Exploring hypermedia support in Jersey

Abstract

The REST architectural style, as defined by Roy Fielding in his thesis [3], is characterized by four constraints: (i) identification of resources (ii) manipulation of resources through representations (iii) self-descriptive messages and (iv) hyper-media as the engine of application state. It is constraint (iv), hypermedia as the engine of application state or HATEOAS for short, that is the least understood and the focus of this paper. HATEOAS refers to the use of hyperlinks in resource representations as a way of navigating the state machine of an application.