I was wondering how to correctly implement a Spring Controller which is supposed to serve as a REST Service. Especially I want to try and make the interface as RESTful as possible. Also i'd like to make use of HTTP Error codes so my Clients can act accordingly.
I was wondering how to implement my Methods, so they return JSON if everything works fine(in the body of the response) or toss a http error code as well as a custom reason why it didnt work(maybe errors that came from the DAO or the database). However I'm not sure which one is the right way? return a String and add the values to return to a Model, or return a HashMap and put my stuff in there? or return the objects directly? but then what if an error occures and i cannot return said Class? return null instead? I post 2-3 ways of doing it that i could imagine:
@RequestMapping(value="/addUser", method= RequestMethod.POST)
public String addUser(@RequestBody User user, HttpServletResponse response, Model model) throws Exception{
try{
userService.addUser(user);
model.addAttribute("user", userService.getUser(user.getUsername(), user.getPassword()));
return "user";
}catch(Exception e){
model.addAttribute("error", e.toString());
response.sendError(HttpServletResponse.SC_INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR, e.toString());
return "error";
}
}
Or rather this way:
@RequestMapping(value="/addUser", method= RequestMethod.POST)
public @ResponseBody Map addUser(@RequestBody User user, HttpServletResponse response){
Map map = new HashMap();
try{
userService.addUser(user);
map.put("success", true);
map.put("username", user.getUsername());
}catch (KeyAlreadyExistsException e){
map.put("success", false);
map.put("Error", e.toString());
response.sendError(HttpServletResponse.SC_FORBIDDEN, e.toString());
}catch(Exception e){
map.put("success", false);
map.put("Error", e.toString());
response.sendError(HttpServletResponse.SC_INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR, e.toString());
}
finally {
return map;
}
}
I realize code is not "just right" but i cannot figure out how to make it the way it needs to be. Maybe some experiences responses would help? Thx for the support already