This guide walks you through the process of creating a "Hello, Spring!" RESTful web service with Spring WebFlux (new as of Spring Boot 2.0) and then consumes that service with a WebClient (also new as of Spring Boot 2.0).
This guide shows the functional way of using Spring WebFlux. You can also use annotations with WebFlux. |
What You Will Build
You will build a RESTful web service with Spring Webflux and a WebClient consumer of that service. You will be able to see output in both System.out and at:
http://localhost:8080/hello
What You Will Need
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About 15 minutes
-
A favorite text editor or IDE
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JDK 1.8 or later
-
You can also import the code straight into your IDE:
How to complete this guide
Like most Spring Getting Started guides, you can start from scratch and complete each step or you can bypass basic setup steps that are already familiar to you. Either way, you end up with working code.
To start from scratch, move on to Starting with Spring Initializr.
To skip the basics, do the following:
-
Download and unzip the source repository for this guide, or clone it using Git:
git clone https://github.com/spring-guides/gs-reactive-rest-service.git
-
cd into
gs-reactive-rest-service/initial
-
Jump ahead to Create a WebFlux Handler.
When you finish, you can check your results against the code in gs-reactive-rest-service/complete
.
Starting with Spring Initializr
You can use this pre-initialized project and click Generate to download a ZIP file. This project is configured to fit the examples in this tutorial.
To manually initialize the project:
-
Navigate to https://start.spring.io. This service pulls in all the dependencies you need for an application and does most of the setup for you.
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Choose either Gradle or Maven and the language you want to use. This guide assumes that you chose Java.
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Click Dependencies and select Spring Reactive Web.
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Click Generate.
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Download the resulting ZIP file, which is an archive of a web application that is configured with your choices.
If your IDE has the Spring Initializr integration, you can complete this process from your IDE. |
You can also fork the project from Github and open it in your IDE or other editor. |
Create a WebFlux Handler
We’re going to start with a Greeting
POJO that will be serialized as JSON by our RESTful service:
src/main/java/hello/Greeting.java
package hello;
public class Greeting {
private String message;
public Greeting() {
}
public Greeting(String message) {
this.message = message;
}
public String getMessage() {
return this.message;
}
public void setMessage(String message) {
this.message = message;
}
@Override
public String toString() {
return "Greeting{" +
"message='" + message + '\'' +
'}';
}
}
In the Spring Reactive approach, we use a handler to handle the request and create a response, as shown in the following example:
src/main/java/hello/GreetingHandler.java
package hello;
import org.springframework.http.MediaType;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Component;
import org.springframework.web.reactive.function.BodyInserters;
import org.springframework.web.reactive.function.server.ServerRequest;
import org.springframework.web.reactive.function.server.ServerResponse;
import reactor.core.publisher.Mono;
@Component
public class GreetingHandler {
public Mono<ServerResponse> hello(ServerRequest request) {
return ServerResponse.ok().contentType(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON)
.body(BodyInserters.fromValue(new Greeting("Hello, Spring!")));
}
}
This simple reactive class always returns a JSON body with a “Hello, Spring!” greeting. It could return many other things, including a stream of items from a database, a stream of items that were generated by calculations, and so on. Note the reactive code: a Mono
object that holds a ServerResponse
body.
Create a Router
In this application, we use a router to handle the only route we expose (/hello
), as shown in the following example:
src/main/java/hello/GreetingRouter.java
package hello;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;
import org.springframework.http.MediaType;
import org.springframework.web.reactive.function.server.RouterFunction;
import org.springframework.web.reactive.function.server.RouterFunctions;
import org.springframework.web.reactive.function.server.ServerResponse;
import static org.springframework.web.reactive.function.server.RequestPredicates.GET;
import static org.springframework.web.reactive.function.server.RequestPredicates.accept;
@Configuration(proxyBeanMethods = false)
public class GreetingRouter {
@Bean
public RouterFunction<ServerResponse> route(GreetingHandler greetingHandler) {
return RouterFunctions
.route(GET("/hello").and(accept(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON)), greetingHandler::hello);
}
}
The router listens for traffic on the /hello
path and returns the value provided by our reactive handler class.
Create a WebClient
The Spring RestTemplate
class is, by nature, blocking. Consequently, we do not want to use it in a reactive application. For reactive applications, Spring offers the WebClient
class, which is non-blocking. We use a WebClient-based implementation to consume our RESTful service:
src/main/java/hello/GreetingClient.java
package hello;
import reactor.core.publisher.Mono;
import org.springframework.http.MediaType;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Component;
import org.springframework.web.reactive.function.client.WebClient;
@Component
public class GreetingClient {
private final WebClient client;
// Spring Boot auto-configures a `WebClient.Builder` instance with nice defaults and customizations.
