RESTful web services - Making Java Groovy - page 339

The groovlet uses request.method in a switch statement to determine the correct
implementation. Then it uses a built-in MarkupBuilder called html to produce XML,
and an XmlSlurper to convert XML to song instances. Now that groovlets have a builtin
JsonBuilder as well, [ 22 ] JSON could easily be used instead.
22 That's my great contribution to Groovy—the implicit json object in groovlets, which I not only added, but with
which I managed to break the build in the process. Sigh. If you're interested, details can be found at http://mng.bz/
5Vn6 .
This approach is pretty low-level, but it may be useful for quick-and-dirty implementations
or if you need such detailed control.
9.6.2. Ratpack
The second alternative is to look at the Ratpack project ( https://github.com/ratpack/rat-
pack ) . Ratpack is a Groovy project that follows the same ideas as the Sinatra [ 23 ] project in
the Ruby world. Ratpack is called a “micro” framework, in that you write simple Groovy
scripts that govern how to handle individual requests.
23 Sinatra, Ratpack, get it? If nothing else, it's a great name.
For example, a simple Ratpack script looks like this: