Spring Data REST: Override repository method on the controller

Question

I have the following REST repository, whose implementation is generated at runtime by Spring.

@RepositoryRestResource public interface FooRepository extends CrudRepository<Foo, Long> {  } 

This means that I will have save(), find(), exists() and other methods available and exposed via REST.

Now, I would like to override one of the methods; for example, save(). For that, I would create a controller exposing that method, like so:

@RepositoryRestController @RequestMapping("/foo") public class FooController {      @Autowired     FooService fooService;       @RequestMapping(value = "/{fooId}", method = RequestMethod.PUT)     public void updateFoo(@PathVariable Long fooId) {         fooService.updateProperly(fooId);     }  } 

The problem: If I enable this controller, then all of the other methods implemented by Spring are not exposed anymore. So, for example, I can no longer do a GET request to /foo/1

Question: Is there a way of overriding REST methods while still keeping the other auto-generated Spring methods?

Extra info:

1. This question seems very similar: Spring Data Rest: Override Method in RestController with same request-mapping-path ... but I don't want to change the path to something like /foo/1/save

2. I thought of using a @RepositoryEventHandler but I'm not very fond of that idea because I would like to encapsulate it under a service. Also, you seem to lose control of the transaction context.

3. This part of the Spring Data documentation says the following:

   Sometimes you may want to write a custom handler for a specific resource. To take advantage of Spring Data REST’s settings, message converters, exception handling, and more, use the @RepositoryRestController annotation instead of a standard Spring MVC @Controller or @RestController

so it seems that it should work out of the box, but unfortunately not.

Answer 1

Is there a way of overriding REST methods while still keeping the other auto-generated Spring methods?

Look at the example in the documentation carefully: while not explicitly forbidding class-level requestmapping, it uses method-level requestmapping. I'm not sure if this is the wanted behavior or a bug, but as far as I know this is the only way to make it work, as stated here.

Just change your controller to:

@RepositoryRestController public class FooController {      @Autowired     FooService fooService;      @RequestMapping(value = "/foo/{fooId}", method = RequestMethod.PUT)     public void updateFoo(@PathVariable Long fooId) {         fooService.updateProperly(fooId);     }      // edited after Sergey's comment     @RequestMapping(value = "/foo/{fooId}", method = RequestMethod.PUT)     public RequestEntity<Void> updateFoo(@PathVariable Long fooId) {         fooService.updateProperly(fooId);          return ResponseEntity.ok().build(); // simplest use of a ResponseEntity     } } 

Answer 2

Let's imagine we have an Account entity:

@Entity public class Account implements Identifiable<Integer>, Serializable {      private static final long serialVersionUID = -3187480027431265380L;      @Id     private Integer id;     private String name;      public Account(Integer id, String name) {         this.id = id;         this.name = name;     }      public void setId(Integer id) {         this.id = id;     }      @Override     public Integer getId() {         return id;     }      public String getName() {         return name;     }      public void setName(String name) {         this.name = name;     } } 

With an AccountRepository exposing its CRUD endpoints on /accounts:

@RepositoryRestResource(collectionResourceRel = "accounts", path = "accounts") public interface AccountRepository extends CrudRepository<Account, Integer> { }  

And an AccountController that overrides the default GET endpoint form AccountRepository.:

@RepositoryRestController public class AccountController {     private PagedResourcesAssembler<Account> pagedAssembler;      @Autowired     public AccountController(PagedResourcesAssembler<Account> pagedAssembler) {         this.pagedAssembler = pagedAssembler;     }      private Page<Account> getAccounts(Pageable pageRequest){         int totalAccounts= 50;         List<Account> accountList = IntStream.rangeClosed(1, totalAccounts)                                              .boxed()                                              .map( value -> new Account(value, value.toString()))                                              .skip(pageRequest.getOffset())                                              .limit(pageRequest.getPageSize())                                              .collect(Collectors.toList());         return new PageImpl(accountList, pageRequest, totalAccounts);     }      @RequestMapping(method= RequestMethod.GET, path="/accounts", produces = "application/hal+json")     public ResponseEntity<Page<Account>> getAccountsHal(Pageable pageRequest, PersistentEntityResourceAssembler assembler){         return new ResponseEntity(pagedAssembler.toResource(getAccounts(pageRequest), (ResourceAssembler) assembler), HttpStatus.OK);     } 

If you invoke the GET /accounts?size=5&page=0 you will get the following output which is using the mock implementation:

{   "_embedded": {     "accounts": [       {         "name": "1",         "_links": {           "self": {             "href": "http://localhost:8080/accounts/1"           },           "account": {             "href": "http://localhost:8080/accounts/1"           }         }       },       {         "name": "2",         "_links": {           "self": {             "href": "http://localhost:8080/accounts/2"           },           "account": {             "href": "http://localhost:8080/accounts/2"           }         }       },       {         "name": "3",         "_links": {           "self": {             "href": "http://localhost:8080/accounts/3"           },           "account": {             "href": "http://localhost:8080/accounts/3"           }         }       },       {         "name": "4",         "_links": {           "self": {             "href": "http://localhost:8080/accounts/4"           },           "account": {             "href": "http://localhost:8080/accounts/4"           }         }       },       {         "name": "5",         "_links": {           "self": {             "href": "http://localhost:8080/accounts/5"           },           "account": {             "href": "http://localhost:8080/accounts/5"           }         }       }     ]   },   "_links": {     "first": {       "href": "http://localhost:8080/accounts?page=0&size=5"     },     "self": {       "href": "http://localhost:8080/accounts?page=0&size=5"     },     "next": {       "href": "http://localhost:8080/accounts?page=1&size=5"     },     "last": {       "href": "http://localhost:8080/accounts?page=9&size=5"     }   },   "page": {     "size": 5,     "totalElements": 50,     "totalPages": 10,     "number": 0   } } 

Just for the sake of completeness, the POM could be configured with the following parent and dependencies:

<parent>         <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>         <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>         <version>1.5.2.RELEASE</version>     </parent>     <dependencies>         <dependency>             <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>             <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>         </dependency>         <dependency>             <groupId>org.springframework.data</groupId>             <artifactId>spring-data-rest-webmvc</artifactId>             <version>2.6.1.RELEASE</version>         </dependency>         <dependency>             <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>             <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-jpa</artifactId>         </dependency>         <dependency>             <groupId>com.h2database</groupId>             <artifactId>h2</artifactId>         </dependency>     </dependencies>