Jakarta RESTful Web Services
Jakarta RESTful Web Services, (JAX-RS; formerly Java API for RESTful Web Services) is a Jakarta EE API specification that provides support in creating web services according to the Representational State Transfer (REST) architectural pattern.[1] JAX-RS uses annotations, introduced in Java SE 5, to simplify the development and deployment of web service clients and endpoints.
Original author(s) | Sun Microsystems |
---|---|
Developer(s) | Eclipse Foundation |
Stable release | 3.0
/ June 30, 2020 |
Repository | |
Written in | Java |
Operating system | Cross-platform |
Platform | Java |
Type | Application framework |
License | EPL 2.0 or GPL v2 w/Classpath exception |
Website | projects |
From version 1.1 on, JAX-RS is an official part of Java EE 6. A notable feature of being an official part of Java EE is that no configuration is necessary to start using JAX-RS. For non-Java EE 6 environments a small entry in the web.xml deployment descriptor is required.
Specification
JAX-RS provides some annotations to aid in mapping a resource class (a POJO) as a web resource. The annotations use the Java package javax.ws.rs
. They include:
@Path
specifies the relative path for a resource class or method.@GET
,@PUT
,@POST
,@DELETE
and@HEAD
specify the HTTP request type of a resource.@Produces
specifies the response Internet media types (used for content negotiation).@Consumes
specifies the accepted request Internet media types.
In addition, it provides further annotations to method parameters to pull information out of the request. All the @*Param
annotations take a key of some form which is used to look up the value required.
@PathParam
binds the method parameter to a path segment.@QueryParam
binds the method parameter to the value of an HTTP query parameter.@MatrixParam
binds the method parameter to the value of an HTTP matrix parameter.@HeaderParam
binds the method parameter to an HTTP header value.@CookieParam
binds the method parameter to a cookie value.@FormParam
binds the method parameter to a form value.@DefaultValue
specifies a default value for the above bindings when the key is not found.@Context
returns the entire context of the object (for example@Context HttpServletRequest request
).
JAX-RS 2.0
In January 2011 the JCP formed the JSR 339 expert group to work on JAX-RS 2.0. The main targets are (among others) a common client API and support for Hypermedia following the HATEOAS-principle of REST. In May 2013, it reached the Final Release stage.[2]
On 2017-08-22 JAX-RS 2.1[3] specification final release was published. Main new supported features include server-sent events, reactive clients, and JSON-B.[4]
Implementations
Implementations of JAX-RS include:[5]
- Apache CXF, an open source Web service framework
- Jersey, the reference implementation from Sun (now Oracle)
- RESTeasy, JBoss's implementation
- Restlet
- WebSphere Application Server from IBM:
- Version 7.0: via the "Feature Pack for Communications Enabled Applications"
- Version 8.0 onwards: natively
- WebLogic Application Server from Oracle, see notes
- Apache Tuscany (http://tuscany.apache.org/documentation-2x/sca-java-bindingrest.html), discontinued
- Cuubez framework (https://web.archive.org/web/20190707005602/http://cuubez.com/)
- Everrest, Codenvy's Implementation
- Jello-Framework, Java Application Framework optimized for Google App Engine, including a powerful RESTful engine and comprehensive Data Authorization model.
References
- Hadley, p. 1.
- "JSR 339: JAX-RS 2.0: The Java API for RESTful Web Services". Java Community Process.
- "JSR 370: Java API for RESTful Web Services (JAX-RS 2.1) Specification". Java Community Process.
- "JSR 367: Java API for JSON Binding (JSON-B)". Java Community Process.
- Little, Mark (October 1, 2008). "A Comparison of JAX-RS Implementations".
- Hadley, Marc and Paul Sandoz, eds. (September 17, 2009). JAX-RS: Java API for RESTful WebServices (version 1.1), Java Community Process