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  <title>RESTful Web Services Support</title>
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<h1>RESTful Web Services Support</h1>

<p>This document presents an introduction on REST and REST with HTTP POST and
GET.</p>

<h2>Content</h2>
<ul>
  <li><a href="#intro">Introduction</a></li>
  <li><a href="#rest_with_post">Doing REST Web Services with HTTP POST</a>
    <ul>
      <li><a href="#sample">Sample REST - HTTP POST Client</a></li>
    </ul>
  </li>
  <li><a href="#rest_with_get">Access a REST Web Service via HTTP GET</a></li>
</ul>
<a name="intro"></a>

<h2>Introduction</h2>

<p>REST (Representational State Transfer) Web services are a reduced
subset of the usual Web service stack. Axis2 supports exposing services
over HTTP GET and POST without requiring a SOAP envelope.</p>

<p>The Axis2 REST implementation assumes the following properties:</p>
<ol>
  <li>REST Web services are Synchronous and Request Response in nature.</li>
  <li>When REST Web services are accessed via GET, the service and the
    operations are identified based on the URL. The parameters are assumed as
    parameters of the Web service. In this case, the GET based REST Web
    services support only simple types as arguments.</li>
  <li>POST based Web services do not need a SOAP Envelope or a SOAP Body.
    REST Web Services do not have Headers and the payload is sent
  directly.</li>
</ol>

<p>Axis2 can be configured as a REST Container and can be used to send and
receive RESTful Web service requests and responses. REST Web services can be
accessed using HTTP GET and POST.</p>
<a name="rest_with_post"></a>

<h2>REST Web Services with HTTP POST</h2>

<p>If REST is enabled, the Axis2 server will act as both a REST endpoint and
a SOAP endpoint. When a message is received, if the content type is text/xml
and if the SOAPAction Header is missing, then the message is treated as a
RESTful Message, if not it is treated as a usual SOAP Message.</p>

<p>On sending a message, whether the message is RESTful or not, can be
decided from the client API.<br/>
Set a property in the client API.<br/>
</p>
<pre>...
Options options = new Options();
options.setProperty(Constants.Configuration.ENABLE_REST, Constants.VALUE_TRUE);
...</pre>
<a name="sample"></a>

<h3>Sample REST - HTTP POST Client</h3>

<p>There is an example named, userguide.clients.RESTClient.java found in
AXIS2_HOME/samples/userguide/src/userguide/clients which demonstrates the
usage of the above. It uses the "echo" operation of the
<code>userguide.example1.MyService </code>of the
AXIS2_HOME/samples/userguide/src/userguide/example1.</p>

<p>The class source will be as follows:</p>
<pre>public class RESTClient {

    private static String toEpr = "http://localhost:8080/axis2/services/MyService";
    
    public static void main(String[] args) throws AxisFault {

        Options options = new Options();
        options.setTo(new EndpointReference(toEpr));
        options.setTransportInProtocol(Constants.TRANSPORT_HTTP);
        
        options.setProperty(Constants.Configuration.ENABLE_REST, Constants.VALUE_TRUE);

        ServiceClient sender = new ServiceClient();
        sender.engageModule(Constants.MODULE_ADDRESSING);
        sender.setOptions(options);
        OMElement result = sender.sendReceive(getPayload());

        try {
            XMLStreamWriter writer = XMLOutputFactory.newInstance()
                    .createXMLStreamWriter(System.out);
            result.serialize(writer);
            writer.flush();
        } catch (XMLStreamException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (FactoryConfigurationError e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }

    private static OMElement getPayload() {
        OMFactory fac = OMAbstractFactory.getOMFactory();
        OMNamespace omNs = fac.createOMNamespace(
                "http://example1.org/example1", "example1");
        OMElement method = fac.createOMElement("echo", omNs);
        OMElement value = fac.createOMElement("Text", omNs);
        value.addChild(fac.createOMText(value, "Axis2 Echo String "));
        method.addChild(value);

        return method;
    }
}</pre>
<a name="rest_with_get"></a>

<h2>Access a REST Web Service via HTTP GET</h2>

<p>Axis2 allows users to access Web services that have simple type parameters
via HTTP GET. For example, the following URL requests the Version Service via
HTTP GET. However, the Web service arriving via GET assumes REST. Other
parameters are converted into XML and put into the SOAP body.</p>
<pre>http://127.0.0.1:8080/axis2/services/Version/getVersion</pre>
<p>The result can be shown in the browser as follows:</p>
<img src="images/userguide/http-get-ws.jpg"/>

<p>For example, the following request,</p>
<pre>http://127.0.0.1:8080/axis2/services/Version/getVersion</pre>
will be converted into the following SOAP message for processing by
Axis2.
<pre> 
   &lt;soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"&gt;
      &lt;soapenv:Body&gt;   
          &lt;axis2:getVersion xmlns:axis2="http://ws.apache.org/goGetWithREST" /&gt;
      &lt;/soapenv:Body&gt;
   &lt;/soapenv:Envelope&gt;
    </pre>

<h2>Resources</h2>

<p>How I Explained REST to My Wife, By Ryan Tomayko- <a
href="http://naeblis.cx/articles/2004/12/12/rest-to-my-wife">http://naeblis.cx/articles/2004/12/12/rest-to-my-wife</a></p>

<p>Building Web Services the REST Way, By Roger L. Costello- <a
href="http://www.xfront.com/REST-Web-Services.html">
http://www.xfront.com/REST-Web-Services.html</a></p>

<p>Resource-oriented vs. activity-oriented Web services, By James Snell- <s><a
href="http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/ws-restvsoap/">http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/ws-restvsoap/</a></s> <em>(Old IBM DeveloperWorks URL format may be inaccessible)</em></p>
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