add item to the collection with foreign key via REST call

Question

I have 2 jpa entities with bidirectional associasion.

Entity Container that holds collection of items (oneToMany) Ommiting getter/setters

@javax.persistence.Entity
@Table(name = "CONTAINER")
public class Container implements Serializable {
    private static final long serialVersionUID = -3288335692695653843L;

    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.IDENTITY)
    @Column(name = "ID")
    private Long id;

    @OneToMany(fetch = FetchType.LAZY, mappedBy = "container", cascade = CascadeType.ALL)
    private List<Item> items;

}

Entity Item contains reference back to the container (ManyToOne), with attributes value and date. Ommiting setter/getters

@javax.persistence.Entity
@Table(name = "ITEM")
public class Item implements Serializable {

    private static final long serialVersionUID = -758343957629274274L;

    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.IDENTITY)
    @Column(name = "ID")
    private Long id;

    @Basic
    private Long value;
    @Basic
    private Date date;

    @ManyToOne(fetch = FetchType.EAGER)
    @JoinColumn(name = "CONTAINER_ID")
    private Container container;
}

Also i am using spring-data repositories to expose data.

My Interface repositories just extends CrudRepository<Container, Long> and CrudRepository<Item, Long>

@RepositoryRestResource
public interface ItemRepository extends CrudRepository<Item, Long> {
}

@RepositoryRestResource
public interface ContainerRepository extends CrudRepository<Container, Long> {
}

I am trying to create items via REST calls.

First i tried this on items repository rest/items

POST { "value" : 666, "date" : "2016-01-31T23:00:00.000+0000", "container": {"id":"1"}}

But it just creates item with null reference on container.

When i try to add via container repository rest/containers/1/items

POST { "value" : 666, "date" : "2016-01-31T23:00:00.000+0000", "container": {"id":"1"}}

I get HTTP/1.1 204 No Content and <Response body is empty>. No instance is created.

My question is how i can add item via REST call that has reference to the container.

EDIT: To specify my question, i want to add new item for the existing container. I am not sure how to deal with with foreign ID key when creating instance of Item via rest(json)

Answer 1

I resolved this issue by using link to the container inside json.

POST { "value" : 666, "date" : "2016-01-31T23:00:00.000+0000","container":"http://localhost:8080/container/1"}

I am not sure if it works without spring-data-rest

EDIT: I should point out, that linked resource has to be @RepositoryRestResource and should be aggregate root.