How to consume REST URLs using Spring MVC?

Question

I have developed few RESTful methods and exposed them via Apache Cxf

I'm developing the client side application using Spring MVC and I'm looking for a simple example to demonstrate how to call/consume these REST methods using Spring MVC

I know how to do it using Apache http client but prefer to use Spring MVC in case such this has already been implemented there.

Answer 1

Spring provides simple wrapper to consume RESTful services called RestTemplate. It performs path variable resolution, marshalling and unmarshalling:

Map<String, Integer> vars = new HashMap<String, Integer>();
vars.put("hotelId", 42);
vars.put("roomId", 13);
Room room = restTemplate.getForObject(
  "http://example.com/hotels/{hotelId}/rooms/{roomId}", 
  Room.class, vars);

Assuming Room is a JAXB object which can be understood by The RestTemplate.

Note that this class has nothing to do with Spring MVC. You can use it in MVC application, but also in a standalone app. It is a client library.

See also

• REST in Spring 3: RestTemplate