Introduction To HATEOAS

HATEOAS is short for Hypermedia as the Engine of Application State.

• It is a component of the REST application architecture that distinguishes it from other network application architectures. "Hypermedia" is a term referring to any content that contains links to other forms of media such as images, movies, and text.

• It facilitates easy creation of REST representations by some APIs that follow the HATEOAS principle when working with Spring and especially Spring MVC.

• In REST architectural style we can use the hypermedia links in the response contents. It means by traversing the hypermedia links, the client can dynamically navigate to the appropriate resources.

• Navigating hypermedia links is works on the similar concept of a web user browsing through web pages by clicking the relevant hyperlinks to achieve a final goal.

Let's look at an example. Assuming that we have a REST service that provides different product descriptions; think about some e-commerce websites. If we get a JSON response with a product from that website with the help of HATEOAS, it could look something like this - 

Also Read: Improving User Experiences With Progressive Web App

{
    "productId": 123
    "productName": "Refrigerator",
    "description": "The best Refrigerator on the planet."
    "links": [{
        "rel": "self",
        "href": "http://localhost:8080/super-shop/api/products/123"

    }, {
        "rel": "details",
        "href": "http://localhost:8080/super-shop/api/products/123/details"

    }, {
        "rel": "addToCart",
        "href": "http://localhost:8080/super-shop/api/addToCart/123"

    }]
}

From above Example, we could see few links added which is an array of list to that JSON. In that particular links we have two fields 

1. rel

2. href

1. rel –

It stands for ‘relationship’ and explains how the link relates to the object that we requested for. self – meaning, this link takes us to the object, details– means detailed information is available, addToCart– indicates the process of adding this product to a shopping cart.

2. href –

A complete URL that shows how the action can be performed.

Also Read: Reading a CSV file in java

HATEOAS will reduce the need for configuring URL endpoints which is a great thing. All these URLs telling us how to look up product details? How to add a product to the cart? We don’t need them hardcoded or in some configuration files. They are supplied by the application. If we really want to have something in our config files, we could place the rel– relationships there. In any application, we have different REST API calls. This makes it a real benefit of sorts.

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