JAX-RS (JSR 311)

JAX-RS:

• Standard API for RESTful Web Services in Java
• Annotations are applied to POJO's to provide RESTful services
• Planned for inclusion in Java EE 6

REpresentational State Transfer:

• global resources are identified by URI's
• clients & servers communicate using standard communications protocol e.g. HTTP
• provides lightweight alternative to SOAP by transmitting directly over HTTP (no XML)

Key Concepts:

• Resource - provide access to an individual resource
• Representation - the state of a Resource
• Addressability - each Resource has one address, its URI
• Connectedness - web apps contain many URI's connected to each other
• Uniform Interface - the interface is the same for any URI
• Statelessness - web app does not maintain the state of clients (no HTTP sessions)

JSR 311: JAX-RS: The JavaTM API for RESTful Web Services
Implementing RESTful Web Services in Java