What is Spring Data REST?

Spring Data REST is a framework that exposes Spring Data repositories as RESTful endpoints. It allows you to create REST APIs for your data without having to write any controller code. Under the hood, Spring Data REST uses Spring Data repositories to access and manage data. So you first need to define Spring Data repositories for your entities. These repositories extend interfaces like CrudRepository. To use Spring Data REST, you simply need to create Spring Data repositories for your domain model entities. Spring Data REST will then automatically expose these entities as REST resources. You can also customize the exposed resources using annotations and configuration options

Architecture of Spring Data REST

The Spring Data REST architecture diagram you sent shows the following components:

• Spring Data REST: Spring Data REST is a framework that makes it easy to build hypermedia-driven REST web services on top of Spring Data repositories.
• DAO [Repository]: The DAO layer is responsible for interacting with the underlying data store. It is implemented using Spring Data repositories.
• Database: The database is the underlying data store that Spring Data REST uses to store and retrieve data.
• Postman: Postman is a tool that can be used to send and receive HTTP requests. It is used in the diagram to show how to interact with the Spring Data REST API.

Architecture of Spring Data REST

Spring Data REST architecture works as follows:

1. A client sends an HTTP request to the Spring Data REST server.
2. The Spring Data REST server receives the HTTP request and routes it to the appropriate repository.
3. The repository interacts with the underlying data store to perform the requested operation.
4. The repository returns the results of the operation to the Spring Data REST server.
5. The Spring Data REST server returns the results of the operation to the client.

Key Features of Spring Data REST

• Support for Automatic CRUD Operations: Spring Data REST automatically generates RESTful endpoints for basic CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations on your domain entities. This means you don’t have to write explicit code for handling these operations; they are handled automatically by the framework.
• Support for pagination, filtering, sorting, and search: Spring Data REST supports pagination, filtering, sorting, and search. This allows you to create REST APIs that can handle large amounts of data efficiently.
• Flexible configuration: Spring Data REST is highly configurable, allowing you to customize the exposed resources and the behavior of the API to meet your specific needs.
• Integration with Spring MVC: Spring Data REST is built on top of Spring MVC, which is a high-performance web framework. This means that your REST APIs will be able to handle a large number of requests efficiently.

Hypermedia as the Engine of Application State (HATEOAS)

• HATEOAS (Hypermedia as the Engine of Application State) is a fundamental aspect of RESTful web services. It describes how relationships and links to related resources are represented in REST APIs.
• Spring HATEOAS library is used under the hood to generate links. Resources implement the Resource interface.
• HATEOAS support makes the APIs intuitive to use and enables building discoverable, stateless clients.

How Spring Data REST follows HATEOAS

• Automatic resource exposure: Spring Data REST automatically exposes your domain model entities as REST resources and includes hypermedia links in the resource representations.
• Flexible configuration: Spring Data REST allows you to customize the hypermedia links that are included in the resource representations.
• Support for hypermedia formats: Spring Data REST supports HAL, a popular hypermedia format.
• The _links object in the response contains the hypermedia links. The self link points to the resource itself, the profile link points to the user’s profile, and the orders link points to the user’s orders.

{
  "_links": {
    "self": {
      "href": "https://api.example.com/users/1"
    },
    "profile": {
      "href": "https://api.example.com/users/1/profile"
    },
    "orders": {
      "href": "https://api.example.com/users/1/orders"
    }
  }
}

Getting Started with Spring Data REST

Step 1: Setting up a Spring Boot project

Create a new Spring Boot project in your IDE. Add typical Spring Boot dependencies like Spring Web, Spring Data JPA etc.

Step 2: Adding dependencies

Add the spring-boot-starter-data-rest dependency and other required dependencies.

Step 3: Creating data models (JPA entities)

• Define your domain model model model classes annotated with @Entity
• Add fields, getters/setters, IDs etc.

Step 4: Creating JPA repositories

• Create interfaces extending JpaRepository or PagingAndSortingRepository.
• These will manage CRUD for your entities

Step 5: Running the Spring Boot application

• Add @SpringBootApplication to your app class
• Run the main method as a Spring Boot app

Step 6: Accessing the generated API endpoints

• API will be exposed at /entityname by default.
• Send GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE requests to endpoints.
• Entities returned will contain HATEOAS links.

