JAX-RS Tip of the Day: Use GenericEntity<T> for Collections

A common requirement is to generate List<T> for a REST service. The JAX-RS client must retrieve this, but the question is how to use it. The easiest method to use a GenericType<T>.

As an example, we have a service which returns a List<Widget>;. The client application will need to wrap the returned List<Widget>. We accomplish this as shown below using GenericType<List<Widget>>(){}.

---

---

The GenericType<List<Widget>>(){} allows us to wrap the List<Widget>, and return the <code>Collection</code> object we are really interested in. So remember, if you need to wrap a <code>Collection</code> use GenericType<T>.