How to manage REST API versioning with spring?
I've been searching how to manage a REST API versions using Spring 3.2.x, but I haven't find anything that is easy to maintain. I'll explain first the problem I have, and then a solution... but I do wonder if I'm re-inventing the wheel here.
I want to manage the version based on the Accept header, and for example if a request has the Accept header application/vnd.company.app-1.1+json, I want spring MVC to forward this to the method that handles this version. And since not all methods in an API change in the same release, I don't want to go to each of my controllers and change anything for a handler that hasn't changed between versions. I also don't want to have the logic to figure out which version to use in the controller themselves (using service locators) as Spring is already discovering which method to call.
So taken an API with versions 1.0, to 1.8 where a handler was introduced in version 1.0 and modified in v1.7, I would like handle this in the following way. Imagine that the code is inside a controller, and that there's some code that is able to extract the version from the header. (The following is invalid in Spring)
@RequestMapping(...)
@VersionRange(1.0,1.6)
@ResponseBody
public Object method1() {
// so something
return object;
}
@RequestMapping(...) //same Request mapping annotation
@VersionRange(1.7)
@ResponseBody
public Object method2() {
// so something
return object;
}
This is not possible in spring as the 2 methods have the same RequestMapping annotation and Spring fails to load. The idea is that the VersionRange annotation can define an open or closed version range. The first method is valid from versions 1.0 to 1.6, while the second for version 1.7 onwards (including the latest version 1.8). I know that this approach breaks if someone decides to pass version 99.99, but that's something I'm OK to live with.
Now, since the above is not possible without a serious rework of how spring works, I was thinking of tinkering with the way handlers matched to requests, in particular to write my own ProducesRequestCondition, and have the version range in there. For example
Code:
@RequestMapping(..., produces = "application/vnd.company.app-[1.0-1.6]+json)
@ResponseBody
public Object method1() {
// so something
return object;
}
@RequestMapping(..., produces = "application/vnd.company.app-[1.7-]+json)
@ResponseBody
public Object method2() {
// so something
return object;
}
In this way, I can have closed or open version ranges defined in the produces part of the annotation. I'm working on this solution now, with the problem that I still had to replace some core Spring MVC classes (RequestMappingInfoHandlerMapping, RequestMappingHandlerMapping and RequestMappingInfo), which I don't like, because it means extra work whenever I decide to upgrade to a newer version of spring.
I would appreciate any thoughts... and especially, any suggestion to do this in a simpler, easier to maintain way.
Edit
Adding a bounty. To get the bounty, please answer the question above without suggesting to have this logic in the controller themselves. Spring already has a lot of logic to select which controller method to call, and I want to piggyback on that.
Edit 2
I've shared the original POC (with some improvements) in github: https://github.com/augusto/restVersioning
Regardless whether versioning can be avoided by doing backwards compatible changes (which might not always possible when you are bound by some corporate guidelines or your API clients are implemented in a buggy way and would break even if they should not) the abstracted requirement is an interesting one:
How can I do a custom request mapping that does arbitrary evaluations of header values from the request without doing the evaluation in the method body?
As described in this SO answer you actually can have the same @RequestMapping and use a different annotation to differentiate during the actual routing that happens during runtime. To do so, you will have to:
- Create a new annotation
VersionRange. - Implement a
RequestCondition<VersionRange>. Since you will have something like a best-match algorithm you will have to check whether methods annotated with otherVersionRangevalues provide a better match for the current request. - Implement a
VersionRangeRequestMappingHandlerMappingbased on the annotation and request condition (as described in the post How to implement @RequestMapping custom properties ). - Configure spring to evaluate your
VersionRangeRequestMappingHandlerMappingbefore using the defaultRequestMappingHandlerMapping(e.g. by setting its order to 0).
This wouldn't require any hacky replacements of Spring components but uses the Spring configuration and extension mechanisms so it should work even if you update your Spring version (as long as the new version supports these mechanisms).
I just created a custom solution. I'm using the @ApiVersion annotation in combination with @RequestMapping annotation inside @Controller classes.
