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Magnolia REST client module enables easy creation, configuration and usage of REST clients. All it takes is a few clicks and a few bits of Java code. The module:
- Uses RESTEasy.
- Provides an app to test clients.
- Includes
restfn
templating functions that give access to REST clients within FreeMarker template scripts.
You also can obtain a REST client within Java to build apps, custom fields for dialogs and similar things.
This page describes the module, explains how to install it and gives a quick reference how to declare, configure and use REST clients.
Installing
<dependency> <groupId>info.magnolia.restclient</groupId> <artifactId>magnolia-rest-client-app</artifactId> <version>1.6.0</version> </dependency>
Due to Maven transient dependencies, adding
magnolia-rest-client-app
to your bundle automatically adds the magnolia-rest-client
and magnolia-resteasy-client
modules.Add all the submodules to your bundle.
All preconfigured Magnolia bundles (besides magnolia-empty-webapp) contain magnolia-resteasy-client but not magnolia-rest-client-app.
Submodules
magnolia-resteasy-client
: The easy-to-use Magnolia REST client implementation. It enables interface based service declaration. The module has a dependency to RESTEasy from JBoss.magnolia-rest-client-app
: Installs an app to test REST clients in the browser. You can test your clients in the app before using them in template scripts, models or other Java classes. See Testing clients in the REST client app.magnolia-rest-client
: Defines the API for a Magnolia REST client definition class (to configure), for a REST client factory (to create instances) and for a registry (to obtain configured clients). It is an abstract layer which, besides the registry, you will hardly ever use directly. If you have existing Java clients based on jersey or raw javax.ws.rs, you can implement a custom ClientFactory to instantiate your existing custom clients the Magnolia way.
Overview and summary about how to enable a Java client in Magnolia
Create a service interface.
- Configure the the client.
- Test the client in the Rest Client app
Service interface declaration
When working with a RestEasy client, a service must be declared as a Java interface using
javax.ws.rs
annotations.
Note that a Java interface must be part of a Magnolia Maven module, it is not possible to have Java classes or interfaces within a pure file-based module (light module).
Example: Declaring an interface to get a client that requests the URL
http://api.icndb.com/jokes/random?firstName=John&lastName=Doe
.
import javax.ws.rs.GET; import javax.ws.rs.Path; import javax.ws.rs.PathParam; import javax.ws.rs.Produces; import javax.ws.rs.QueryParam; import javax.ws.rs.core.MediaType; public interface IcndbService { @GET @Path("/jokes/{select}") @Produces(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON) JsonNode joke(@PathParam("select") String select, @QueryParam("firstName") String firstName, @QueryParam("lastName") String lastName); }
- The return type of a method and the
@Produces
declaration must correspond. In the example above the method #joke will return aorg.codehaus.jackson.JsonNode
object - this fits well together with@Produces(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON)
. - The value of the
@Path
annotation is relative to the baseUrl of this java client. In this example the relative URL starts with /jokes followed by a parameter. The baseUrl itself is defined in the configuration. - Create a method for each sub-resource / parameters combination which you will need.
Configuration
You can configure REST clients within all Magnolia modules in the rest-client
folder.
Example: REST client configuration
Node name | Value |
---|---|
modules | |
<your-module> | |
rest-client | |
icndbClient | |
baseUrl | http://api.icndb.com |
class | info.magnolia.resteasy.client.RestEasyClientDefinition |
clientFactoryClass | info.magnolia.resteasy.client.factory.RestEasyClientFactory |
components | |
authentication | |
class | org.example.filters.AuthenticationInterceptor |
Properties:
<rest client name> | required Add a node for each REST client. The name is arbitrary, but it is good practice to use a descriptive name. The node name is used when obtaining instances of clients. |
| required The base URL of the REST endpoint to connect with the client. |
| required The definition class, it must implement RestClientDefinition, for instance use RestEasyClientDefinition or SSLRestEasyClientDefinition for secure connections or subclasses. If you rely on components or clientFilters, the definition class must extend RestEasyClientDefinition. |
| required The client factory class. Must implement ClientFactory. Use RestEasyClientFactory or SSLRestEasyClientFactory for secure connections or subclasses. |
| optional, default is Enables the underlying caching mechanism provided by RESTEasy. |
components | optional 1.0.8+ A list of components (e.g. |
| optional components instead A list of components (e.g. |
| optional A map of ClientServiceDefinition objects. |
Note that ClientErrorInterceptor
is not supported.
Testing clients in the Rest Client app
To test a client:
- Open the Rest Client app (DEV group).
