Jersey contains support for Web Application Description Language (WADL). WADL is a XML description of a deployed RESTful web application. It contains model of the deployed resources, their structure, supported media types, HTTP methods and so on. In a sense, WADL is similar to the WSDL (Web Service Description Language) which describes SOAP web services. WADL is however specifically designed to describe RESTful Web resources.
Important
Since Jersey 2.5.1 the WADL generated by default is WADL in shorter form without
additional extension resources (OPTIONS methods, WADL resource).
In order to get full WADL use the query parameter detail=true.
Let's start with the simple WADL example. In the example there is a simple CountryResource
deployed and we request a wadl of this resource. The context root path of the application is
http://localhost:9998.
Example 18.1. A simple WADL example - JAX-RS resource definition
@Path("country/{id}")
public static class CountryResource {
private CountryService countryService;
public CountryResource() {
// init countryService
}
@GET
@Produces(MediaType.APPLICATION_XML)
public Country getCountry(@PathParam("countryId") int countryId) {
return countryService.getCountry(countryId);
}
}
The WADL of a Jersey application that contains the resource above can be requested by a
HTTP GET request to http://localhost:9998/application.wadl.
Jersey will return a response with a WADL content similar to the one in the following example:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<application xmlns="http://wadl.dev.java.net/2009/02">
<doc xmlns:jersey="http://jersey.java.net/" jersey:generatedBy="Jersey: 3.0.0 2020-12-16 13:49:07"/>
<grammars/>
<resources base="http://localhost:9998/">
<resource path="country/{id}">
<param xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" type="xs:int" style="template" name="countryId"/>
<method name="GET" id="getCountry">
<response>
<representation mediaType="application/xml"/>
</response>
</method>
</resource>
</resources>
</application>
The returned WADL is a XML that contains element resource
with path country/{id}. This resource has one inner method element
with http method as attribute, name of java method and its produced representation. This description
corresponds to defined java resource. Now let's look at more complex example.
The previous WADL does not actually contain all resources exposed in our API. There are other
resources that are available and are hidden in the previous WADL. The previous WADL shows only resources
that are provided by the user. In the following example, the WADL
is generated using query parameter detail:
http://localhost:9998/application.wadl?detail. Note that usage of
http://localhost:9998/application.wadl?detail=true is also valid.
This will produce the WADL with all resource available in the application:
Example 18.2. A simple WADL example - WADL content
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<application xmlns="http://wadl.dev.java.net/2009/02">
<doc xmlns:jersey="http://jersey.java.net/" jersey:generatedBy="Jersey: 3.0.0 2020-12-16 13:49:07"/>
<doc xmlns:jersey="http://jersey.java.net/" jersey:hint="To get simplified WADL with user's resources only do not use the query parameter detail. Link: http://localhost:9998/application.wadl"/>
<grammars/>
<resources base="http://localhost:9998/">
<resource path="country/{id}">
<param xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" type="xs:int" style="template" name="countryId"/>
<method name="GET" id="getCountry">
<response>
<representation mediaType="application/xml"/>
</response>
</method>
<method name="OPTIONS" id="apply">
<request>
<representation mediaType="*/*"/>
</request>
<response>
<representation mediaType="application/vnd.sun.wadl+xml"/>
</response>
<jersey:extended xmlns:jersey="http://jersey.java.net/">true</jersey:extended>
</method>
<method name="OPTIONS" id="apply">
<request>
<representation mediaType="*/*"/>
</request>
<response>
<representation mediaType="text/plain"/>
</response>
<jersey:extended xmlns:jersey="http://jersey.java.net/">true</jersey:extended>
</method>
<method name="OPTIONS" id="apply">
<request>
<representation mediaType="*/*"/>
</request>
<response>
<representation mediaType="*/*"/>
</response>
<jersey:extended xmlns:jersey="http://jersey.java.net/">true</jersey:extended>
</method>
</resource>
<resource path="application.wadl">
<method name="GET" id="getWadl">
<response>
<representation mediaType="application/vnd.sun.wadl+xml"/>
<representation mediaType="application/xml"/>
</response>
<jersey:extended xmlns:jersey="http://jersey.java.net/">true</jersey:extended>
