Your First Cup: An Introduction to the Java EE Platform

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3.2 Coding the dukes-age Example Application

This section describes how to code the dukes-age example application, a web application containing a JAX-RS RESTful web service endpoint.

3.2.1 Getting Started

Before you start coding the example, you need to perform some configuration tasks:

  1. Register the server with your NetBeans IDE as described in Configuring Your Environment.

  2. Install the Maven archetypes used to create the example applications.

3.2.1.1 Install the Maven Archetypes

Maven archetypes are templates that create the structure of a particular application. There are two archetypes included in the example, dukes-age-archetype and firstcup-war-archetype. These archetypes create Java EE 7 web applications that you will then edit and deploy.

Before you can create applications based on the archetypes, you must first install the archetypes and supporting projects to your local Maven repository.

  1. In NetBeans IDE select File, then Open Project, navigate to tut-install/, select example, deselect the Open Required Projects check box, and click Open Project.

  2. Right-click the firstcup project in the Projects pane and select Build.

The required projects, including the archetypes, will be built.

3.2.2 Creating the Web Service

The DukesAgeResource endpoint is a simple RESTful web service. REST stands for representational state transfer, and software architectures that conform to the principles of REST are referred to as RESTful. RESTful web services are web-based applications that use the HTTP protocol to access, modify, or delete information contained within a resource. A RESTful web service resource is a source of specific information identifiable by a uniform resource identifier (URI), for example http://example.com/someResource, and may be manipulated by calling the HTTP protocol's methods, for example GET or POST.

Web services are designed to be independent of their clients. Typically RESTful web services are publicly available to a wide variety of clients, and the clients are located throughout the Internet. This is called "loose coupling," as the clients and servers are connected only by the standard HTTP-based requests and responses, and do not need to know each other's implementation details. For this reason, dukes-age will be developed in its own application module and deployed separately from the DukesBirthdayBean enterprise bean and firstcup-war web client. dukes-age could be deployed on a completely different machine without affecting the functionality of the firstcup-war web client.

3.2.2.1 JAX-RS Resources

DukesAgeResource is a JAX-RS resource class that responds to HTTP GET requests and returns a String representing the age of Duke at the time of the request.

The basic DukesAgeResource resource class is generated from the dukes-age-archetype Maven archetype. This class is annotated with the javax.ws.rs.Path annotation, which specifies the URL suffix to which the resource will respond. DukesAgeResource has a single method, getText, annotated with the javax.ws.rs.GET and javax.ws.rs.Produces annotations. @GET marks the method as a responder to HTTP GET requests, and @Produces specifies the MIME-type of the response sent back from getText to clients. In this case, the MIME-type is text/plain.

3.2.2.2 Creating the dukes-age Application Using the Maven Archetype

In NetBeans IDE, create a new web project using the dukes-age-archetype Maven archetype.

Create the Project in NetBeans IDE 

  1. From the File menu, select New Project.

  2. Under Categories, select Maven.

  3. Under Projects, select Project from Archetype.

  4. Click Next.

  5. In the Search field, enter dukes-age.

  6. In the Known Archetypes field, select dukes-age-archetype.

  7. Click Next.

  8. In the Project Name field, enter dukes-age.

  9. In the Package field, enter firstcup.dukesage.resource.

  10. Click Finish.

    You should now see the module you created in the Projects tab. The project is created in the NetBeansProjects directory under your home directory.

The dukes-age-archetype archetype creates the structure of the JAX-RS endpoint application, including:

  • The DukesAgeResource resource class

  • The web.xml deployment descriptor

After you create the basic application structure with the archetype, you will configure how the application will run, implement the functionality of the resource class, and then deploy the application.

Configure the dukes-age Web Application

Set the default URL that is brought up in a web browser when you run dukes-age.

  1. In the Projects tab, right-click the dukes-age project and select Properties.

  2. Under Categories, click Run.

  3. Under Server select the GlassFish Server instance you configured.

  4. Under Relative URL enter /webapi/dukesAge.

  5. Click OK.

Implement the getText Method

Add code to DukesAgeResource.getText that calculates Duke's age at the time of the request. To do this, use the java.util.Calendar and java.util.GregorianCalendar classes to create an object representing the date May 23, 1995, Duke's birthday. Then create another Calendar object representing today's date, and subtract today's year from Duke's birth year. If today's date falls before May 23, subtract a year from this result. Then return the result as a String representation.

  1. Expand the Source Packages node, expand the firstcup.dukesage.resource node, then double-click the DukesAgeResource.java file to open it in the editor window.

  2. Highlight the current code in getText and replace it with the following code:

    // Create a new Calendar for Duke's birthday
Calendar dukesBirthday = new GregorianCalendar(1995, Calendar.MAY, 23);
// Create a new Calendar for today
Calendar now = GregorianCalendar.getInstance();

// Subtract today's year from Duke's birth year, 1995
int dukesAge = now.get(Calendar.YEAR) - dukesBirthday.get(Calendar.YEAR);
dukesBirthday.add(Calendar.YEAR, dukesAge);

// If today's date is before May 23, subtract a year from Duke's age
if (now.before(dukesBirthday)) {
    dukesAge--;
}
// Return a String representation of Duke's age
return "" + dukesAge;

  3. In the editor window, right-click and select Format.

  4. From the File menu, select Save to save the file.

3.2.2.3 Starting GlassFish Server and the Database Server

Follow these steps to start GlassFish Server and the Java DB database server.

  1. Click the Services tab.

  2. Expand Servers.

  3. Right-click the GlassFish Server instance and select Start.

    Both the database server and the GlassFish Server instance will start. In the tab where the GlassFish Server instance is running, you can see the contents of the server log.

3.2.2.4 Building and Deploying the Web Service Endpoint

Build dukes-age.war, the JAX-RS web application, and deploy it to your GlassFish Server instance.

In the Projects tab, right-click dukes-age and select Run.

After dukes-age.war deploys successfully to GlassFish Server, a web browser will load the URL of the DukesAgeResource path, and you'll see the returned String representing Duke's age.

At this point, you've successfully created, deployed, and run your first Java EE application. Now you will create a web application that uses this web service data.

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