Deploying Jersey resources on Servlet 3.0 container

The common way to deploy a Jersey REST resource is to configure the web.xml file so that there is a servlet container responsible to delegate requests from a specific URL pattern to resource classes. If you use a Servlet 3.0 container, for example Tomcat 7, it is possible to use Java annotations rather than a web.xml file. Oddly enough, there is not much information available on how to configure Jersey by using annotations.

First, you need a class that extends class Application and that has to be annotated with @ApplicationPath. The value of the annotation is the base path of the REST service that is to be managed by this class. This class must override method getClasses that returns a set of classes that provide the implementation of the endpoints of this REST service. This is comparable to the declaration of packages that was used previously in the web.xml file.

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@ApplicationPath( "rest" )
public class RestService extends Application
{
	public RestService( ) {}
 
	@Override
	public Set<Class<?>> getClasses( )
	{
		final Set<Class<?>> returnValue = new HashSet<Class<?>>( );
		returnValue.add( Resource.class );
		return returnValue;
	}
}

Class Resource implements the REST service and has to be annotated with @Path on the class level. This is very important. If this annotation is missing, the REST service cannot be accessed.

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@Path( "/hello" )
public class Resource
{
	public Resource( ) {}
 
	@GET
	@Produces( "text/html" )
	public String printHelloWorld( )
	{
		return "Hello World";
	}
}

The URL to access the REST service is http://localhost:8080/api/rest/hello, provided that api is the path under which this project was deployed into the Tomcat container. When you open this URL in a Web browser, you should see the Hello World message.