Spring Data REST

Spring Data REST is a project similar to Spring Data JPA which aims to eliminate boilerplate code. With Spring Data JPA, we get the basic CRUD functionality without writing any code simply by specifying the entity and the type of primary key. Similarly, Spring Data REST provides a REST API based on the repository and entity without us having to write any code in the controller and service layer.

Spring Data REST uses the repository to expose endpoints to perform GET, POST, PUT, PATCH and DELETE on every entity in the application. Spring Data REST works with data sources implementing the repository programming model. It supports Spring Data JPA, Spring Data MongoDB, Spring Data Cassandra as well as other Spring Data projects. In the image below, it eliminates the need for PlayerController and PlayerService classes.

Spring Data REST provides a basic REST API which can be customized. Custom queries can be added using JPQL and Query DSL.

Earlier, we saw how to implement a Tennis Player REST API. We had a Player entity and created a PlayerRepository implementing the JpaRespository interface. Spring Data REST can provide us a similar API simply by scanning our repository and exposing the /players endpoint.

Spring Data REST creates endpoints using the entity name by making the first letter lowercase and adding an ‘s’ to the end of the name. For the case shown below, Spring Data REST will convert the entity name Player to its uncapitalized, pluralized form players and expose the REST endpoints at /players. It also exposes /players/{id} for each item managed by the repository.

To create a Spring Data REST application using Spring Boot, we need the following:

1. spring-boot-starter-data-rest dependency in pom.xml

2. An entity (e.g., Player)

3. A repository interface (e.g., JpaRepository or CrudRepository) ...

Creating Spring Data REST project