Remove association links for content on collection resource for Spring Data REST

Question

How configure Spring Data REST to remove entity association links (left only "self") on Collection resource response of Repository interface endpoints, without set exported=false on @ResResource annotation (need keep exported the endpoints)

We has entities where the _links part has the bigest size on the response:

• On Item resource _ links are useful to navigate throught the associations.

• But on Collection Resources , mainly on large collections, this information is not important and makes the response unnecesary biger .

We need change this response:

    {
     "_embedded" : {
     "persons" : [ {
       "id" : "bat_3191",
       "name" : "B",
       "_links" : {     // 80% of response size !!
            "self" : {
                "href" : "http://localhost:8080/api/persons/bat_3191"
            },
            "orders" : {
                "href" : "http://localhost:8080/api/persons/bat_3191/order"
            },
            "payments" : {
                "href" : "http://localhost:8080/api/persons/bat_3191/payments"
            },
            "childrens" : {
                "href" : "http://localhost:8080/api/persons/bat_3191/childrens"
            },
            "invoices" : {
                "href" : "http://localhost:8080/api/persons/bat_3191/invoices"
            },
            "brands" : {
                "href" : "http://localhost:8080/api/persons/bat_3191/brands"
            },
        }
      },
      { person [2] } 
        ... 
      { person [N] }
      ]
    },
      "_links" : {
       [page links]
    }

To a only "self" on _links part:

{
"_embedded" : {
"persons" : [ {
  "id" : "bat_3191",
  "name" : "B",
  "_links" : {
    "self" : {
      "href" : "http://localhost:8080/api/persons/bat_3191"
    }
  }
}, {
  "id" : "bat_2340",
  "name" : "B",
  "_links" : {
    "self" : {
      "href" : "http://localhost:8080/api/persons/bat_2340"
    }
  }

Answer 1

If I wanted to control the hateos links in springboot I used a resource assembler. As an example:

@Autowired
private EmployeeAddressResourceAssembler assembler;

@GetMapping(value="/{empId}", produces=MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON_VALUE)
public ResponseEntity<EmployeeAddressResource> getEmployeeAddress(@PathVariable Integer empId) {
    EmployeeAddressItem employeeAddressItem = restTemplate.getForObject( 
        serviceUrl + "/employee/address/{empId}", 
        EmployeeAddressItem.class, empId);
    return ResponseEntity.ok( assembler.toResource(employeeAddressItem) );
}

And then I used the resource assembler.

@Component
public class EmployeeAddressResourceAssembler
        extends ResourceAssemblerSupport<EmployeeAddressItem, EmployeeAddressResource> {

    public EmployeeAddressResourceAssembler() {
        super(EmployeeAddressController.class, EmployeeAddressResource.class);
    }

    @Override
    public EmployeeAddressResource toResource(EmployeeAddressItem item) {

        // createResource(employeeAddressItem);
        EmployeeAddressResource resource = createResourceWithId(item.getEmpId(), item);
        resource.fromEmployeeAddressItem(item);
        // … do further mapping
        resource.add(linkTo(methodOn(EmployeeAddressController.class).deleteEmployeeAddress(item.getEmpId())).withRel("delete"));        
        return resource;
    }

}

and the ResourceAssembler uses a Resource

public class EmployeeAddressResource extends ResourceSupport {
    private Integer empId;
    private String address1;
    private String address2;
    private String address3;
    private String address4;
    private String state;
    private String country;

    public void fromEmployeeAddressItem(EmployeeAddressItem item) {
        this.empId = item.getEmpId();
        this.address1 = item.getAddress1();
        this.address2 = item.getAddress2();
        this.address3 = item.getAddress3();
        this.address4 = item.getAddress4();
        this.state = item.getState();
        this.country = item.getCountry();
    }

All this at RestPracticeWithHateos