JVx already has REST services for action calls, data access an administration. Sometimes it's necessary to offer custom REST services for an application. Sure, you could create a simple action in your application and an action can be called with standard REST services, but this requires application authentication. If you have a different use-case for your REST service it's also possible to create your own REST service without using different libraries.

The easiest solution is to create a service class which is a servlet context listener. Why a listener? because we need an entry point to register our custom service. If you don't prefer a listener, it would also be possible to create a server plugin for JVx' server. But in this article, we use a servlet context listener.

Our class looks like:

package com.sibvisions.jvx;
 
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Map;
 
import javax.servlet.ServletContextEvent;
import javax.servlet.ServletContextListener;
 
import com.sibvisions.rad.server.config.Configuration;
import com.sibvisions.rad.server.config.Configuration.ApplicationListOption;
import com.sibvisions.rad.server.http.rest.service.AbstractCustomService;
import com.sibvisions.rad.server.http.rest.service.ICustomServiceGetDelegate;
import com.sibvisions.rad.server.http.rest.service.ICustomServicePostDelegate;
import com.sibvisions.rad.server.http.rest.service.UserService;
import com.sibvisions.util.OrderedHashtable;
 
@WebListener
public class CustomRESTServices implements ServletContextListener,
                                           ICustomServiceGetDelegate,
                                           ICustomServicePostDelegate
{
    /** the health check command. */
    private static final String CMD_HEALTHCHECK = "healthCheck";
 
 
    public void contextInitialized(ServletContextEvent pEvent) 
    {
        UserService.register(getApplicationName(), CMD_HEALTHCHECK, this);
    }
 
    public void contextDestroyed(ServletContextEvent pEvent) 
    {
        UserService.unregister(getApplicationName(), CMD_HEALTHCHECK, this);
    }
 
    public Object call(AbstractCustomService pService, String pApplicationName, String pAction, String pParameter)throws Throwable 
    {
        //GET request
 
        OrderedHashtable<String, String> ohtResult = new OrderedHashtable<String, String>();
 
        ohtResult.put("code", "SUCCESS");
        ohtResult.put("message", "GET is working!");
 
        return ohtResult;
    }
 
    public Object call(AbstractCustomService pService, String pApplicationName, String pAction, String pParameter, Map<String, Object> pInput) throws Throwable 
    {
        //POST request
 
        OrderedHashtable<String, Object> ohtResult = new OrderedHashtable<String, Object>();
 
        ohtResult.put("code", "SUCCESS");
        ohtResult.put("message", "POST is working!");
 
        if (pInput != null)
        {
            //adds the input to the output
            ohtResult.putAll(pInput);
        }
 
        return ohtResult;
    }
 
    private String getApplicationName()
    {
        List<String> list = Configuration.listApplicationNames(ApplicationListOption.All);
 
        if (list.size() == 1)
        {
            return list.get(0);
        }
        else
        {
            return "demo";
        }  
    }
}

If you won't define the context listener as @WebListener, simply add:

<listener>
  <listener-class>com.sibvisions.jvx.CustomRESTServices</listener-class>
</listener>

to your deployment descriptor (web.xml).

To use your services, simply send GET or POST requests, e.g.

@Test
public void testGet() throws Exception
{
    ClientResource cres = new ClientResource(getBaseURL() + "_user/healthCheck");    
    cres.get();
 
    HashMap<String, Object> hmpResult = (HashMap<String, Object>)JSONUtil.getObject(cres.getResponse().getEntity());
 
    Assert.assertEquals(200, cres.getStatus().getCode());
    Assert.assertEquals("SUCCESS", hmpResult.get("code"));
    Assert.assertEquals("GET is working!", hmpResult.get("message"));
    Assert.assertEquals(2, hmpResult.size());
}
 
@Test
public void testPost() throws Exception
{
    IBean bean = new Bean();
    bean.put("username", "@john.doe");
    bean.put("firstName", "John");
    bean.put("lastName", "Doe");
 
    ClientResource cres = new ClientResource(getBaseURL() + "_user/healthCheck");    
    cres.post(bean);
 
    HashMap<String, Object> hmpResult = (HashMap<String, Object>)JSONUtil.getObject(cres.getResponse().getEntity());
 
    Assert.assertEquals(200, cres.getStatus().getCode());
    Assert.assertEquals("SUCCESS", hmpResult.get("code"));
    Assert.assertEquals("POST is working!", hmpResult.get("message"));
    Assert.assertEquals(5, hmpResult.size());
    Assert.assertEquals(bean.get("username"), hmpResult.get("username"));
}

The user-zone is per default _zone (e.g. http://localhost/AppContext/services/rest/_user/healthCheck). If you want another zone name, simply add a parameter to the servlet mapping in deployment descriptor (web.xml):

<servlet>  
  <servlet-name>RestletServlet</servlet-name>  
  <servlet-class>com.sibvisions.rad.server.http.rest.RESTServlet</servlet-class>
 
  <init-param>
    <param-name>zone.user</param-name>
    <param-value>uzone</param-value>
  </init-param>
</servlet>

The zone name is now uzone (e.g. http://localhost/AppContext/services/rest/uzone/healthCheck).

The complete source code is available here.

In this document, we registered User services. It's also possible to register custom services as Admin services. The difference is that it's possible to en/disable admin services by name.