web-log/container/site/content/posts/spring-rest-api-pt-i/index.md

+++ categories = ["software"] tags = ["java"] date = 2024-11-10T15:55:42Z description = "" draft = false slug = "java-spring-tomcat" title = "☕ Developing Spring REST API - Pt. I" author = "nicholas" +++

Much time has passed since I last worked with Spring framework in Java. I need to build out a development environment to enable me to build Java applications. In this log, the environment will be configured to include the following tools and features:

• Eclipse IDE
• Java (JRE, JDK)
• Maven (dependency manager, etc.)
• Spring Boot (Java framework)

This log is a series of baby steps that will result in basic implementation of a REST API.

Code Editor

First, I need a code editor/IDE. I selected Eclipse for no particular reason. My understanding is that IntelliJ IDEA is a more modern, refined alternative that I may try down the line. For now, all I need is a default installation to get started.

Hello World

I allow the IDE to walk me through a hello world tutorial to become familiar with the software and remind myself of the basic structure of a Java program.

Spring REST API endpoint

My next milestone is to set up a trivial API endpoint to familiarize myself with Spring MVC. I will use this framework to build an endpoint that will return "hello world". Eventually, this project will become an API for a plant simulation app.

• I use spring initializr to automate the creation of the necessary boilerplate to run a minimally viable endpoint.

• I create a controller class for the API: PlantController.java.

• This class uses Spring's @RestController and @GetMapping annotations to define the controller and one endpoint.

• For now, I have defined a GET endpoint at /helloworld, which returns the string "hello world".

package plantsim.PlantSimulatorAPI;

import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.GetMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RestController;

@RestController
public class PlantController {

	@GetMapping("/helloworld")
	public String helloworld() {
		return "hello world";
	}

}

It works. Now I can configure my data models and database.

Database

Database configuration will require a few steps.

• Create in-memory database with h2
• Using the credentials defined below and in application.properties I am able to connect to the database testdb at /h2-console.

spring.datasource.url=jdbc:h2:mem:testdb
spring.datasource.driver-class-name=org.h2.Driver
spring.datasource.username=sa
spring.datasource.password=password
spring.h2.console.enabled=true

• In the h2 console, I can execute SQL queries and explore the database structure, etc.

1. Initialize database – populate with data

• Since I have defined an entity class for the plant object, Hibernate will automatically create the plant database table for me. I will need to populate the table data, however.
• I populate the tale with data using data.sql. By default, Spring Boot will look in src/main/resources for the script and execute it after the table has been initialized (according to application.properties -> spring.jpa.defer-datasource-initialization=true
• I configure the script below to insert a couple of rows:

-- Insert rows
INSERT INTO plant (name) VALUES ('Ficus Audrey');
INSERT INTO plant (name) VALUES ('Lucky Bamboo');
INSERT INTO plant (name) VALUES ('Chinese Money Plant');   

3. Configure API endpoint to return plant objects

• To return a plant object instead of a string, I will need to configure following:
  • Plant entity that matches database schema – This will use object-relational mapping (ORM) to map my Java entities to my database table plant

package plantsim.PlantSimulatorAPI;

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

@Entity
public class Plant {

	@Id
	@GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.IDENTITY)
	private Long id;
	private String name;

	public Plant() {
	}

	public Plant(Long id, String name) {
		this.id = id;
	}

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

	public String getName() {
		return name;
	}

	public void setName(String name) {
		this.name = name;
	}

}

• Add JPA dependency to pom.xml – JPersistence API

jakarta.persistence
jakarta.persistence-api
3.1.0

• Create a JPA repository to fetch the Plant objects from testdb.

package plantsim.PlantSimulatorAPI;

import org.springframework.data.jpa.repository.JpaRepository;

public interface PlantRepository extends JpaRepository {
}

• Update the controller to return the Plant object.

    @Autowired
	private PlantRepository plantRepository;

	@GetMapping("/plant")
	public List getPlants() {
		return plantRepository.findAll();
	}

Results

If I navigate to /plant, the program returns a JSON-formatted string of the all of the plants stored in the database. I will use this as a foundation to later build into the project actual functionality.

 [
  {
    "name": "Ficus Audrey"
  },
  {
    "name": "Lucky Bamboo"
  },
  {
    "name": "Chinese Money Plant"
  }
]