Tutorial on Developing a REST API with Java Spring Boot

In today's digital world, the need for efficient and easy-to-use web APIs is more important than ever. One such framework that simplifies the creation of production-ready applications is Spring Boot. This article will guide you through the process of creating a REST API for managing employees using Spring Boot.

Spring Boot, a powerful and beginner-friendly framework, is built on top of the Spring Framework. It offers a quick setup for REST APIs, reducing the amount of boilerplate code that developers have to write.

Getting Started

To create a Spring Boot project, head over to Spring Initializr. Fill in the project details, such as the group and artifact, and select the necessary dependencies. After filling in the details, download the .zip file.

Once you have the project downloaded, extract it, and open it in your favourite IDE. The controller in the project contains the REST API endpoints.

REST and Spring Boot

REST (Representational State Transfer) is a software architectural style for creating web services. Unlike SOAP, RESTful web services do not expose their own set of operations. Instead, they allow systems to access and manipulate web resources through HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE).

Spring Boot simplifies the development of REST APIs by providing pre-configured starter dependencies, reducing boilerplate code, and enabling developers to focus on business logic with built-in support for creating stand-alone, production-ready Spring applications quickly and easily.

Creating the API

Let's dive into creating our REST API for managing employees.

Step 1: Initialise the Project

Follow the steps mentioned in the 'Getting Started' section to create a new Spring Boot project.

Step 2: Create the Employee Model

Create a new Java class called to represent the employee data. This class should contain properties such as , , , and any other relevant details.

Step 3: Create the Employee Repository

Create a new interface that extends the interface, passing in the class as a type parameter. This interface will handle the database operations for the class.

Step 4: Create the Employee Controller

Create a new class called that will handle the REST API endpoints for managing employees. This class should have methods annotated with , , , and to handle the respective HTTP methods.

Using the API

Now that the API is created, let's see how to use it.

Performing a POST Request

To add a new employee, send a POST request to the endpoint with the employee data in the request body.

Fetching Employee Data

After performing a POST request, you can fetch the updated employee data by sending a GET request to the endpoint. This will return a list of all employees.

Updating Employee Data

To update an employee's data, send a PUT request to the endpoint, replacing with the employee's ID. In the request body, include the updated employee data.

Deleting an Employee

To delete an employee, send a DELETE request to the endpoint, replacing with the employee's ID.

Running the Application

Finally, run the file generated by Spring Boot to start the application. You can now access the REST API by navigating to in your web browser or using tools like Postman.

In conclusion, Spring Boot makes it easy to create efficient and easy-to-use REST APIs for managing web resources. With its beginner-friendly approach and auto-configurations, developers can focus on the business logic rather than the infrastructure. This article demonstrated creating a REST API for managing employees using Spring Boot, but the principles can be applied to various other scenarios as well.