</method>
<method name="OPTIONS" id="apply">
<request>
<representation mediaType="*/*"/>
</request>
<response>
<representation mediaType="text/plain"/>
</response>
<jersey:extended xmlns:jersey="http://jersey.java.net/">true</jersey:extended>
</method>
<method name="OPTIONS" id="apply">
<request>
<representation mediaType="*/*"/>
</request>
<response>
<representation mediaType="*/*"/>
</response>
<jersey:extended xmlns:jersey="http://jersey.java.net/">true</jersey:extended>
</method>
<resource path="{path}">
<param xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" type="xs:string" style="template" name="path"/>
<method name="GET" id="geExternalGrammar">
<response>
<representation mediaType="application/xml"/>
</response>
<jersey:extended xmlns:jersey="http://jersey.java.net/">true</jersey:extended>
</method>
<method name="OPTIONS" id="apply">
<request>
<representation mediaType="*/*"/>
</request>
<response>
<representation mediaType="text/plain"/>
</response>
<jersey:extended xmlns:jersey="http://jersey.java.net/">true</jersey:extended>
</method>
<method name="OPTIONS" id="apply">
<request>
<representation mediaType="*/*"/>
</request>
<response>
<representation mediaType="*/*"/>
</response>
<jersey:extended xmlns:jersey="http://jersey.java.net/">true</jersey:extended>
</method>
<jersey:extended xmlns:jersey="http://jersey.java.net/">true</jersey:extended>
</resource>
<jersey:extended xmlns:jersey="http://jersey.java.net/">true</jersey:extended>
</resource>
</resources>
</application>
In the example above the returned application WADL is shown in full. WADL schema is defined by the
WADL specification, so let's look at it in more details. The root WADL document element is
the application. It contains global
information about the deployed JAX-RS application. Under this element there is a nested element
resources which contains zero or more resource elements. Each
resource element describes a single deployed resource. In our example, there are only two root
resources - "country/{id}" and "application.wadl". The
"application.wadl" resource is the resource that was just requested in order to receive the
application WADL document. Even though WADL support is an additional feature in Jersey it is still
a resource deployed in the resource model and therefore it is itself present in the returned WADL document.
The first resource element with the path="country/{id}" is the element that describes our
custom deployed resource.
This resource contains a GET method and three OPTIONS methods.
The GET method is our getCountry() method defined in the sample. There is a method name
in the id attribute and @Produces is described in the
response/representation WADL element. OPTIONS methods are the methods that
are automatically added by Jersey to each resource. There is an OPTIONS method
returning "text/plain" media type, that will return a response with a string entity containing
the list of methods deployed on this resource (this means that instead of WADL you can use this OPTIONS
method to get similar information in a textual representation).
Another OPTIONS method returning */* will return a response with no entity
and Allow header that will contain list of methods as a String.
The last OPTIONS method producing "application/vnd.sun.wadl+xml" returns a
WADL description of the resource "country/{id}". As you can see, all OPTIONS methods
return information about the resource to which the HTTP OPTIONS request is made.
Second resource with a path "application.wadl" has, again, similar OPTIONS methods
and one GET method which return this WADL. There is also
a sub-resource with a path defined by path param {path}. This means that you can request
a resource on the URI http://localhost:9998/application.wadl/something.
This is used only to return an external grammar if there is any attached. Such an external grammar can be
for example an XSD schema of the response entity which if the response entity is a JAXB bean.
An external grammar support via Jersey extended WADL support is described in sections below.
All resource that were added in this second example into the WADL contains
element extended. This means that this resource is not a part of a core RESTful API and
is rather a helper resource. If you need to mark any your own resource are extended, annotate
is with @ExtendedResource. Note that there might be methods visible in the default simple
WADL even the user has not added them. This is for example the case of MVC added methods which were added
by ModelProcessor but are still intended to be used by the client to achieve their
primary use case of getting formatted data.
