Spring Data Rest: removing _links attributes from the response of a hypermedia Rest JPA entities

Question

I want to customize the response of a hypermedia Rest JPA entity and want to remove all the _links attributes and self link attributes. My client application is not that big and it knows what exact REST API's to call. So I feel these extra bytes travelling in HTTP packet would always be a over head in my application.

So how can I achieve to remove this links attributes from the response?

Right now REST API response is:

{
  "_embedded" : {
    "questionsTypes" : [ {
      "queTypeID" : 2,
      "queDescription" : "Single choice rating selection",
      "_links" : {
        "self" : {
          "href" : "http://localhost:8080/question_web/rest/QuestionsType/2"
        },
        "questionsType" : {
          "href" : "http://localhost:8080/question_web/rest/QuestionsType/2{?projection}",
          "templated" : true
        }
      }
    },{
      "queTypeID" : 5,
      "queDescription" : "Subjective questions",
      "_links" : {
        "self" : {
          "href" : "http://localhost:8080/question_web/rest/QuestionsType/5"
        },
        "questionsType" : {
          "href" : "http://localhost:8080/question_web/rest/QuestionsType/5{?projection}",
          "templated" : true
        }
      }
    } ]
  },
  "_links" : {
    "self" : {
      "href" : "http://localhost:8080/question_web/rest/QuestionsType"
    },
    "profile" : {
      "href" : "http://localhost:8080/question_web/rest/profile/QuestionsType"
    },
    "search" : {
      "href" : "http://localhost:8080/question_web/rest/QuestionsType/search"
    }
  }
}

Final response I expect, is something like this:

{
  "_embedded" : {
    "questionsTypes" : [ {
      "queTypeID" : 2,
      "queDescription" : "Single choice rating selection",
    },{
      "queTypeID" : 5,
      "queDescription" : "Subjective questions",
    } ]
  }
}

Mooch

Please, take a look at this #23264544 – Lotetgaronne

Answer 1

@Component
public class MyEntityProcessor implements RepresentationModelProcessor<EntityModel<MyEntity>> {

    @Override
    public EntityModel<MyEntity> process(EntityModel<MyEntity> model) {
        return EntityModel.of(model.getContent());
    }

}

Richmal

Welcome to StackOverflow. While this code may answer the question, providing additional context regarding how and/or why it solves the problem would improve the answer's long-term value. – Wheedle

Answer 2

Remove all _links from all objects:

But this method overrides any other processor

@Component
public class ObjectRepresentationModelProcessor implements RepresentationModelProcessor<EntityModel<Object>> {

    @NonNull
    @Override
    public EntityModel<Object> process(EntityModel<Object> model) {
        return EntityModel.of(model.getContent());
    }
}

Ornithology

As it’s currently written, your answer is unclear. Please edit to add additional details that will help others understand how this addresses the question asked. You can find more information on how to write good answers in the help center. – Tanga