Template variables with ControllerLinkBuilder - spring

Question

I want my response to include this:
"keyMaps":{
"href":"http://localhost/api/keyMaps{/keyMapId}",
"templated":true
}
That's easy enough to achieve:
add(new Link("http://localhost/api/keyMaps{/keyMapId}", "keyMaps"));
But, of course, I'd rather use the ControllerLinkBuilder, like this:
add(linkTo(methodOn(KeyMapController.class).getKeyMap("{keyMapId}")).withRel("keyMaps"));
The problem is that by the time the variable "{keyMapId}" reaches the UriTemplate constructor, it's been included in an encoded URL:
http://localhost/api/keyMaps/%7BkeyMapId%7D
So UriTemplate's constructor doesn't recognise it as containing a variable.
How can I persuade ControllerLinkBuilder that I want to use template variables?

Answer 1

It looks to me like the current state of Spring-HATEOAS doesn't allow this via the ControllerLinkBuilder (I'd very much like to be proven wrong), so I have implemented this myself using the following classes for templating query parameters:
public class TemplatedLinkBuilder {
private static final TemplatedLinkBuilderFactory FACTORY = new TemplatedLinkBuilderFactory();
public static final String ENCODED_LEFT_BRACE = "%7B";
public static final String ENCODED_RIGHT_BRACE = "%7D";
private UriComponentsBuilder uriComponentsBuilder;
TemplatedLinkBuilder(UriComponentsBuilder builder) {
uriComponentsBuilder = builder;
}
public static TemplatedLinkBuilder linkTo(Object invocationValue) {
return FACTORY.linkTo(invocationValue);
}
public static <T> T methodOn(Class<T> controller, Object... parameters) {
return DummyInvocationUtils.methodOn(controller, parameters);
}
public Link withRel(String rel) {
return new Link(replaceTemplateMarkers(uriComponentsBuilder.build().toString()), rel);
}
public Link withSelfRel() {
return withRel(Link.REL_SELF);
}
private String replaceTemplateMarkers(String encodedUri) {
return encodedUri.replaceAll(ENCODED_LEFT_BRACE, "{").replaceAll(ENCODED_RIGHT_BRACE, "}");
}
}
and
public class TemplatedLinkBuilderFactory {
private final ControllerLinkBuilderFactory controllerLinkBuilderFactory;
public TemplatedLinkBuilderFactory() {
this.controllerLinkBuilderFactory = new ControllerLinkBuilderFactory();
}
public TemplatedLinkBuilder linkTo(Object invocationValue) {
ControllerLinkBuilder controllerLinkBuilder = controllerLinkBuilderFactory.linkTo(invocationValue);
UriComponentsBuilder uriComponentsBuilder = controllerLinkBuilder.toUriComponentsBuilder();
Assert.isInstanceOf(DummyInvocationUtils.LastInvocationAware.class, invocationValue);
DummyInvocationUtils.LastInvocationAware invocations = (DummyInvocationUtils.LastInvocationAware) invocationValue;
DummyInvocationUtils.MethodInvocation invocation = invocations.getLastInvocation();
Object[] arguments = invocation.getArguments();
MethodParameters parameters = new MethodParameters(invocation.getMethod());
for (MethodParameter requestParameter : parameters.getParametersWith(RequestParam.class)) {
Object value = arguments[requestParameter.getParameterIndex()];
if (value == null) {
uriComponentsBuilder.queryParam(requestParameter.getParameterName(), "{" + requestParameter.getParameterName() + "}");
}
}
return new TemplatedLinkBuilder(uriComponentsBuilder);
}
}
Which embeds the normal ControllerLinkBuilder and then uses similar logic to parse for #RequestParam annotated parameters that are null and add these on to the query parameters. Also, our client resuses these templated URIs to perform further requests to the server. To achieve this and not need to worry about stripping out the unused templated params, I have to perform the reverse operation (swapping {params} with null), which I'm doing using a custom Spring RequestParamMethodArgumentResolver as follows
public class TemplatedRequestParamResolver extends RequestParamMethodArgumentResolver {
public TemplatedRequestParamResolver() {
super(false);
}
#Override
protected Object resolveName(String name, MethodParameter parameter, NativeWebRequest webRequest) throws Exception {
Object value = super.resolveName(name, parameter, webRequest);
if (value instanceof Object[]) {
Object[] valueAsCollection = (Object[])value;
List<Object> resultList = new LinkedList<Object>();
for (Object collectionEntry : valueAsCollection) {
if (nullifyTemplatedValue(collectionEntry) != null) {
resultList.add(collectionEntry);
}
}
if (resultList.isEmpty()) {
value = null;
} else {
value = resultList.toArray();
}
} else{
value = nullifyTemplatedValue(value);
}
return value;
}
private Object nullifyTemplatedValue(Object value) {
if (value != null && value.toString().startsWith("{") && value.toString().endsWith("}")) {
value = null;
}
return value;
}
}
Also this needs to replace the existing RequestParamMethodArgumentResolver which I do with:
#Configuration
public class ConfigureTemplatedRequestParamResolver {
private #Autowired RequestMappingHandlerAdapter adapter;
#PostConstruct
public void replaceArgumentMethodHandlers() {
List<HandlerMethodArgumentResolver> argumentResolvers = new ArrayList<HandlerMethodArgumentResolver>(adapter.getArgumentResolvers());
for (int cursor = 0; cursor < argumentResolvers.size(); ++cursor) {
HandlerMethodArgumentResolver handlerMethodArgumentResolver = argumentResolvers.get(cursor);
if (handlerMethodArgumentResolver instanceof RequestParamMethodArgumentResolver) {
argumentResolvers.remove(cursor);
argumentResolvers.add(cursor, new TemplatedRequestParamResolver());
break;
}
}
adapter.setArgumentResolvers(argumentResolvers);
}
}
Unfortunately, although { and } are valid characters in a templated URI, they are not valid in a URI, which may be a problem for your client code depending on how strict it is. I'd much prefer a neater solution built into Spring-HATEOAS!

