Removing _embedded from a collection of REST resources - rest

Question

Maybe this goes against REST/HAL principles but I thought that if I was viewing a list of items they should not be contained in an _embedded tag. Below is the details returned when I navigate to /characters in my spring boot application.
I had expected _embedded to not be present for the characterDescriptions since they are the main focus of the page, is it possible to achieve this? Should I try to achieve this or would _embedded be the norm here?
On a related note when I navigate to a particular resource using the link ( like characters/1 for instance) should I be linking back to the /characters parent page or is it acceptable to only contain a self-link at these kinds of endpoints (I will be eventually linking to the user here but this is a general question about REST endpoints )
The controller method that returns this JSON is below the JSON
{
"_embedded": {
"characterDescriptions": [
{
"characterName": "Adrak",
"playerName": "Liam",
"userName": "liam",
"_links": {
"self": {
"href": "http://localhost:8080/characters/1"
}
}
},
{
"characterName": "Thorny",
"playerName": "Aedo",
"userName": "aedo",
"_links": {
"self": {
"href": "http://localhost:8080/characters/2"
}
}
},
{
"characterName": "Anin",
"playerName": "Saoirse",
"userName": "saoirse",
"_links": {
"self": {
"href": "http://localhost:8080/characters/3"
}
}
}
]
},
"_links": {
"self": {
"href": "http://localhost:8080/characters"
}
}
}
Here's the relevant method
#GetMapping
public ResponseEntity<Resources<Resource<CharacterDescription>>> getAllCharacterDescriptions( ) {
List <Resource<CharacterDescription>> characters = repository.findAll()
.stream().map( character -> {
Link characterLink = linkTo(methodOn(CharacterDescriptionController.class)
.getCharacterDescription(character.getCharacterId()))
.withSelfRel();
return new Resource<>(character, characterLink);
}).collect(Collectors.toList());
Link allCharacterLink = linkTo(methodOn(CharacterDescriptionController.class)
.getAllCharacterDescriptions(auth))
.withSelfRel();
Resources<Resource<CharacterDescription>> resources = new Resources<>(characters, allCharacterLink);
return ResponseEntity.ok(resources);
}

Answer 1

According to the HAL spec you can either render a single resource, with its content and set of links, or you can render an aggregate resource, which has room for multiple resources-within-this-resource.
In your domain model, you clearly show multiple documents, each with a distinct self URI (/characters/1, /characters/2, etc.), hence, you aren't serving up a single item resource, but instead an aggregate root.
If you read the HAL spec, you'll find this definition underneath _embedded:
It is an object whose property names are link relation types (as defined by RFC5988) and values are either a Resource Object or an array of Resource Objects.
In fact, looking for the word array in the HAL spec, only leads you to section quoted above, and the _links section.
Hence, _embedded is the proper place to render an array of resources in HAL.