Creating a RESTful Web Service with Spring Boot

In this chapter, we will first create a RESTful web service using the controller class. After that, we will demonstrate how to use Spring Data REST to create a RESTful web service that also covers all CRUD functionalities automatically. After you have created a RESTful API for your application, you can implement the frontend using a JavaScript library such as React. We are using the database application that we created in the previous chapter as a starting point.

Web services are applications that communicate over the internet using the HTTP protocol. There are many different types of web service architectures, but the principal idea across all designs is the same. In this book, we are creating a RESTful web service from what is nowadays a really popular design.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

• Basics of a RESTful web service
• Creating a RESTful web service with Spring Boot
• Testing a RESTful web service