I have to consume a REST API in java. And I am fairly naive when it comes to Java. My question is , should I be using some open source libraries (like Reslet etc) for this or is it fairly simple to just extend the HttpServlet and accomodate some simple operations like doPost, doGet, doPut and doDelete ? Any sample code that I can use in my application would be highly appreciated.
The other thing is, does this API Consumer class run as a Servlet or as a simple POJO?
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M-1, thanks for your reply but I do not intend to write RESTful services. I just have to consume them and in the process I intend to write a wrapper Java class or Servlet (not sure?) that gets called for every request made to the actual REST API. Does this make it more clear ?Sorry if I was not clear enough before.
It would be a Wrapper. This Wrapper could be called from within a Servlet that is the Controller for web application client is using the then consumes the web service, so take a look at those articles anyway as I believe they showed HttpClient -- if not that is some place you can look.
http://hc.apache.org/
You basically need to GET or POST to a remote page and get the response.
to be more specific, what I want is this
a Servlet or a POJO (not sure which one) to interact with a RESTFUL Webservice sitting on some other server. I would want to override the doPost, doGet, doPut and doDelete methods in this class.
And then I would want to use this Java class in one of my applications. Can someone point me to a working code ? I would imagine this to be a common thing and easily available but doesnt look like so...
I have provided you with information on this above. You basically need to write a POJO that acts as the client to the RESTFul web service. You can use the HttpClient or other API, but point is you need to have client code for each of the four methods.
Then your servlet which will implement / override doPost, doGet, doPut and doDelete methods from HttpServlet (NOT the RESTFul web service since this remote) would use an instance or class level (static) methods of the POJO to handle the interaction with the RESTFul web service.
Therefore, the clients will hit your Servlet via the different methods like GET, you would in turn consume GET method of the web service and then process the response however you see fit.
M-1
I am sorry, I should have directed you to the tutorials for HttpGet as there is code snippets / samples all over.
http://hc.apache.org/
F
Hope that helps.
Without specifics on the RESTFul web service, not sure what code to actually give you here beyond that as you will need to write implementation based on the web services interface / requirements.
Thanks for those links. that helps a little bit.
My Rest Webservices are in the format of http://server/users/id/top
And they always return XML as output form, and this wrapper has to just read the XML and pass back to the calling client... Does this change anything?
Can you tell me if I need the doPost, doGet , doPost and all that or just one function with URLConnection would suffice?
That would depend on how you want your clients to pass you the parameters that you will in turn send to the REST web service.
If you want it to be similar, you can just implement service OR have doPost, doGet, etc. all point to a comment method like doAction or doStuff that does the work of getting the response and sending back XML to the requesting client browser.
For example, say you have a method called processRestRequest() you could do something like this:
byte[] bytes = processRestRequest(param1,
// return xml to client request.
response.setConten
re
respon
respon
As you can see this would work for doGet and doPost alike and only difference would be that in the former the parameters have to be parsed from the query string / url whereas the latter they are posted through the request object.
Regards,
M-1
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by: mwvisa1Posted on 2009-11-04 at 07:36:23ID: 25740351
jimmy282,
The answer depends on if you are truly talking about *consuming* web service which would be client side (even if ultimately is a web site / service itself that feeds other clients), so yes that is really a POJO that can use http GET or POST and consume the result from the remote Restlet.
However, if you are creating a Restlet which the first part sounds like, then the choice between Servlet and actual RESTLet will depend on if you have an application server that can host restlets. If you don't then, simply use a Servlet and parse the values from the URL or Request object to simulate REST as you said implementing doGet(), doPost(), etc., accordingly.
Here are some references:
http://www.java
h
The first shows you HttpServlet approach.
M-1