JAX-RS return a Map<String,String> - jax-rs

Question

I want to retrieve a Map from a using JAX-RS (text/xml)
#GET
public Map<String,String> getMap(){
}
but I am getting the error below:
0000001e FlushResultHa E org.apache.wink.server.internal.handlers.FlushResultHandler handleResponse The system could not find a javax.ws.rs.ext.MessageBodyWriter or a DataSourceProvider class for the java.util.HashMap type and application/x-ms-application mediaType. Ensure that a javax.ws.rs.ext.MessageBodyWriter exists in the JAX-RS application for the type and media type specified.
[10:43:52:885 IST 07/02/12] 0000001e RequestProces I org.apache.wink.server.internal.RequestProcessor logException The following error occurred during the invocation of the handlers chain: WebApplicationException (500 - Internal Server Error) with message 'null' while processing GET request sent to http://localhost:9080/jaxrs_module/echo/upload/getSiteNames

Answer 1

The solution I choose is to wrap a Map and use it for the return param.
#XmlRootElement
public class JaxrsMapWrapper {
private Map<String,String> map;
public JaxrsMapWrapper(){
}
public void setMap(Map<String,String> map) {
this.map = map;
}
public Map<String,String> getMap() {
return map;
}
}
and the method signature will go like this
#GET
public JaxrsMapWrapper getMap()

Answer 2

Your problem is that the default serialization strategy (use JAXB) means that you can't serialize that map directly. There are two main ways to deal with this.
Write an XmlAdaptor
There are a number of questions on this on SO but the nicest explanation I've seen so far is on the CXF users mailing list from a few years ago. The one tricky bit (since you don't want an extra wrapper element) is that once you've got yourself a type adaptor, you've got to install it using a package-level annotation (on the right package, which might take some effort to figure out). Those are relatively exotic.
Write a custom MessageBodyWriter
It might well be easier to write your own code to do the serialization. To do this, you implement javax.ws.rs.ext.MessageBodyWriter and tag it with #Provider (assuming that you are using an engine that uses that to manage registration; not all do for complex reasons that don't matter too much here). This will let you produce exactly the document you want from any arbitrary type at a cost of more complexity when writing (but at least you won't be having complex JAXB problems). There are many ways to actually generate XML, with which ones to choose between depending on the data to be serialized
Note that if you were streaming the data out rather than assembling everything in memory, you'd have to implement this interface.

Answer 3

Using CXF 2.4.2, it supports returning Map from the api. I use jackson-jaxrs 1.9.6 for serialization.
#Path("participation")
#Consumes({"application/json"})
#Produces({"application/json"})
public interface SurveyParticipationApi {
#GET
#Path("appParameters")
Map<String,String> getAppParameters();
....
}

Answer 4

With CXF 2.7.x use
WebClient.postCollection(Object collection, Class<T> memberClass, Class<T> responseClass)
,like this in your rest client code.
(Map<String, Region>) client.postCollection(regionCodes, String.class,Map.class);
for other collections use WebClient.postAndGetCollection().