Spring Boot Hello World REST API

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In the previous article, we had a quick overview of Spring Boot and its key features. In this article, we will learn how to develop a simple Hello World REST API using Spring Boot. We use Maven to build this project since most IDEs support it.

We will use the latest version of Spring boot and make sure that you have installed Java 8+ on your machine.

Let's get started with our objective of what we will build?.

What we’ll build?

We’ll build a REST API that will accept HTTP GET requests at:

http://localhost:8080/hello-world

and respond with a response String "Hello World!"

Hello World!

Tools and Technologies Used

• Spring Boot - 3
• JDK - 17 or later
• Maven - 3.2+
• IDE - Eclipse or Spring Tool Suite (STS)

1. Create Spring Boot Project

Spring Boot provides a web tool called https://start.spring.io to bootstrap an application quickly. Just go to https://start.spring.io and generate a new spring boot project.

Use the below details in the Spring boot project creation:

Project Name: springboot-first-app

Project Type: Maven

Choose dependencies: Spring Web

Package name: com.springboot.app

Once, all the details are entered, click on Generate Project button will generate a spring boot project and downloads it. Next, Unzip the downloaded zip file and import it into your favorite Eclipse STS IDE.

2. Maven Dependencies

Here is the complete pom.xml file for your reference:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
	xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 https://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
	<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
	<parent>
		<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
		<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
		<version>3.0.4</version>
		<relativePath/> <!-- lookup parent from repository -->
	</parent>
	<groupId>com.springboot.app</groupId>
	<artifactId>springboot-first-app</artifactId>
	<version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
	<name>springboot-first-app</name>
	<description>Spring Boot First Application</description>
	<properties>
		<java.version>17</java.version>
	</properties>
	<dependencies>
		<dependency>
			<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
			<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
		</dependency>

		<dependency>
			<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
			<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
			<scope>test</scope>
		</dependency>
	</dependencies>

	<build>
		<plugins>
			<plugin>
				<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
				<artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
			</plugin>
		</plugins>
	</build>

</project>

From the above pom.xml, let's understand a few important spring boot dependencies and plugins.

spring-boot-starter-parent

All Spring Boot projects typically use spring-boot-starter-parent as the parent in pom.xml.

    <parent>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
        <version>3.0.4</version>
    </parent>

Parent Poms allow you to manage the following things for multiple child projects and modules:

• Configuration - Java Version and Other Properties
• Dependency Management - Version of dependencies
• Default Plugin Configuration

The spring-boot-starter-web Starter:

We use spring-boot-starter-web dependency to develop RESTful web services.

This dependency provides a tomcat server as the default embedded container:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
</dependency>

Spring Boot Maven plugin

The Spring Boot Maven plugin provides many convenient features:

• It collects all the jars on the classpath and builds a single, runnable "über-jar", which makes it more convenient to execute and transport your service.
• It searches for the public static void main() method to flag as a runnable class.
• It provides a built-in dependency resolver that sets the version number to match Spring Boot dependencies. You can override any version you wish, but it will default to Boot’s chosen set of versions.

The spring-boot-starter-test dependency will get automatically added to the Spring boot project for creating JUnit test cases but in this article, we are not going to focus on JUnit test cases.

3. Spring Boot Hello World REST API

Let's create a HelloWorldController class and the below code to it:

package com.springboot.first.app;

import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.GetMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RestController;

@RestController
public class HelloWorldController {
	
	// GET HTTP Method
	// http://localhost:8080/hello-world
	@GetMapping("/hello-world")
	public String helloWorld() {
		return "Hello World!";
	}
}

• The above code uses Spring 4’s new @RestController annotation, which marks the class as a controller where every method returns a domain object instead of a view. It’s shorthand for @Controller and @ResponseBody rolled together.
• @GetMapping annotation for mapping HTTP GET requests onto specific handler methods. Specifically, @GetMapping is a composed annotation that acts as a shortcut for @RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.GET).

4. Run Spring Boot Application

The below class SpringbootFirstAppApplication is the entry point that sets up the Spring Boot application. The @SpringBootApplication annotation enables auto-configuration and component scanning.

package com.springboot.first.app;

import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;

@SpringBootApplication
public class SpringbootFirstAppApplication {
	public static void main(String[] args) {
		SpringApplication.run(SpringbootFirstAppApplication.class, args);
	}
}

@SpringBootApplication is a convenience annotation that adds all of the following annotations internally:

• @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. Normally you would add @EnableWebMvc for a Spring MVC app, but Spring Boot adds it automatically when it sees spring-webmvc on the classpath. This flags the application as a web application and activates key behaviors such as setting up a DispatcherServlet.

• @ComponentScan tells Spring to look for other components, configurations, and services in the hello package, allowing it to find the controllers. 

The main() method uses Spring Boot’s SpringApplication.run() method to launch an application. Did you notice that there wasn’t a single line of XML? No web.xml file either. This web application is 100% pure Java and you didn’t have to deal with configuring any plumbing or infrastructure.

Run spring boot application from the IDE:

From your IDE, run the SpringbootFirstAppApplication.main() method as a standalone Java class that will start the embedded Tomcat server on port 8080 and point the browser to http://localhost:8080/.

Run the spring boot application using the command line:

Just go to the root directory of the application and type the following command to run it -

$ mvn spring-boot:run

The application will start at Spring Boot’s default tomcat port 8080.

Just hit this link in a browser: http://localhost:8080/hello-world. You will be able to see the response of this REST API in the browser.

What's Next?

In the next tutorial, we will discuss how to create a standard spring boot project structure or packaging structure.

 Learn more complete Spring Boot on Spring Boot Tutorial

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@Configuration