Remove Spring data rest self link templating in projections - spring-boot

Question

{
"_embedded" : {
"patient" : {
"firstName" : "Kidus",
"_links" : {
"self" : {
"href" : "http://localhost:8090/api/patients/2{?projection}",
"templated" : true
},
}
}
As you can see i have an embedded entity(patient). It returns all the data including link to the entity but the link is templated. I'm not using a front-end HATEOAS client and i don't plan on changing course on that. So i would need a normal non-templated link. Is there any non-hacky way to achieve this?

Answer 1

You can force the template to be expanded in this way:
#GetMapping("/myresources/{id}")
public EntityModel<MyResource> myResource(String id) {
MyResource resource = ...;
return new EntityModel<>(
resource,
linkTo(methodOn(getClass()).myResource(id)).withSelfRel().expand(id));
}

Answer 2

You can modify the self link by using a custom RepresentationModelProcessor:
#Component
public class MyProjectionProcessor implements RepresentationModelProcessor<EntityModel<MyProjection>> {
private static final Pattern TEMPLATE_PATTERN = Pattern.compile("\\{\\?.*");
#Override
public EntityModel<MyProjection> process(final EntityModel<MyProjection> model) {
// copy the model without links
final EntityModel<MyProjection> newModel = EntityModel.of(model.getContent());
// loop over links
for (final Link link : model.getLinks()) {
Link newLink = link;
// replace self link if it is templated
if (link.hasRel(IanaLinkRelations.SELF) && link.isTemplated()) {
final String href = TEMPLATE_PATTERN.matcher(link.getHref()).replaceFirst("");
newLink = Link.of(href, IanaLinkRelations.SELF);
}
newModel.add(newLink);
}
return newModel;
}
}