring RESTful Services. I used STS and created this project as Spring MVC. I didn’t download your project. But created the structure and contents as mentioned here.
  I deployed with VMware vFabric tc Server Developer Edition v2.9 .. Its looks to be deployed properly but on invocation getting 404. Tried with as well as in Tomcat 7 also same issue. Getting 404 in browser as well as in WizTools RestClient 3.2.2
  I created a Sample Dynamic Web project, that got deployed and its rendering the required output.
  There is only one warning in the server console and i searched in Web, its mentioned nothing to worry about this.
  WARNING: [SetContextPropertiesRule]{Context} Setting property ‘source’ to ‘org.eclipse.jst.jee.server:SpringRestExample’ did not find a matching property.
  Your advice would be helpful. I can attach the server log if needed.
  Nagaraj says
  I downloaded the Project and tried. Even then getting the same issue.
  Michal Skultety says
  Thanks, the example works (which is not so common with many EE examples) and is reduced to a minimum to demonstrate just the technology without any useless patterns show-off, I really like it…
  Pradeep says
  Hi, I have deployed the above code in WAS 7. getting below error.
  Permission:
  getenv.* : Access denied (java.lang.RuntimePermission getenv.*)
  Code:
  org.springframework.core.env.AbstractEnvironment in {file:/opt/httpd/root/apps/sample/ibm7/dev-ear/sample.war/WEB-INF/lib/spring-core-4.0.0.RELEASE.jar}
  Could you please suggest me how can i override this error.
  I have tried the below optins, but no luck
  1) added below two lines in root-context.xml
  2) added below line in spring.properties copied in classes folder
  spring.getenv.ignore=true
  Thanks,
  Pradeep.
  Pradeep says
  added below code in root-context.xml but no luck
  Pankaj says
  From the error it looks like permission issue, I have never faced this issue but one pointer I can give you is to check any security manager configuration or policy files are present that is preventing environment variables access?
  ranjith says
  I am new to spring, i have imported your project but getting error in servlet-contex.xml
  error like,
  Class ‘org.springframework.http.converter.json.MappingJacksonHttpMessageConverter’ not found [config set: SpringRestExample/web-context]
  Pankaj says
  Check your spring version and jars for this class.
  Mohan says
  How can I implement spring validators in the example? I saw that you have already explained spring validators in Post.
  Thomas says
  You should really overthink your “RESTful” URL design in this example.
  RESTful URLs do not have any verbs in them, just nouns. So the right URLs for your example would be:
  GET /employees (get a list of all employees)
  POST /employees (create a new employee)
  GET /employees/id (get a specific employee from id)
  DELETE /employees/id (delete a specific employee from id)
  Although I appreciate your motiviation to provide examples for other people on the internet, you should ensure that you do not teach wrong things.
  Pankaj says
  Yes you are right, but it’s for example only to show how it works. I am sure if you are working on a real project, you will have your own Rest URIs and won’t go for this structure.
  The takeaway of this tutorial is to learn how to implement Restful web service in Spring.
  Mortier says
  Perfect!, first example i see to extract the paths with enums,
  now take it to the next level and implement Hateoas? 🙂
  Bhabadyuti says
  Sir at which you have used restful web services i mean how to know that this application using restful web service. ??
  please make me clear..
  Thanks
  Pankaj says
  I think you should read about Restful on wikipedia.
  Anil says
  I want to expose rest service to receive byte array, so in my service i used
  @RequestBody final byte[] byteArray
  This is resulting me below exception
  org.codehaus.jackson.map.JsonMappingException: Can not deserialize instance of byte[] out of START_OBJECT token
  Could you please help me out in this.
  Pankaj says
  you can’t sent byte[] because as error says, it should be a serialized object.
  spring788@hotmail.com says
  How did you come up with the name “spring Jackson” for your program?..spring Jackson, oregon
  Pankaj says
  Thats a coincidence, Spring and Jackson both are Java frameworks. 🙂
  Narayana says
  Can we make this application to support any kind of format(json,xml, etc) to generate and also to receive ..?
  Ana says
  I am trying to do an API that will receive a list of Customers for example an this list is processed by the service, but I have some questions:
  – If I receive the list of Customers inside the Body as @RequestBody then how should I process it.
  – My controller must process all in a once because we have to process all the customers or none.
  – I am trying to deserialize the Jason content to a lIst of customers, but after this I should process customer by customer invoking the service n times but my transactions are at service level not at controller level. . Could you please give me any idea about how to do it?
  I am doing my final degree work and I am really stuff by this.
  Many thanks,
  Ana
  Pankaj says
  Once you have received the list in controller request handler method, its upto you how to process it. I am assuming there will be some DB calls, third party calls etc. You can iterate over the list and do it one by one or in batch.
  ashok says
  Thanks a lot boss, quick reference.
  Small doubt, in controller class, while creating employee you are purring created emp in to a map ( empData ) , but you are returning pojo class object ( emp ). Why so ?
  Any ways Thanks !
  Pankaj says
  Here Map is our data storage system that holds all the Employee objects. Based on the rest call, we are returning one employee or list of employees.
  ashok says
  Thank you Pankaj.
  I am new to spring, just trying to understand your example and implement it in my app.
  One more doubt, i am using spring 3.0.5, would like to use same service in webapp and mobile client.
  depends up on request, i’ve to send response.
  if request from webapp, have to send ModelViewObject which will go through ViewResolver.
  if it is from Mobile, have to send JOSN object
  Could it possible ? if so please help on configurations.
  Thanks in advance.
  Ashok
  Scott says
  I cannot tell you how thankful I am for this. After banging my head against the wall for half the day you have given me the “magic” configuration that will correctly return json from my REST controllers. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
  Note to anyone using Spring 4 and getting a 406 HTTP response when trying to make a call to your controllers: just copy the spring-context.xml file on this page and be done with it.
  Pankaj says
  Thanks for the kind words, I really appreciate it.
  mallikarjuna rao says
  this example is not in readable when I extract it. please provide complete example with source.
  Thanks
  Mallik
  mallikarjuna rao says
  its asking user name and password while extracting. zip file does not contain any files with out username and password.
  sreeni says
  Great work, very helpful.
  mallikarjuna Rao says
  please share the complete project code.
  Pankaj says
  it was an issue with the plugin I use for managing downloads, solved it. Please try now.