Cloud Based Web
Applications
Week 5
Amilcar Aponte
amilcar@cct.ie
Last week
• Starting with SPRING
Today’s Plan
• More SPRING
Acknowledgment
• David Gonzalez, who is teaching this module to the part time group,
as the brain behind these slides.
• I just put them together in a nice-ish format
Annotations in Java
• You’ve probably have notice in you java programs that some methods
must include something like
• @Override
• @Test
• Last week in the code generated by SPRING we got
• @SpringBootApplication
Annotations in Java
• This “Tags” are called annotations
• They are “a form of metadata, provide data about a program that is
not part of the program itself. Annotations have no direct effect on
the operation of the code they annotate.”
• https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/annotations/
Annotations in Java
• In other words:
• We can provide the compiler with some information about the methods or
classes
• We can also give the compiler information to be used at compile-time or
deployment-time
• Some annotations are available to be examined at runtime
• https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/annotations/
Our First Annotation
• Notice that the program we used last week has already one annotation
• @SpringBootApplication
• This tag is telling the compiler that this is the main method and the
program starts here. It has also some other implications, but we won’t go
down that road
• https://docs.spring.io/spring-boot/docs/current/reference/html/using-
boot-using-springbootapplication-annotation.html
Our Second Annotation
• Using the same project that we started last week, go to your
FirstProgramApplication.java
• Add a new annotation after the first one
• @ComponentScan(“ie.cct”)
• Notice that “ie.cct” can change depending on the project your
working on
Our Second Annotation
• This annotation is telling the compiler that there are other folders
that need to be scanned as they also have some important code
• Spring is going to be able to find all of the meta data (other
annotations) defined around.
• It is going to do an index of the different possible path that can be
followed
Before we move on…
• Remember your HTTP codes from last week?
• Make sure you know them. Not all of them, but at least the categories
• HTTP has also different methods
• GET
• DELETE
• POST
• UPDATE
• PATCH
GET Method
• Every time you open a web page, your browser is performing a GET
request to a particular URL.
• Do a quick research of what other methods are available in the HTTP
protocol
• Make sure you know the important ones
What does it have to do with us?
• Remember the architecture I showed you last week?
• Clients are going to connecting to those microservises through GET
requests on HTTP
HTML / JS HTML / JS
Microservices
Web Browser
Client Server
Handlers
• We need to be able to and handle those requests as they come
• http://my.domain.com/pretty
• http://my.domain.com/ugly
• http://my.domain.com/terribly/adorable
Handlers
• We’ll use two annotations to define what to do when those requests
come along
• @RestController
• This annotation is telling SPRING that the following class has all the
instructions of what to do when the requests come to server
• @GetMapping(“/mylocation”)
• This annotation is telling SPRING that this method is the one that must run
when there is a request on http://my.domain.com/location
Handlers
• Notice that the first one applies to a class and the second one applies
to a method
Finally, let’s code
• Create another folder called “controllers” beside your “firstprogram”
folder
• Add a new file in the new folder called “MyFirstController.java”
The code
package ie.cct.controllers;
public class MyFirstController{
• Notice the package declaration. Like in any Java program we need to
specify in what folder this code lives.
• If you don’t quite get this. Let me know!
Let’s add some fun
• The code highlighted in yellow
package com.example.controllers; is what we’ll add
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.GetMapping; • An annotation to tell the
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RestController; compiler this is the REST
@RestController controller
public class HelloController{
• A method to handle requests to
@GetMapping("/hello") http://my.domain.com/hello
public String hello(){
return "Hello CCT";
}
} • The code highlighted in green
should be added
automatically by the editor
Try it!
• Once you have the code, run the program, go to your web browser
and open
• http://localhost:8080/hello
• Do you remember what other ways we did last week to open the
same page?
• Using your phone (connected to the same WIFI)
• Using curl
What is REST?
• You might be wondering now what is REST
• REpresentational
• State
• Transfer
• It is a software architectural style that defines a set of rules for web
services.
• The most APIs now a days are RESTful.
REST
• What we are doing here is to write a RESTful API for our microservices
• Do a quick research on what are the characteristics of a REST (or
RESTful) API
Exercise
• Create another method for http://localhost:8080/my/name that
returns your name
That’s all folks
• Any questions?
