Springboot - simple RESTFul webservice implementation using JSON

Spring Boot makes it easy to create stand-alone, production-grade Spring based Applications that can you can "just run". 

Features

• Create stand-alone Spring applications
• Embed Tomcat or Jetty directly (no need to deploy WAR files)
• Provide opinionated 'starter' POMs to simplify your Maven configuration
• Automatically configure Spring whenever possible
• Provide production-ready features such as metrics, health checks and externalized configuration
• Absolutely no code generation and no requirement for XML configuration

I was inspired the talk @SpringeXchange Nov-2014 on Developing Bootiful applications using Spring Boot. I have created a sample project created for reference on the features explained .
https://github.com/prashanthmamidi/SpringBootSamples

Here's an example which I have used to create a simple RESTFul webservice implementation using JSON message

pom. xml

 <pre style="font-family: Andale Mono, Lucida Console, Monaco, fixed, monospace; 
                color: #000000; background-color: #eee;
                font-size: 12px; border: 1px dashed #999999;
                line-height: 14px; padding: 5px; 
                overflow: auto; width: 100%">
       <code style="color:#000000;word-wrap:normal;">

           <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

    <groupId>org.demo</groupId>
    <artifactId>demo</artifactId>
    <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <packaging>war</packaging>

    <name>msdemo</name>
    <description>Demo project</description>

    <parent>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
        <version>1.1.4.RELEASE</version>
        <relativePath/> <!-- lookup parent from repository -->
    </parent>

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.tomcat.embed</groupId>
            <artifactId>tomcat-embed-jasper</artifactId>
            <scope>provided</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
            <artifactId>jstl</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-tomcat</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.googlecode.json-simple</groupId>
            <artifactId>json-simple</artifactId>
            <version>1.1.1</version>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>



    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
                <configuration>
                    <useSystemClassLoader>false</useSystemClassLoader>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>

</project>


       </code>
 </pre>

EmployeeController.java

import com.biomedcentral.demo.domain.Employee;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.*;

import java.util.*;

/**
 * Created by mami01 on 28/07/14.
 */

@RestController
public class EmployeeController {

    //Map to store employees, ideally we should use database
    Map<Integer, Employee> empData = new HashMap<Integer, Employee>();

    @RequestMapping(value = EmpRestURIConstants.DUMMY_EMP, method = RequestMethod.GET)
    public Employee getDummyEmployee() {
        Employee emp = new Employee();
        emp.setId(9999);
        emp.setName("Dummy");
        emp.setCreateDate(new Date());
        empData.put(9999, emp);
        return emp;
    }

    @RequestMapping(value = EmpRestURIConstants.GET_EMP, method = RequestMethod.GET)
    public Employee getEmployee(@PathVariable("id") int empId) {
        return empData.get(empId);
    }


    @RequestMapping(value = EmpRestURIConstants.GET_ALL_EMP, method = RequestMethod.GET)
    public List<Employee> getAllEmployees() {
        List<Employee> employeeList = new ArrayList<Employee>();
        Set<Integer> empIds = empData.keySet();
        for (Integer i : empIds)
            employeeList.add(empData.get(i));
        return  employeeList;
    }


    @RequestMapping(value = EmpRestURIConstants.CREATE_EMP, method = RequestMethod.POST)
    public Employee createEmployee(@RequestBody Employee emp) {
        emp.setCreateDate(new Date());
        empData.put(emp.getId(), emp);
        return emp;
    }

    @RequestMapping(value = EmpRestURIConstants.DELETE_EMP, method = RequestMethod.PUT)
    public Employee deleteEmployee(@PathVariable("id") int empId) {
        Employee emp = empData.get(empId);
        empData.remove(empId);
        return emp;
    }




Employee.java

import com.fasterxml.jackson.annotation.JsonProperty;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.annotation.JsonSerialize;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.std.DateSerializer;

import java.io.Serializable;
import java.util.Date;

/**
 * Created by mami01 on 28/07/14.
 */
public class Employee implements Serializable {

    private static final long serialVersionUID = -7788619177798333712L;

    private int id;
    private String name;
    private Date createDate;


    @JsonProperty
    public int getId() {
        return id;
    }

    public void setId(int id) {
        this.id = id;
    }

    @JsonProperty
    public String getName() {
        return name;
    }

    public void setName(String name) {
        this.name = name;
    }

    @JsonSerialize(using = DateSerializer.class)
    public Date getCreateDate() { //Date conversion from Java type to JSON format and vice versa
        return createDate;
    }

    public void setCreateDate(Date createDate) {
        this.createDate = createDate;
    }
}