Developing WebSocket server endpoints

There are two ways we can implement a WebSocket server endpoint via the Jakarta API for WebSocket: we can either develop an endpoint programmatically, in which case we need to extend the jakarta.websocket.Endpoint class, or we can annotate Plain Old Java Objects (POJOs) with WebSocket-specific annotations. These two approaches are very similar, therefore we will be discussing in detail only the annotation approach, and will briefly explain how to develop WebSocket server endpoints programmatically later in the chapter.

In this chapter, we will develop a simple web-based chat application that takes full advantage of the Jakarta API for WebSocket.

Developing an annotated WebSocket server endpoint

The following Java class illustrates how we can develop a WebSocket server endpoint by annotating a Java class:

package com.ensode.jakartaeebook.websocketchat.serverendpoint;
//imports omitted
@ServerEndpoint("/websocketchat")
public...