// We can use it to create a dedicated `WebClient` for our component.
public GreetingClient(WebClient.Builder builder) {
this.client = builder.baseUrl("http://localhost:8080").build();
}
public Mono<String> getMessage() {
return this.client.get().uri("/hello").accept(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON)
.retrieve()
.bodyToMono(Greeting.class)
.map(Greeting::getMessage);
}
}
The WebClient
class uses reactive features, in the form of a Mono
to hold the content of the message (returned by the getMessage
method). This is using a function API, rather than an imperative one, to chain reactive operators.
It can take time to get used to Reactive APIs, but the WebClient
has interesting features and can also be used in traditional Spring MVC applications.
You can use WebClient to communicate with non-reactive, blocking services, too. |
Make the Application Executable
We’re going to use the main()
method to drive our application and get the Greeting message from our endpoint.
src/main/java/hello/Application.java
package hello;
import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;
import org.springframework.context.ConfigurableApplicationContext;
@SpringBootApplication
public class Application {
public static void main(String[] args) {
ConfigurableApplicationContext context = SpringApplication.run(Application.class, args);
GreetingClient greetingClient = context.getBean(GreetingClient.class);
// We need to block for the content here or the JVM might exit before the message is logged
System.out.println(">> message = " + greetingClient.getMessage().block());
}
}
@SpringBootApplication
is a convenience annotation that adds all of the following:
-
@Configuration
: Tags the class as a source of bean definitions for the application context. -
@EnableAutoConfiguration
: Tells Spring Boot to start adding beans based on classpath settings, other beans, and various property settings. For example, ifspring-webmvc
is on the classpath, this annotation flags the application as a web application and activates key behaviors, such as setting up aDispatcherServlet
. -
@ComponentScan
: Tells Spring to look for other components, configurations, and services in thehello
package, letting it find the controllers.
The main()
method uses Spring Boot’s SpringApplication.run()
method to launch an application. Did you notice that there was not a single line of XML? There is no web.xml
file, either. This web application is 100% pure Java and you did not have to deal with configuring any plumbing or infrastructure.
Build an executable JAR
You can run the application from the command line with Gradle or Maven. You can also build a single executable JAR file that contains all the necessary dependencies, classes, and resources and run that. Building an executable jar makes it easy to ship, version, and deploy the service as an application throughout the development lifecycle, across different environments, and so forth.
If you use Gradle, you can run the application by using ./gradlew bootRun
. Alternatively, you can build the JAR file by using ./gradlew build
and then run the JAR file, as follows:
If you use Maven, you can run the application by using ./mvnw spring-boot:run
. Alternatively, you can build the JAR file with ./mvnw clean package
and then run the JAR file, as follows:
The steps described here create a runnable JAR. You can also build a classic WAR file. |
Logging output is displayed. The service should be up and running within a few seconds.
Once the service has started, you can see a line that reads:
>> message = Hello, Spring!
That line comes from the reactive content being consumed by the WebClient. Naturally, you can find something more interesting to do with your output than put it in System.out.
Test the Application
Now that the application is running, you can test it. To start with, you can open a browser and go to http://localhost:8080/hello
and see, “Hello, Spring!” For this guide, we also created a test class to get you started on testing with the WebTestClient
class.
src/test/java/hello/GreetingRouterTest.java
package hello;
import org.junit.jupiter.api.Test;
import org.junit.jupiter.api.extension.ExtendWith;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.boot.test.context.SpringBootTest;
import org.springframework.http.MediaType;
import org.springframework.test.context.junit.jupiter.SpringExtension;
import org.springframework.test.web.reactive.server.WebTestClient;
import static org.assertj.core.api.Assertions.assertThat;
@ExtendWith(SpringExtension.class)
// We create a `@SpringBootTest`, starting an actual server on a `RANDOM_PORT`
@SpringBootTest(webEnvironment = SpringBootTest.WebEnvironment.RANDOM_PORT)
public class GreetingRouterTest {
// Spring Boot will create a `WebTestClient` for you,
// already configure and ready to issue requests against "localhost:RANDOM_PORT"
@Autowired
private WebTestClient webTestClient;
@Test
public void testHello() {
webTestClient
// Create a GET request to test an endpoint
.get().uri("/hello")
.accept(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON)
.exchange()
// and use the dedicated DSL to test assertions against the response
.expectStatus().isOk()
.expectBody(Greeting.class).value(greeting -> {
assertThat(greeting.getMessage()).isEqualTo("Hello, Spring!");
});
}
}
Summary
Congratulations! You have developed a Reactive Spring application that includes a WebClient to consume a RESTful service!
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All guides are released with an ASLv2 license for the code, and an Attribution, NoDerivatives creative commons license for the writing. |