Example:
@Controller
@RequestMapping("x")
@ApiVersion(1)
class MyController {
@RequestMapping("a")
void a() {} // maps to /v1/x/a
@RequestMapping("b")
@ApiVersion(2)
void b() {} // maps to /v2/x/b
@RequestMapping("c")
@ApiVersion({1,3})
void c() {} // maps to /v1/x/c
// and to /v3/x/c
}
Implementation:
ApiVersion.java annotation:
@Target({ElementType.METHOD, ElementType.TYPE})
@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
public @interface ApiVersion {
int[] value();
}
ApiVersionRequestMappingHandlerMapping.java (this is mostly copy and paste from RequestMappingHandlerMapping):
public class ApiVersionRequestMappingHandlerMapping extends RequestMappingHandlerMapping {
private final String prefix;
public ApiVersionRequestMappingHandlerMapping(String prefix) {
this.prefix = prefix;
}
@Override
protected RequestMappingInfo getMappingForMethod(Method method, Class<?> handlerType) {
RequestMappingInfo info = super.getMappingForMethod(method, handlerType);
if(info == null) return null;
ApiVersion methodAnnotation = AnnotationUtils.findAnnotation(method, ApiVersion.class);
if(methodAnnotation != null) {
RequestCondition<?> methodCondition = getCustomMethodCondition(method);
// Concatenate our ApiVersion with the usual request mapping
info = createApiVersionInfo(methodAnnotation, methodCondition).combine(info);
} else {
ApiVersion typeAnnotation = AnnotationUtils.findAnnotation(handlerType, ApiVersion.class);
if(typeAnnotation != null) {
RequestCondition<?> typeCondition = getCustomTypeCondition(handlerType);
// Concatenate our ApiVersion with the usual request mapping
info = createApiVersionInfo(typeAnnotation, typeCondition).combine(info);
}
}
return info;
}
private RequestMappingInfo createApiVersionInfo(ApiVersion annotation, RequestCondition<?> customCondition) {
int[] values = annotation.value();
String[] patterns = new String[values.length];
for(int i=0; i<values.length; i++) {
// Build the URL prefix
patterns[i] = prefix+values[i];
}
return new RequestMappingInfo(
new PatternsRequestCondition(patterns, getUrlPathHelper(), getPathMatcher(), useSuffixPatternMatch(), useTrailingSlashMatch(), getFileExtensions()),
new RequestMethodsRequestCondition(),
new ParamsRequestCondition(),
new HeadersRequestCondition(),
new ConsumesRequestCondition(),
new ProducesRequestCondition(),
customCondition);
}
}
Injection into WebMvcConfigurationSupport:
public class WebMvcConfig extends WebMvcConfigurationSupport {
@Override
public RequestMappingHandlerMapping requestMappingHandlerMapping() {
return new ApiVersionRequestMappingHandlerMapping("v");
}
}
I would still recommend using URL's for versioning because in URLs @RequestMapping supports patterns and path parameters, which format could be specified with regexp.
And to handle client upgrades (which you mentioned in comment) you can use aliases like 'latest'. Or have unversioned version of api which uses latest version (yeah).
Also using path parameters you can implement any complex version handling logic, and if you already want to have ranges, you very well might want something more soon enough.
Here is a couple of examples:
@RequestMapping({
"/**/public_api/1.1/method",
"/**/public_api/1.2/method",
})
public void method1(){
}
@RequestMapping({
"/**/public_api/1.3/method"
"/**/public_api/latest/method"
"/**/public_api/method"
})
public void method2(){
}
@RequestMapping({
"/**/public_api/1.4/method"
"/**/public_api/beta/method"
})
public void method2(){
}
//handles all 1.* requests
@RequestMapping({
"/**/public_api/{version:1\\.\\d+}/method"
})
public void methodManual1(@PathVariable("version") String version){
}
//handles 1.0-1.6 range, but somewhat ugly
@RequestMapping({
"/**/public_api/{version:1\\.[0123456]?}/method"
})
public void methodManual1(@PathVariable("version") String version){
}
//fully manual version handling
@RequestMapping({
"/**/public_api/{version}/method"
})
public void methodManual2(@PathVariable("version") String version){
int[] versionParts = getVersionParts(version);
//manual handling of versions
}
public int[] getVersionParts(String version){
try{
String[] versionParts = version.split("\\.");
int[] result = new int[versionParts.length];
for(int i=0;i<versionParts.length;i++){
result[i] = Integer.parseInt(versionParts[i]);
}
return result;
}catch (Exception ex) {
return null;
}
}
Based on the last approach you can actually implement something like what you want.
For example you can have a controller that contains only method stabs with version handling.
In that handling you look (using reflection/AOP/code generation libraries) in some spring service/component or in the same class for method with the same name/signature and required @VersionRange and invoke it passing all parameters.