- Rest client: Select a client.
- Rest services: Add the fully qualified class name of the service interface, for example.
info.magnolia.documentation.modules.restclientexamples.client.IcndbService
, and click Confirm. - Service method: Select the method to be executed on the given client. Example
IcndbService
has 3 methods. - Method parameters: Provide the parameters for the selected method. The app prompts by providing method annotations.
- Click Send request.
- Response: The response displays.
Getting and using client instances
restfn templating functions
restfn templating functions allow you obtain and use REST clients.This works only for clients that have been configured and declared with RESTEasy client.
Example:
[#assign jokesService = restfn.getService("icndbClient", "info.magnolia.documentation.modules.restclientexamples.client.IcndbService")] [#assign response = jokesService.joke("random", "Tiger", "Lilly") /] <i>${response.get("value").get("joke").getTextValue()!"Nix found"}</i>
- Line 1 accesses an instance of the client interface. In this example it is of type
IcndbService
.- First parameter is the name of the client configuration node (
icndbClient
), - Second parameter is the fully qualified class name of the declared service interface (
info.magnolia.documentation.modules.restclientexamples.client.IcndbService
).
- First parameter is the name of the client configuration node (
- Line 2 calls the method
#joke
which returns aJsonNode
object. Note that is a simplified example. See jackson javadoc how to further process the
JsonNode
or assign a raw response to a JavaScript variable to process JSON in a JavaScript context.<script> var jokeJson = '${jokesService.joke("random", "Tiger", "Lilly")!}'; </script>
During installation of the magnolia-resteasy-client
module, RestEasyClientModuleVersionHandler adds restfn
to renderer configurations. Make sure that the renderType
of your template definition points to a renderer that is configured to use restfn
. See Configure the functions in a renderer on how to add templating functions to a renderer.
Java using client registry
To explain how to obtain and use REST client, we look at a model class which uses the same client as in the above example:
public class JokesModel<RD extends RenderableDefinition> extends RenderingModelImpl<RD> { private static final Logger log = LoggerFactory.getLogger(JokesModel.class); private final RestClientRegistry restClientRegistry; public JokesModel(Node content, RD definition, RenderingModel<?> parent, RestClientRegistry restClientRegistry) { super(content, definition, parent); this.restClientRegistry = restClientRegistry; } public String getRandomJoke() { String joke = "No joke! Failed to fetch it due to an error. :-("; RestEasyClient client = null; IcndbService service = null; try { client = (RestEasyClient) restClientRegistry.getRestClient("icndbClient"); service = client.getClientService(IcndbService.class); } catch (RegistrationException e) { log.error("Failed to get a client for [icndbClient].", e); } if (service != null) { JsonNode response = service.joke("random", "Tiger", "Lilly"); try { joke = response.get("value").get("joke").getTextValue(); } catch (Exception e) { log.error("Failed to fetch the joke when parsing response.", e); } } return joke; } }
- Add RestClientRegistry as parameter into the constructor and assign it as final instance variable (See lines 5, 7, 9.)
- Obtain RestEasyClient object from the RestClientRegistry. Note that #getRestClient requires the configured name of the rest client definition. (See line 17.)
- Create an instance of the declared interface
IcndbService
. (See line 18.) - Now call the declared method(s) on the service (line 23).
Component example
You have the option to configure components (filters) to be executed on every request. One use case could be authentication.
Client Request Filter
Here is a sample filter that would handle authorization for each request.
package org.example.filters; import info.magnolia.context.Context; import info.magnolia.context.MgnlContext; import java.io.IOException; import javax.ws.rs.client.ClientRequestContext; import javax.ws.rs.client.ClientRequestFilter; import javax.ws.rs.ext.Provider; import org.slf4j.Logger; import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory; /** * Interceptor for rest easy to handle authentication with an access token. */ @Provider public class AuthenticationInterceptor implements ClientRequestFilter { private static final Logger log = LoggerFactory.getLogger(AuthenticationInterceptor.class); @Override public void filter(ClientRequestContext requestContext) throws IOException { if (MgnlContext.hasInstance() && MgnlContext.hasAttribute("ACCESS_TOKEN", Context.APPLICATION_SCOPE)) { requestContext.getHeaders().putSingle("Authorization", "OAuth " + MgnlContext.getAttribute("ACCESS_TOKEN", Context.APPLICATION_SCOPE)); log.trace("Authorization : {}", (String) MgnlContext.getAttribute("ACCESS_TOKEN", Context.APPLICATION_SCOPE)); } } }