Spring HATEOAS: How to advertise resource services? - spring

Question

I've got Spring HATEOAS working for accessing a specific resource, such as
http://localhost:8080/user/1
But I want to also be able to advertise a service url:
http://localhost:8080/user
For instance, if you do a GET / , I want to return the service resources I advertise. Right now the only one is /auth.
#RequestMapping(value = "/", method = RequestMethod.GET)
#ResponseBody
public HttpEntity<AuthenticationResource> post() {
AuthenticationResource resource = new AuthenticationResource();
resource.add(linkTo(methodOn(AuthenticationController.class).authenticate()).withSelfRel());
return new ResponseEntity<AuthenticationResource>(resource, HttpStatus.OK);
}
#RequestMapping(value = "/auth", method = RequestMethod.POST, consumes = "application/json")
#ResponseBody
public void authenticate() {
//users.save(user);
}
Currently this is not compiling because linkTo doesn't take a void argument, which I presume is the return type of my authenticate method
What I WANT is this:
{"links":[{"rel":"someString","href":"http://localhost/auth"}]}
How do I accomplish this while staying within HATEOAS best practice?

Answer 1

This.
#RequestMapping(value = "/", method = RequestMethod.GET)
#ResponseBody
public HttpEntity<ResourceSupport> post() {
ResourceSupport resource = new ResourceSupport();
resource.add(linkTo(methodOn(AuthenticationController.class).authenticate()).withRel("authenticate"));
return new ResponseEntity<ResourceSupport>(resource, HttpStatus.OK);
}
#RequestMapping(value = "/auth", method = RequestMethod.POST, consumes = "application/json")
#ResponseBody
public HttpEntity<AuthenticationResource> authenticate() {
AuthenticationResourceAssembler assembler = new AuthenticationResourceAssembler();
AuthenticationResource resource = assembler.toResource(new Authentication());
return new ResponseEntity<AuthenticationResource>(resource, HttpStatus.OK);
}