Spring Boot Rest search 404 - spring-data

Question

I noticed periodically that /search doesn't seem to work on my #RepositoryRestResource:
Spring Boot Output
2014-08-25 13:37:51.526 INFO 10645 --- [ main] o.s.d.r.w.RepositoryRestHandlerMapping : Mapped "{[/{repository}/search],methods=[HEAD],params=[],headers=[],consumes=[],produces=[],custom=[]}" onto public org.springframework.http.HttpEntity<?> org.springframework.data.rest.webmvc.RepositorySearchController.headForSearches(org.springframework.data.rest.webmvc.RootResourceInformation)
2014-08-25 13:37:51.526 INFO 10645 --- [ main] o.s.d.r.w.RepositoryRestHandlerMapping : Mapped "{[/{repository}/search],methods=[GET],params=[],headers=[],consumes=[],produces=[],custom=[]}" onto public org.springframework.hateoas.ResourceSupport org.springframework.data.rest.webmvc.RepositorySearchController.listSearches(org.springframework.data.rest.webmvc.RootResourceInformation)
2014-08-25 13:37:51.526 INFO 10645 --- [ main] o.s.d.r.w.RepositoryRestHandlerMapping : Mapped "{[/{repository}/search/{search}],methods=[GET],params=[],headers=[],consumes=[],produces=[],custom=[]}" onto public org.springframework.http.ResponseEntity<java.lang.Object> org.springframework.data.rest.webmvc.RepositorySearchController.executeSearch(org.springframework.data.rest.webmvc.RootResourceInformation,org.springframework.web.context.request.WebRequest,java.lang.String,org.springframework.data.domain.Pageable,org.springframework.data.rest.webmvc.PersistentEntityResourceAssembler)
2014-08-25 13:37:51.526 INFO 10645 --- [ main] o.s.d.r.w.RepositoryRestHandlerMapping : Mapped "{[/{repository}/search/{search}],methods=[GET],params=[],headers=[],consumes=[],produces=[application/x-spring-data-compact+json],custom=[]}" onto public org.springframework.hateoas.ResourceSupport org.springframework.data.rest.webmvc.RepositorySearchController.executeSearchCompact(org.springframework.data.rest.webmvc.RootResourceInformation,org.springframework.web.context.request.WebRequest,java.lang.String,java.lang.String,org.springframework.data.domain.Pageable,org.springframework.data.rest.webmvc.PersistentEntityResourceAssembler)
2014-08-25 13:37:51.526 INFO 10645 --- [ main] o.s.d.r.w.RepositoryRestHandlerMapping : Mapped "{[/{repository}/search/{search}],methods=[HEAD],params=[],headers=[],consumes=[],produces=[],custom=[]}" onto public org.springframework.http.ResponseEntity<java.lang.Object> org.springframework.data.rest.webmvc.RepositorySearchController.headForSearch(org.springframework.data.rest.webmvc.RootResourceInformation,java.lang.String)
curl on /persons
curl http://localhost:8080/persons
{
"_links" : {
"self" : {
"href" : "http://localhost:8080/persons{?page,size,sort}",
"templated" : true
}
},
"_embedded" : {
"persons" : [ {
"firstName" : "Jimmy",
"lastName" : "Neutron",
"_links" : {
"self" : {
"href" : "http://localhost:8080/persons/2"
}
}
}, {
"firstName" : "Jimmy",
"lastName" : "Page",
"_links" : {
"self" : {
"href" : "http://localhost:8080/persons/3"
}
}
}, {
"firstName" : "Jimmy",
"lastName" : "Johns",
"_links" : {
"self" : {
"href" : "http://localhost:8080/persons/4"
}
}
} ]
},
"page" : {
"size" : 20,
"totalElements" : 3,
"totalPages" : 1,
"number" : 0
}
cURL on /search
curl -v http://localhost:8080/persons/search
* Adding handle: conn: 0x7f9903004400
* Adding handle: send: 0
* Adding handle: recv: 0
* Curl_addHandleToPipeline: length: 1
* - Conn 0 (0x7f9903004400) send_pipe: 1, recv_pipe: 0
* About to connect() to localhost port 8080 (#0)
* Trying ::1...
* Connected to localhost (::1) port 8080 (#0)
> GET /persons/search HTTP/1.1
> User-Agent: curl/7.30.0
> Host: localhost:8080
> Accept: */*
>
< HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
* Server Apache-Coyote/1.1 is not blacklisted
< Server: Apache-Coyote/1.1
< Content-Length: 0
< Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 18:55:27 GMT
<
* Connection #0 to host localhost left intact
Usually I can restart the Application and it randomly appears with 0 changes:
curl http://localhost:8080/persons
{
"_links" : {
"self" : {
"href" : "http://localhost:8080/persons{?page,size,sort}",
"templated" : true
},
"search" : {
"href" : "http://localhost:8080/persons/search"
}
},
"page" : {
"size" : 20,
"totalElements" : 0,
"totalPages" : 0,
"number" : 0
}
Is there something needed to enable search functionality 100% of the time?

Answer 1

I had the same problem and found out that causes it.
Spring loads only one repository for your domain type to find search resource mappings. If you have multiple repositories for your domain type, spring somehow randomly selects one and uses that one. If that one does not contain your custom search method, it does not load.

Answer 2

I don't quite buy the randomness argument, but if you can really reproduce it, feel free to open a ticket in our tracker.
The general rule is that the search resource is only exposed if there's at least a single query method exposed (i.e. a query method that's not actively configured to not be exported) on the repository in question.
Generally speaking, you shouldn't really let clients construct URIs on the fly but rather inspect the response for links and follow them. Thus, I'd argue that if you get the first response, performing a call to /search is invalid as the client has no reason to assume the resource to even exist. If you start with the second response, you can discover a search link advertising a search resource being available and follow it.

Answer 3

Getting random "Not Found" error can happen in case you have multiple repositories defined for the same domain object. It is a known Spring Data Rest bug which happens due to undeterministic order in which those repositories are discovered/registered.
Please vote at https://jira.spring.io/browse/DATAREST-923 to get it fixed.