Let's now send a HTTP OPTIONS request to "country/{id}" resource using the the
curl command:
curl -X OPTIONS -H "Allow: application/vnd.sun.wadl+xml" \
-v http://localhost:9998/country/15We should see a WADL returned similar to this one:
Example 18.3. OPTIONS method returning WADL
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<application xmlns="http://wadl.dev.java.net/2009/02">
<doc xmlns:jersey="http://jersey.java.net/"
jersey:generatedBy="Jersey: 3.0.0 ${buildNumber}"/>
<grammars/>
<resources base="http://localhost:9998/">
<resource path="country/15">
<method name="GET" id="getCountry">
<response>
<representation mediaType="application/xml"/>
</response>
</method>
<method name="OPTIONS" id="apply">
<request>
<representation mediaType="*/*"/>
</request>
<response>
<representation mediaType="application/vnd.sun.wadl+xml"/>
</response>
</method>
<method name="OPTIONS" id="apply">
<request>
<representation mediaType="*/*"/>
</request>
<response>
<representation mediaType="text/plain"/>
</response>
</method>
<method name="OPTIONS" id="apply">
<request>
<representation mediaType="*/*"/>
</request>
<response>
<representation mediaType="*/*"/>
</response>
</method>
</resource>
</resources>
</application>
The returned WADL document has the standard WADL structure that we saw in the WADL document returned for the
whole Jersey application earlier. The main difference here is that the only resource is the
resource to which the OPTIONS HTTP request was sent. The resource has now path
"country/15" and not "country/{id}" as the path parameter
{id} was already specified in the request to this concrete resource.
Another, a more complex WADL example is shown in the next example.
Example 18.4. More complex WADL example - JAX-RS resource definition
@Path("customer/{id}")
public static class CustomerResource {
private CustomerService customerService;
@GET
public Customer get(@PathParam("id") int id) {
return customerService.getCustomerById(id);
}
@PUT
public Customer put(Customer customer) {
return customerService.updateCustomer(customer);
}
@Path("address")
public CustomerAddressSubResource getCustomerAddress(@PathParam("id") int id) {
return new CustomerAddressSubResource(id);
}
@Path("additional-info")
public Object getAdditionalInfoSubResource(@PathParam("id") int id) {
return new CustomerAddressSubResource(id);
}
}
public static class CustomerAddressSubResource {
private final int customerId;
private CustomerService customerService;
public CustomerAddressSubResource(int customerId) {
this.customerId = customerId;
this.customerService = null; // init customer service here
}
@GET
public String getAddress() {
return customerService.getAddressForCustomer(customerId);
}
@PUT
public void updateAddress(String address) {
customerService.updateAddressForCustomer(customerId, address);
}
@GET
@Path("sub")
public String getDeliveryAddress() {
return customerService.getDeliveryAddressForCustomer(customerId);
}
}
The GET request to http://localhost:9998/application.wadl will
return the following WADL document:
Example 18.5. More complex WADL example - WADL content
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<application xmlns="http://wadl.dev.java.net/2009/02">
<doc xmlns:jersey="http://jersey.java.net/"
jersey:generatedBy="Jersey: 3.0.0 ${buildNumber}"/>
<grammars/>
<resources base="http://localhost:9998/">
<resource path="customer/{id}">
<param xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
type="xs:int" style="template" name="id"/>
<method name="GET" id="get">
<response/>
</method>
<method name="PUT" id="put">
<response/>
</method>
<method name="OPTIONS" id="apply">
<request>
<representation mediaType="*/*"/>
</request>
<response>
<representation mediaType="application/vnd.sun.wadl+xml"/>
</response>
</method>
<method name="OPTIONS" id="apply">
<request>
<representation mediaType="*/*"/>
</request>
<response>
<representation mediaType="text/plain"/>
</response>
</method>
<method name="OPTIONS" id="apply">
<request>
<representation mediaType="*/*"/>
</request>
<response>
<representation mediaType="*/*"/>
</response>
</method>
<resource path="additional-info">
<param xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
type="xs:int" style="template" name="id"/>
</resource>
<resource path="address">
<param xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
type="xs:int" style="template" name="id"/>
<method name="GET" id="getAddress">
<response/>
</method>
<method name="PUT" id="updateAddress"/>
<resource path="sub">
<method name="GET" id="getDeliveryAddress">
<response/>
</method>
</resource>
</resource>
</resource>
<resource path="application.wadl">
<method name="GET" id="getWadl">
<response>
<representation mediaType="application/vnd.sun.wadl+xml"/>
<representation mediaType="application/xml"/>
</response>
</method>
<method name="OPTIONS" id="apply">
<request>
<representation mediaType="*/*"/>
</request>
<response>
<representation mediaType="text/plain"/>
</response>
</method>
<method name="OPTIONS" id="apply">
<request>
<representation mediaType="*/*"/>
</request>
<response>
<representation mediaType="*/*"/>
</response>
</method>
