Spring Boot REST API Documentation Tutorial

Welcome to the Spring Boot REST API documentation guide! This tutorial will walk you through the essentials of building and documenting REST APIs using Spring Boot. 🚀

Key Concepts

• Spring Boot: A framework that simplifies creating standalone, production-grade Spring applications. ⚙️
• REST API: A set of rules for communication between client and server over HTTP. 📡
• Swagger/OpenAPI: Tools for automatically generating API documentation. 📝

Steps to Create a REST API

1. Set up a Spring Boot project
   Use Spring Initializr to generate a project structure.

   

2. Define endpoints
   Create controller classes with @RestController annotation.
   Example:

   @RestController
   public class MyController {
       @GetMapping("/hello")
       public String sayHello() {
           return "Hello, World!";
       }
   }
   

3. Add Swagger annotations
   Use @Api, @ApiOperation, and @ApiResponses to describe your API.

   

4. Generate documentation
   Access /swagger-ui.html in your browser to view the interactive API docs.
   Explore Swagger UI

Best Practices

• Keep responses consistent with @JsonView or @ResponseBody. 📦
• Use @Valid for input validation. ✅
• Document all endpoints thoroughly. 📖

For advanced topics like security or database integration, check out Spring Boot Security Tutorial. 🌐