Querying an existing REST service

In this recipe, from a Spring controller method, we will retrieve data from an existing REST service.

Getting ready

We will query the REST service of the previous Creating a REST service recipe.

We will convert the JSON data received from the REST service to User objects. We will use this User class:

public class User implements {    
  private String name;
  private int age;

  // ... getters and setters
}

How to do it…

Here are the steps for using a REST service:

1. Add the Maven dependencies for Jackson in pom.xml:

   <dependency>
     <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.core</groupId>
     <artifactId>jackson-core</artifactId>
     <version>2.4.2</version>
   </dependency>
   
   <dependency>
     <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.core</groupId>
     <artifactId>jackson-databind</artifactId>
     <version>2.4.2</version>
   </dependency>

2. In a controller method, define the URL of the REST service to query...