how to send json object from REST client using javax.ws.rs.client.WebTarget

user3275095 picture user3275095 · Nov 30, 2014 · Viewed 94.8k times · Source

I have a POJO given below which I want to PUT to the server as JSON or XML.

This is what I have done

CLIENT:

ClientConfig config = new ClientConfig();
Client client = ClientBuilder.newClient(config);
WebTarget target = client.target(getBaseURI());

public void putFriend(String uri , Friend friend)
{
    System.out.println(friend.toString());

    target = target.path(some_path).path(uri);
    ClientResponse response =        target.request(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON).put(Entity.entity(friend,MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON),ClientResponse.class);
}

Examples I found on web were using WebResource.

I don't know how to do using WebTarget. What I have done is taken from some example found on SO but Entity.entity() gives error undefined method entity(friend, String).

POJO

@XmlRootElement
public class Friend{

    private String friendURI;
    private String event;
    private String uri;

    String getUri() {
        return uri;
    }
    void setUri(String uri) {
        this.uri = uri;
    }
    String getFriendURI() {
        return friendURI;
    }
    void setFriendURI(String friendURI) {
        this.friendURI = friendURI;
    }
    String getEvent() {
        return event;
    }
    void setEvent(String event) {
        this.event = event;
    }
public String toString() {
        return "Friend [friendURI=" + friendURI + ", uri=" + uri + ", event=" + event
                 + "]";
}

Please guide how to do this.

Thanks

Answer

Paul Samsotha picture Paul Samsotha · Nov 30, 2014

There are two different Jersey major versions, 1.x and 2.x, You seems to be trying to use a combination of both, which won't work. The 2.x versions don't have some classes as in 1.x and vice versa.

If you want to use Jersey 2.x, then you should be using Response, rather than ClientResponse

Response response = target.request().put(Entity.json(friend));
                                        // .json == automatic 'application/json'

Basic breakdown.

  • Calling request() on WebTarget returns an Invocation.Buidler

    Invocation.Builder builder = target.request();
    
  • Once we call put, we get back a Response

    Response response = builder.put(Entity.json(friend));
    
  • To extract a known type from the response, we could use readEntity(Class type)

    String responseString = response.readEntity(String.class);
    response.close();