<resource path="{path}">
<param xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
type="xs:string" style="template" name="path"/>
<method name="GET" id="geExternalGrammar">
<response>
<representation mediaType="application/xml"/>
</response>
</method>
<method name="OPTIONS" id="apply">
<request>
<representation mediaType="*/*"/>
</request>
<response>
<representation mediaType="text/plain"/>
</response>
</method>
<method name="OPTIONS" id="apply">
<request>
<representation mediaType="*/*"/>
</request>
<response>
<representation mediaType="*/*"/>
</response>
</method>
</resource>
</resource>
</resources>
</application>
The resource with path="customer/{id}" is similar to the
country resource from the previous example. There is a path parameter which identifies the customer
by id. The resource contains 2 user-declared methods and again auto-generated
OPTIONS methods added by Jersey. The resource declares 2 sub-resource locators which are
represented in the returned WADL document as nested resource elements. Note that the sub-resource
locator getCustomerAddress() returns a type CustomerAddressSubResource in the
method declaration and also in the WADL there is a resource element for such
a sub resource with full internal description. The second method
getAdditionalInfoSubResource() returns only an Object in the method declaration.
While this is correct from the JAX-RS perspective as the real returned type can be computed from a request
information, it creates a problem for WADL generator because WADL is generated based on the static configuration
of the JAX-RS application resources. The WADL generator does not know what type would be actually returned to
a request at run time.
That is the reason why the nested resource element with path="additional-info"
does not contain any information about the supported resource representations.
The CustomerAddressSubResource sub-resource described in the nested element
<resource path="address"> does not contain an OPTIONS method.
While these methods are in fact generated by Jersey for the sub-resource, Jersey WADL generator does not currently
support adding these methods to the sub-resource description. This should be addressed in the near future.
Still, there are two user-defined resource methods handling HTTP GET and PUT requests.
The sub-resource method getDeliveryAddress() is represented as a separate nested resource with
path="sub". Should there be more sub-resource methods defined with path="sub",
then all these method descriptions would be placed into the same resource element.
In other words, sub-resource methods are grouped in WADL as sub-resources based on their path
value.
WADL generation is enabled in Jersey by default. This means that OPTIONS
methods are added by default to each resource and an auto-generated /application.wadl
resource is deployed too. To override this default behavior and disable WADL generation in Jersey, setup the
configuration property in your application:
jersey.config.server.wadl.disableWadl=true
This property can be setup in a web.xml if the Jersey application is deployed
in the servlet with web.xml or the property can be returned from the Application.
getProperties(). See Deployment chapter for more information
on setting the application configuration properties in various deployments.
WADL support in Jersey is implemented via ModelProcessor extension. This implementation enhances
the application resource model by adding the WADL providing resources. WADL ModelProcessor
priority value is high (i.e. the priority is low) as it should be executed as one of the last model processors.
Therefore, any ModelProcessor executed before will not see WADL extensions in the resource model.
WADL handling resource model extensions (resources and OPTIONS resource methods) are not added to the
application resource model if there is already a matching resource or a resource method detected in the model.
In other words, if you define for example your own OPTIONS method that would produce
"application.wadl" response content, this method will not be overridden by WADL model processor.
See Resource builder chapter for more information on
ModelProcessor extension mechanism.
Please note that the API of extended WADL support is going to be changed in one of the future releases of Jersey 3.x (see below).
Jersey supports extension of WADL generation called extended WADL. Using the extended WADL support you can enhance the generated WADL document with additional information, such as resource method javadoc-based documentation of your REST APIs, adding general documentation, adding external grammar support, or adding any custom WADL extension information.
Again, note that the extended WADL in Jersey 3.x is NOT the intended final version and
API is going to be changed. The existing set of features and functionality will be preserved but the
APIs will be significantly re-designed to support additional use cases. This impacts mainly the APIs of
WadlGenerator, WadlGeneratorConfig as well as any related classes. The API changes
may impact your code if you are using a custom WadlGenerator or plan to implement one.