Project Skeleton for Spring Boot Web Services

Acknowledgements

This is a LEANSTACKS solution.

For more detailed information and instruction about constructing Spring Boot RESTful web services, see the book Lean Application Engineering Featuring Backbone.Marionette and the Spring Framework.

Getting Started

This is a project skeleton for a Spring Boot RESTful web services application.

Features

RESTful Web Service Family

The project contains examples of C reate, R ead, U pdate, and D elete web services. The project illustrates the use of @ExceptionHandler methods and @ControllerAdvice classes to manage web service responses when common exceptional conditions arise.

Business Services

The project demonstrates the encapsulation of business behaviors into domain-specific, Spring-managed services annotated with @Service.

Spring Data JPA

The project shows the use of Spring Data JPA repositories, @Repository, for data access and management. Illustrates the @Entity annotation and other JPA entity model annotations for attribute and relationship mapping.

HSQLDB In-Memory Database

The project illustrates how to use the HSQLDB in-memory database which is useful for rapid prototyping or unit test execution in a continuous integration environment.

MySQL Database

In addition to HSQLDB support, the project also supports integration with MySQL.

Liquibase Database Migration

The project demonstrates the use of Liquibase change logs to automatically create and update the database structure and initial content. The Liquibase change logs have been tested with the HSQLDB and MySQL database engines.

Transaction Management

The project contains examples of the @Transactional annotation on business service methods.

Cache Management

The project contains examples of the @Cacheable, @CachePut, and @CacheEvict annotations on business service methods.

Scheduled (Batch) Processes

The project illustrates the use of the @Scheduled annotation and provides examples of cron, fixed rate, and fixed delay schedules.

Asynchronous Processes

The project illustrates the use of the @Async annotation and provides examples of asynchronous methods with and without return values.

Spring Security

The project provides examples of Spring Security integration. The web service endpoints are secured using Basic Auth, backed by database authentication and authorization. The project illustrates declarative authorization for resources by role.

Spring Profiles

The project demonstrates how to use Spring Profiles to activate (or deactivate) application components and configuration. The profiles illustrated are: batch, hsqldb, mysql, and docs.

Unit Tests

The project contains unit and integration test examples for standard components such as business services or batch beans and examples for the web service endpoints using mock objects. Examples using the Spring Boot @*Test annotations for specific test cases are provided.

Actuator Monitoring and Management

The project illustrates the use of Spring Boot Actuator for application monitoring and management. The application demonstrates the recording of custom metrics and the creation of custom health checks. Also, custom Maven and Gradle project attributes are incorporated into the Actuator info endpoint.

API Documentation Generator

The project includes Spring REST Docs integration to automatically generate API docs for the RESTful web service endpoints. This feature may be activated using the "asciidoctor" Gradle task.

Executable Jar

The Maven and Gradle builds produce a fully executable Spring Boot Jar file. The Jar file may be executed directly from the command line without the "java -jar" command and may be installed on servers as a Linux service.

Languages

This project is authored in Java.

Installation

Fork the Repository

Fork the Spring Boot web services skeleton project on GitHub. Clone the project to the host machine.

Dependencies

The project requires the following dependencies be installed on the host machine:

and, optionally, install:

* By default, the project uses the bundled, in-memory HyperSQL database (HSQLDB). However, MySQL may be used by activating the "mysql" Spring profile.

Spring Tool Suite or Eclipse

This project uses Checkstyle static code analysis and reporting to ensure contributions are formatted in a consistent manner. To ease the burden for contributing software engineers, the Eclipse Java Code Formatter configuration is supplied. The formatting configuration may be used in Eclipse, the Spring Tool Suite, or any derivative of the Eclipse IDE.

The Java Code Formatter configuration is located in the source at: etc/eclipse/java-formatter.xml.

After importing the project into Eclipse, edit the project properties by selecting Properties from the Project drop-down menu. Then, expand the Java Code Style menu and select Formatter. Click the Import button to import the configuration file. Next, expand the Java Editor menu and select Save Actions. Ensure that the following selections are checked:

MySQL

By default the project uses the bundled, in-memory HyperSQL database. To switch from HSQLDB to MySQL, simply replace the "hsqldb" Spring profile with "mysql". Do not use both profiles simultaneously. Specify the active profiles in the application.properties file.

To prepare MySQL, create an empty database schema and a user account.

Execute the following SQL statement to create an empty schema for the project:

CREATE SCHEMA `skeleton` DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_bin;

Execute the following SQL statements to create a user account for the application. Review the database schema name, and user account credentials in the application-mysql.properties configuration file and make updates if necessary.

create user 'userName'@'localhost' identified by 'somePassword';
grant all on skeleton.* to 'userName'@'localhost';

Running

The project supports Maven and Gradle for build, package, and test workflow automation.

