How to enable HAL explorer and API testing spring boot example

  Spring Boot Rest API Testing with HAL Explorer

Purpose: In this post, we will learn how we can enable HAL Explorer and API Testing in spring boot. The steps are given below.

1. Setup and Create Project: Visit here. Spring Boot Rest API Hello World Examples.

Next Step. Spring Boot Parent Dependencies.

  <parent>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
        <version>2.3.0.M1</version>
        <relativePath /> <!-- lookup parent from repository -->
    </parent>

Next Step. HAL Explorer Dependencies.

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.data</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-data-rest-hal-explorer</artifactId>
</dependency>

Next Step. Spring Boot main class.

Class: Application.java

Note: @SpringBootApplication=@Configuration+ @EnableAutoConfiguration+ @ComponentScan.

package com.bce;

import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean;

@SpringBootApplication
public class Application {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(Application.class, args);
    }

}

Next Step. Create Rest Controller.

package com.bce.controller;

import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.GetMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RestController;

@RestController
public class HelloWorldRestController {

    @GetMapping
    public String hello() {
        return "Hello World";
    }

}

Next Step. Server Port:  The default server port is 8080. Wish you want to change open application.properties and add the below line.

server.port=8081

Next Step: Test with HAL Explorer. Open the given below URL on the browser.

URL: http://localhost:8080/explorer/index.html#uri=/

Download Code from GitHub.  Download