Example Project: Student Management System

Step 1: Create a Spring Boot Project

You can use the Spring Initializer website (https://start.spring.io/) to generate a new Spring Boot project with the required dependencies.

Step 2: Add required dependencies

• Spring Web
• Spring Data JPA
• Spring Data REST
• Mysql Database (or any other database of your choice)

Below is the code for pom.xml file

XML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0
                        https://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <parent>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
        <version>3.1.4</version>
        <relativePath/> <!-- lookup parent from repository -->
    </parent>
    <groupId>com.spring</groupId>
    <artifactId>Spring_Data_Rest</artifactId>
    <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <name>Spring_Data_Rest</name>
    <description>Demo project for Spring_Data_Rest</description>
    <properties>
        <java.version>17</java.version>
    </properties>
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-jpa</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-rest</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.mysql</groupId>
            <artifactId>mysql-connector-j</artifactId>
            <scope>runtime</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>

    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>

</project>

Step 3: Create JPA Entity and Springboot main Function

Java

package com.spring.entities;

import jakarta.persistence.Entity;
import jakarta.persistence.GeneratedValue;
import jakarta.persistence.GenerationType;
import jakarta.persistence.Id;
import jakarta.persistence.Table;

@Entity
@Table(name = "students")
public class Student {
    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.AUTO)
    private int id;

    private String first_name;
    private String last_name;
    private String marks;

    public Student()
    {
        super();
        // TODO Auto-generated constructor stub
    }

    public Student(int id, String first_name,
                   String last_name, String marks)
    {
        super();
        this.id = id;
        this.first_name = first_name;
        this.last_name = last_name;
        this.marks = marks;
    }

    public int getId() { return id; }

    public void setId(int id) { this.id = id; }

    public String getFirst_name() { return first_name; }

    public void setFirst_name(String first_name)
    {
        this.first_name = first_name;
    }

    public String getLast_name() { return last_name; }

    public void setLast_name(String last_name)
    {
        this.last_name = last_name;
    }

    public String getMarks() { return marks; }

    public void setMarks(String marks)
    {
        this.marks = marks;
    }
}

Java

package com.spring;

import com.spring.entities.Student;
import com.spring.repositories.StudentRepository;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.boot.CommandLineRunner;
import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;

@SpringBootApplication
public class SpringDataRestApplication
    implements CommandLineRunner {
    @Autowired private StudentRepository studentRepository;

    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        SpringApplication.run(
            SpringDataRestApplication.class, args);
    }

    @Override
    public void run(String... args) throws Exception
    {
        // TODO Auto-generated method stub

        Student student = new Student();
        student.setFirst_name("John");
        student.setLast_name("Mark");
        student.setMarks("89");
        this.studentRepository.save(student);

        Student student1 = new Student();
        student1.setFirst_name("SPR");
        student1.setLast_name("XYZ");
        student1.setMarks("88");
        this.studentRepository.save(student1);
    }
}

Step 4: Create Spring Data JPA Repository

Java

package com.spring.repositories;

import com.spring.entities.Student;
import org.springframework.data.jpa.repository.JpaRepository;
import org.springframework.data.rest.core.annotation.RepositoryRestResource;

@RepositoryRestResource(path = "students",
                        collectionResourceRel = "stu")
public interface StudentRepository
    extends JpaRepository<Student, Integer> {
}

Step 5: Configure Database Connection

In your application.properties or application.yml file, configure the database connection details.

spring.jpa.hibernate.ddl-auto=update
#DB URL
spring.datasource.url=jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/student_management
spring.datasource.username=root
spring.datasource.password=admin
spring.datasource.dbcp2.driver-class-name=com.mysql.cj.jdbc.Driver
spring.data.rest.base-path=api/

Step 6: Run Your Application

You can run your Spring Boot application from your IDE or by using the command-line tool provided by Spring Boot.

mvn spring-boot:run

Step 7: Access Your RESTful Endpoints

Your Spring Data REST API is now available. You can access it via HTTP, using tools like cURL, Postman, or your web browser.

To a Post specific student, you can use: http://localhost:8080/api/students

To get all students, you can use: http://localhost:8080/api/students

Conclusion

Spring Data REST is a powerful tool that can be used to build hypermedia-driven REST web services. It provides a number of features that make it easy to develop and maintain REST APIs, without having to write a lot of boilerplate code.