Maven

The following Maven goals are the most commonly used.

spring-boot:run

The spring-boot:run Maven goal performs the following workflow steps:

To execute the spring-boot:run Maven goal, type the following command at a terminal prompt in the project base directory.

./mvnw spring-boot:run

Type ctrl-C to halt the web server.

This goal is used for local machine development and functional testing. Use the package goal for server deployment.

test

The test Maven goal performs the following workflow steps:

The test Maven goal is designed to allow engineers the means to run the unit test suites against the main source code. This goal may also be used on continuous integration servers such as Jenkins, etc.

To execute the test Maven goal, type the following command at a terminal prompt in the project base directory.

./mvnw clean test

package

The package Maven goal performs the following workflow steps:

The package Maven goal is designed to prepare the application for distribution to server environments. The application and all dependencies are packaged into a single, executable JAR file.

To execute the package goal, type the following command at a terminal prompt in the project base directory.

./mvnw clean package

The application distribution artifact is placed in the /target directory and is named using the artifactId and version from the pom.xml file. To run the JAR file use the following command:

java -jar example-1.0.0.jar

...OR simply...

./example-1.0.0.jar

By default, the batch and hsqldb profiles are active. To run the application with a specific set of active profiles, supply the --spring.profiles.active command line argument. For example, to start the project using MySQL instad of HSQLDB and enable the batch process:

java -jar example-1.0.0.jar --spring.profiles.active=mysql,batch

...OR simply...

./example-1.0.0.jar --spring.profiles.active=mysql,batch

Gradle

The following Gradle tasks are the most commonly used.

bootRun

The bootRun Gradle task performs the following workflow steps:

To execute the bootRun Gradle task, type the following command at a terminal prompt in the project base directory.

./gradlew clean bootRun

Type ctrl-C to halt the web server.

This task is used for local machine development and functional testing. Use the assemble or build task for server deployment.

assemble

The assemble Gradle task performs the following workflow steps:

The assemble Gradle task is designed to allow engineers the means to compile the project and produce an executable JAR file suitable for server environments without executing unit tests or producing other project reports.

To execute the assemble Gradle task, type the following command at a terminal prompt in the project base directory.

./gradlew clean assemble

build (default)

The build Gradle task performs the following workflow steps:

The build Gradle task is prepares the application for distribution to server environments. The application and all dependencies are packaged into a single, executable JAR file.

This task is ideal for use on continuous integration servers such as Jenkins, etc. because it produces unit test, code coverage, and static analysis reports.

To execute the build Gradle task, type the following command at a terminal prompt in the project base directory.

./gradlew clean build

The clean and build tasks are the default tasks for this project. Therefore, simply typing gradle (or ./gradlew to use the Gradle Wrapper) will produce the same result as gradle clean build.

./gradlew

The application distribution artifact is placed in the /build/libs directory and is named using the project name and version from the build.gradle file. To run the JAR file use the following command:

java -jar build/libs/example-1.0.0.jar

...OR simply...

./example-1.0.0.jar

By default, the batch and hsqldb profiles are active. To run the application with a specific set of active profiles, supply the --spring.profiles.active command line argument. For example, to start the project using MySQL instad of HSQLDB and enable the batch process:

java -jar build/libs/example-1.0.0.jar --spring.profiles.active=mysql,batch

...OR simply

./example-1.0.0.jar --spring.profiles.active=mysql,batch

asciidoctor

The asciidoctor Gradle task performs the following workflow steps:

The asciidoctor Gradle task generates API documentation using Spring REST Docs.

To execute the asciidoctor Gradle task, type the following command at a terminal prompt in the project base directory.

./gradlew clean asciidoctor

The API documentation is placed in the /build/asciidoc/html5 directory and the root document is named index.html.

encodePassword

The encodePassword Gradle task executes the BCryptPasswordEncoderUtil utility class to encode password values which may be included in the sample database scripts. The clear text password values are passed as a Gradle -P property arguments on the command line.

To execute the encodePassword Gradle task, type the following command at a terminal prompt in the project base directory.

./gradlew -q encodePassword -Pmainargs=<password>[,<password>]

The value of the mainargs property is passed as the arguments to the Java main method of the BCryptPasswordEncoderUtil class. Separate multiple passwords with a comma.

Example:

Command:
./gradlew -q encodePassword -Pmainargs=clearTextPassword

Console Output:
Argument: clearTextPassword     Encoded: $2a$10$/BxBDZJrjJ5k9KN7gERjd.IJOZDuVYMq0HxuurnTCILGL/vbrNmBe