RESTful Basics Tutorial with Examples

In this tutorial, you will learn everything about REST and how to implement REST APIs using Java.

What is REST?

The REST stands for REpresentational State Transfer

•  State means data
•  REpresentational means formats (such as XML, JSON, YAML, HTML, etc)
•  Transfer means carry data between consumer and provider using the HTTP protocol

A REST API is an intermediary Application Programming Interface that enables two applications to communicate with each other over HTTP, much like how servers communicate to browsers.

The REST architectural style has quickly become very popular over the world for designing and architecting applications that can communicate. 

In Java, we use JAX-RS APIs to build RESTful APIs. The JAX-RS is an API specification so we can use either Jersey or RestEasy framework as JAX-RS implementation to build RESTful web services.

REST API Tutorial for beginners at https://www.javaguides.net/p/rest-api-tutorial.html

1. REST Basics

• Overview of REST
• What is Payload in REST API? // New
  
• REST API - HTTP Methods  // Popular
• REST API - HTTP Status Codes  // Popular
• Advantages of REST
• REST API - REST Architectural Constraints  // Popular
• REST API - REST Architectural Properties
• REST API - REST Architectural Elements
• Difference Between SOAP vs REST Web Services

2. Design REST API Guide

• How to Identify REST Resources
• How to Design URL to REST Resource  // Popular
• How to Assign HTTP methods to REST Resources
• How to Model JSON Representation Format  // Popular
• What HTTP Status Code to Return

3. Rest API Design Best Practices

• Restful API Design Best Practices  // Popular

4. Build REST API with Jersey Rest Framework

• Jersey Rest Hello World Example
• Jersey JAX-RS Restful CRUD Web Services Example  // Popular
• Jersey Rest Developer Guide

5. Build REST API using JAX-RS RESTEasy Framework

• RESTEasy Hello World Example Tutorial  // Popular
• RESTEasy JAX-RS Get, POST, PUT and DELETE Tutorial  // Popular
• RESTEasy Client for GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE RESTFul APIs

6. Build REST API using Spring Boot

• Spring Boot, MySQL, JPA, Hibernate Restful CRUD API Tutorial // Popular
• Spring Boot 2 JPA MySQL CRUD Example
• Spring Boot 2 Hello World Application
• Spring Boot 2 CRUD REST APIs Validation Example // Popular
• Spring Data JPA Auditing with Spring Boot 2 and MySQL Example
• Spring Boot 2 Exception Handling for REST APIs // Popular
• Spring Boot 2 Logging SLF4j Logback and LOG4j2 Example
• Spring Boot 2 + Jersey REST + JPA + Hibernate 5 CRUD REST APIs Example
• Spring Boot 2 RESTful API Documentation with Swagger 2 Tutorial // Popular
• Spring Boot 2 - File Upload and Download Rest API Tutorial // Popular