REST with Java (JAX-RS) using Jersey

Question

I developed a restful web service via Jersey in Java (JAX-RS) : http://www.vogella.com/articles/REST/article.html

Then I used the Hibernate Technology to map the dat

Answer 1

1. Response.ok().enity(object).build() is the correct way to return data
2. You really want to move your hibernate stuff to a data access tier... it's going to be hard to manage intermingled with your service tier
3. I completely disagree with smcg about using a helper method to map the java to json. Use the jax-rs annotations on your beans to do it unless you have really complicated requirements: see http://wiki.fasterxml.com/JacksonAnnotations

Answer 2

It seems to me like you are relying on something to automagically map your Java objects to JSON - probably Jackson. I do not personally prefer this method. Instead, I use Jettison and create my own mapping from Java to a Jettison JSONObject object. Then I use the JSONObject (or JSONArray) as the entity. My return statement would be something like this:

return Response.ok().entity(myObjectAsJSON).build();

In the case of returning a list of things, use a JSONArray instead of a JSONObject.

You'll want a helper method to map the Java object to JSON.

public JSONArray deliverableListToJSON(List<Deliverable> deliverables) 
throws JSONException {
JSONArray result = new JSONArray();
for(Deliverable deliverable : deliverables) {
    JSONObject deliverableJSON = new JSONObject();
    deliverableJSON.put("importantValue", deliverable.getImportantValue());
    result.put(deliverableJSON);
    }
return result;
}

This approach gives you more flexibility and doesn't force you to have public getters and setters for all your fields.