Answer 2

With latest versions of spring-hateoas you can do the following:
UriComponents uriComponents = UriComponentsBuilder.fromUri(linkBuilder.toUri()).build();
UriTemplate template = new UriTemplate(uriComponents.toUriString())
.with("keyMapId", TemplateVariable.SEGMENT);
will give you: http://localhost:8080/bla{/keyMapId}",

Answer 3

Starting with this commit:
https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-hateoas/commit/2daf8aabfb78b6767bf27ac3e473832c872302c7
You can now pass null where path variable is expected. It works for me, without workarounds.
resource.add(linkTo(methodOn(UsersController.class).someMethod(null)).withRel("someMethod"));
And the result:
"someMethod": {
"href": "http://localhost:8080/api/v1/users/{userId}",
"templated": true
},
Also check related issues: https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-hateoas/issues/545

Answer 4

We've run into the same problem. General workaround is we have our own LinkBuilder class with a bunch of static helpers. Templated ones look like this:
public static Link linkToSubcategoriesTemplated(String categoryId){
return new Link(
new UriTemplate(
linkTo(methodOn(CategoryController.class).subcategories(null, null, categoryId))
.toUriComponentsBuilder().build().toUriString(),
// register it as variable
getBaseTemplateVariables()
),
REL_SUBCATEGORIES
);
}
private static TemplateVariables getBaseTemplateVariables() {
return new TemplateVariables(
new TemplateVariable("page", TemplateVariable.VariableType.REQUEST_PARAM),
new TemplateVariable("sort", TemplateVariable.VariableType.REQUEST_PARAM),
new TemplateVariable("size", TemplateVariable.VariableType.REQUEST_PARAM)
);
}
This is for exposing the parameters of a controller response of a PagedResource.
then in the controllers we call this an append a withRel as needed.

Answer 5

According to this issue comment, this will be addressed in an upcoming release of spring-hateoas.
For now, there's a drop-in replacement for ControllerLinkBuilder available from de.escalon.hypermedia:spring-hateoas-ext in Maven Central.
I can now do this:
import static de.escalon.hypermedia.spring.AffordanceBuilder.*
...
add(linkTo(methodOn(KeyMapController.class).getKeyMap(null)).withRel("keyMaps"));
I pass in null as the parameter value to indicate I want to use a template variable. The name of the variable is automatically pulled from the controller.

Answer 6

I needed to include a link with template variables in the root of a spring data rest application, to get access via traverson to an oauth2 token. This is working fine, maybe useful:
#Component
class RepositoryLinksResourceProcessor implements ResourceProcessor<RepositoryLinksResource> {
#Override
RepositoryLinksResource process(RepositoryLinksResource resource) {
UriTemplate uriTemplate = new UriTemplate(
ControllerLinkBuilder.
linkTo(
TokenEndpoint,
TokenEndpoint.getDeclaredMethod("postAccessToken", java.security.Principal, Map )).
toUriComponentsBuilder().
build().
toString(),
new TemplateVariables([
new TemplateVariable("username", TemplateVariable.VariableType.REQUEST_PARAM),
new TemplateVariable("password", TemplateVariable.VariableType.REQUEST_PARAM),
new TemplateVariable("clientId", TemplateVariable.VariableType.REQUEST_PARAM),
new TemplateVariable("clientSecret", TemplateVariable.VariableType.REQUEST_PARAM)
])
)
resource.add(
new Link( uriTemplate,
"token"
)
)
return resource
}
}

Answer 7

Based on the previous comments I have implemented a generic helper method (against spring-hateoas-0.20.0) as a "temporary" workaround. The implementation does consider only RequestParameters and is far from being optimized or well tested. It might come handy to some other poor soul traveling down the same rabbit hole though:
public static Link getTemplatedLink(final Method m, final String rel) {
DefaultParameterNameDiscoverer disco = new DefaultParameterNameDiscoverer();
ControllerLinkBuilder builder = ControllerLinkBuilder.linkTo(m.getDeclaringClass(), m);
UriTemplate uriTemplate = new UriTemplate(UriComponentsBuilder.fromUri(builder.toUri()).build().toUriString());
Annotation[][] parameterAnnotations = m.getParameterAnnotations();
int param = 0;
for (Annotation[] parameterAnnotation : parameterAnnotations) {
for (Annotation annotation : parameterAnnotation) {
if (annotation.annotationType().equals(RequestParam.class)) {
RequestParam rpa = (RequestParam) annotation;
String parameterName = rpa.name();
if (StringUtils.isEmpty(parameterName)) parameterName = disco.getParameterNames(m)[param];
uriTemplate = uriTemplate.with(parameterName, TemplateVariable.VariableType.REQUEST_PARAM);
}
}
param++;
}
return new Link(uriTemplate, rel);
}