HTTP Method and URI Matching - RESTful Java with JAX-RS 2.0 - page 46

servlet container, that WAR will have a base URI that browsers and remote clients use to ac-
cess it. @Path expressions are relative to this URI.
To receive a request, a Java method must have at least an HTTP method annotation like
@javax.ws.rs.GET applied to it. This method is not required to have an @Path annotation
on it, though. For example:

@Path ( "/orders" )
public

public class class OrderResource OrderResource {

@GET
public

public String getAllOrders () {
...

}

}

An HTTP request of GET /orders would dispatch to the getAllOrders() method.

You can also apply @Path to your Java method. If you do this, the URI matching pattern is a
concatenation of the class's @Path expression and that of the method's. For example:

@Path ( "/orders" )
public

public class class OrderResource OrderResource {

@GET
@Path ( "unpaid" )
public public String getUnpaidOrders () {

...

}

}

So, the URI pattern for getUnpaidOrders() would be the relative URI /orders/unpaid .

@Path Expressions

The value of the @Path annotation is usually a simple string, but you can also define more
complex expressions to satisfy your URI matching needs.

Template parameters

In Chapter 3 , we wrote a customer access service that allowed us to query for a specific cus-
tomer using a wildcard URI pattern:

@Path ( "/customers" )
public public class class CustomerResource CustomerResource {

@GET