[Spring] Spring Data REST Configuration, Pagination and Sorting

REST Endpoints

REST CRUD APIs(11)

• By default, Spring Data REST will create endpoints based on entity type
• Simple pluralized form
  • First character of Entity type is lowercase
  • Then just adds an “s” to the entity

public interface EmployeeRepository extends JpaRepository<Employee, Integer>{
 // the Employee -> /employees <- "s"
}

Pluralized Form

• Spring Data REST pluralized form is VERY simple
  • Just adds an “s” to the entity
• The English language is VERY complex!
  • Spring Data REST does NOT handle

Singular	Plural
Goose	Geese
person	People
Sylabus	Syllabi

Problem

• Spring Data REST does not handle complex pluralized forms
  • In this case, you need to specify plural name
• What if we want to expose a different resource name?
  • Instead of / employees .. use/members

Solution

• Specify plural name / path with an annotation

  @RepositoryRestResource(path="members")
  public interface EmployeeRepository extends JpaRepository<Employee, Integer> {
   -> http://localhost:8080/members 
  }
  

Pagination

• By default, Spring Data REST will return the first 20 elements
  • Page size = 20
• You can navigate to the different pages of data using query param
  • http://localhost:8080/employees?page=0 <- Pages are zero-based
  • http://localhost:8080/employees?page=1

Spring Data REST Configuration

• Following properties available: application.properties

Name	Description
spring.data.rest.base-path	Base path used to expose repository resources
spring.data.rest.default-page-size	Default size of pages
spring.data.rest.max-page-size	Maximum size of pages
….	…

Sample Configuration

File: application.properties
spring.data.rest.base-path=/magic-api <- http://localhost:8080/magic-api/employees
spring.data.rest.default-page-size=50 <- Returns 50 elements per page

Sorting

• You can sort by the property names of your entity
  • In our Employee example, we have: firstName, lastName and email
• Sort by last name (ascending is default) http://localhost:8080/employees?sort=lastName
• Sort by first name, descending http://localhost:8080/employees?sort=firstName,desc
• Sort by last name, then first name, ascending http://localhost:8080/employees?sort=lastname.firstName,asc

Configuration, Pagination, Soritng

Meta-data-about the page

Remember page numbers are zero-based

Sort by last name

• http://localhost:8080/magic-api/employees?sort=lastName
• http://localhost:8080/magic-api/employees?sort=lastName,descending