Best practice for JSON-REST client server programming

Question

I did use SOAP quiet a bit a while back but now on a new project I have to get a handle on JSON-REST communication.
Basically I have the following resource on the server side
import org.json.JSONObject;
import org.restlet.resource.Get;
import org.restlet.resource.ServerResource;
* Resource which has only one representation.
public class UserResource extends ServerResource
     User user1 = new User("userA", "secret1");
     User user2 = new User("userB", "secret2");
     User user3 = new User("userC", "secret3");
     @Get
     public String represent()
          return user1.toJSONobject().toString();
     public static class User
          private String name;
          private String pwd;
          public User( String name, String pwd )
               this.name = name;
               this.pwd = pwd;
          public JSONObject toJSONobject()
               JSONObject jsonRepresentation = new JSONObject();
               jsonRepresentation.put("name", name);
               jsonRepresentation.put("pwd", pwd);
               return jsonRepresentation;
}and my mapping defined as
     <servlet>
          <servlet-name>RestletServlet</servlet-name>
          <servlet-class>org.restlet.ext.servlet.ServerServlet</servlet-class>
          <init-param>
               <param-name>org.restlet.application</param-name>
               <param-value>firstSteps.FirstStepsApplication </param-value>
          </init-param>
     </servlet>
     <!-- Catch all requests -->
     <servlet-mapping>
          <servlet-name>RestletServlet</servlet-name>
          <url-pattern>/user</url-pattern>
     </servlet-mapping>and I have a test client as follows
          HttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient();
          try {
               HttpGet httpget = new HttpGet("http://localhost:8888/user");
               // System.out.println("executing request " + httpget.getURI());
               // Create a response handler
               ResponseHandler<String> responseHandler = new BasicResponseHandler();
               String responseBody = httpclient.execute(httpget, responseHandler);
               JSONObject obj = new JSONObject(responseBody);
               String name = obj.getString("name");
               String pwd = obj.getString("pwd");
               UserResource.User user = new UserResource.User(name, pwd);
               user.notify();
          }Everything works fine and I can retrieve my USer object on the client side.
What I would like to know is
Is this how the server side typically works, you need to implement a methot to convert your model class to a JSON object for sending to the client
On the client side you need to implement code that knows how to build a User object from the received JSON object.
Basically is there any frameworks available I could leverage to do this work?
Also, what would I need to do on the server side to allow a client to request a specific user using a URL like localhost:8888/user/user1?
I know a mapping like /user/* would direct the request to the correct Resource on the server side but how would I pass the "user1" parameter to the Resource?
Thanks

Answer 1

I did use SOAP quiet a bit a while back but now on a new project I have to get a handle on JSON-REST communication.
Basically I have the following resource on the server side
import org.json.JSONObject;
import org.restlet.resource.Get;
import org.restlet.resource.ServerResource;
* Resource which has only one representation.
public class UserResource extends ServerResource
     User user1 = new User("userA", "secret1");
     User user2 = new User("userB", "secret2");
     User user3 = new User("userC", "secret3");
     @Get
     public String represent()
          return user1.toJSONobject().toString();
     public static class User
          private String name;
          private String pwd;
          public User( String name, String pwd )
               this.name = name;
               this.pwd = pwd;
          public JSONObject toJSONobject()
               JSONObject jsonRepresentation = new JSONObject();
               jsonRepresentation.put("name", name);
               jsonRepresentation.put("pwd", pwd);
               return jsonRepresentation;
}and my mapping defined as
     <servlet>
          <servlet-name>RestletServlet</servlet-name>
          <servlet-class>org.restlet.ext.servlet.ServerServlet</servlet-class>
          <init-param>
               <param-name>org.restlet.application</param-name>
               <param-value>firstSteps.FirstStepsApplication </param-value>
          </init-param>
     </servlet>
     <!-- Catch all requests -->
     <servlet-mapping>
          <servlet-name>RestletServlet</servlet-name>
          <url-pattern>/user</url-pattern>
     </servlet-mapping>and I have a test client as follows
          HttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient();
          try {
               HttpGet httpget = new HttpGet("http://localhost:8888/user");
               // System.out.println("executing request " + httpget.getURI());
               // Create a response handler
               ResponseHandler<String> responseHandler = new BasicResponseHandler();
               String responseBody = httpclient.execute(httpget, responseHandler);
               JSONObject obj = new JSONObject(responseBody);
               String name = obj.getString("name");
               String pwd = obj.getString("pwd");
               UserResource.User user = new UserResource.User(name, pwd);
               user.notify();
          }Everything works fine and I can retrieve my USer object on the client side.
What I would like to know is
Is this how the server side typically works, you need to implement a methot to convert your model class to a JSON object for sending to the client
On the client side you need to implement code that knows how to build a User object from the received JSON object.
Basically is there any frameworks available I could leverage to do this work?
Also, what would I need to do on the server side to allow a client to request a specific user using a URL like localhost:8888/user/user1?
I know a mapping like /user/* would direct the request to the correct Resource on the server side but how would I pass the "user1" parameter to the Resource?
Thanks