# Using the legacy REST Client with Multipart

| This guide is about the multipart support of the REST Client compatible with RESTEasy Classic which used to be the default Jakarta REST (formerly known as JAX-RS) implementation until Quarkus 2.8. It is now recommended to use Quarkus REST (formerly RESTEasy Reactive), which supports equally well traditional blocking workloads and reactive workloads. For more information about Quarkus REST, please see the REST Client guide and, for the server side, the introductory REST JSON guide or the more detailed Quarkus REST guide.

RESTEasy has rich support for the `multipart/*` and `multipart/form-data` mime types. The multipart mime format is used to pass lists of content bodies. Multiple content bodies are embedded in one message. `multipart/form-data` is often found in web application HTML Form documents and is generally used to upload files. The form-data format is the same as other multipart formats, except that each inlined piece of content has a name associated with it.

This guide explains how to use the RESTEasy REST Client with Multipart in order to interact with REST APIs requiring `multipart/form-data` content-type with very little effort.

## Prerequisites

To complete this guide, you need:

- Roughly 15 minutes

- An IDE

- JDK 17+ installed with `JAVA_HOME` configured appropriately

- Apache Maven 3.9.9

- Optionally the Quarkus CLI if you want to use it

- Optionally Mandrel or GraalVM installed and configured appropriately if you want to build a native executable (or Docker if you use a native container build)

## Solution

We recommend that you follow the instructions in the next sections and create the application step by step. However, you can go right to the completed example.

Clone the Git repository: `git clone https://github.com/quarkusio/quarkus-quickstarts.git`, or download an archive.

The solution is located in the `resteasy-client-multipart-quickstart` directory.

## Creating the Maven project

First, we need a new project. Create a new project with the following command:

CLI

    quarkus create app org.acme:resteasy-client-multipart-quickstart \
        --extension='resteasy-client,resteasy,resteasy-multipart' \
        --no-code
    cd resteasy-client-multipart-quickstart

To create a Gradle project, add the `--gradle` or `--gradle-kotlin-dsl` option.

For more information about how to install and use the Quarkus CLI, see the Quarkus CLI guide.

Maven

    mvn io.quarkus.platform:quarkus-maven-plugin:3.20.2.1:create \
        -DprojectGroupId=org.acme \
        -DprojectArtifactId=resteasy-client-multipart-quickstart \
        -Dextensions='resteasy-client,resteasy,resteasy-multipart' \
        -DnoCode
    cd resteasy-client-multipart-quickstart

To create a Gradle project, add the `-DbuildTool=gradle` or `-DbuildTool=gradle-kotlin-dsl` option.

For Windows users:

- If using cmd, (don’t use backward slash `\` and put everything on the same line)

- If using Powershell, wrap `-D` parameters in double quotes e.g. `"-DprojectArtifactId=resteasy-client-multipart-quickstart"`

This command generates a Maven project with a REST endpoint and imports the `resteasy-client` and `resteasy` extensions. It also adds the `resteasy-multipart` extension to support `multipart/form-data` requests.

If you already have your Quarkus project configured, you can add the `resteasy-multipart` extension to your project by running the following command in your project base directory:

CLI

    quarkus extension add resteasy-multipart

Maven

    ./mvnw quarkus:add-extension -Dextensions='resteasy-multipart'

Gradle

    ./gradlew addExtension --extensions='resteasy-multipart'

This will add the following to your build file:

pom.xml

    <dependency>
        <groupId>io.quarkus</groupId>
        <artifactId>quarkus-resteasy-multipart</artifactId>
    </dependency>

build.gradle

    implementation("io.quarkus:quarkus-resteasy-multipart")

## Setting up the model

In this guide we will be demonstrating how to invoke a REST service accepting `multipart/form-data` input. We are assuming the payload is well-known before the request is sent, so we can model as a POJO.

| If the payload is unknown, you can also use the RESTEasy custom API instead. If that’s the case, see the RESTEasy Multipart Providers link at the end of the guide.

Our first order of business is to set up the model we will be using to define the `multipart/form-data` payload, in the form of a `MultipartBody` POJO.

Create a `src/main/java/org/acme/rest/client/multipart/MultipartBody.java` file and set the following content:

    package org.acme.rest.client.multipart;

    import java.io.InputStream;

    import jakarta.ws.rs.FormParam;
    import jakarta.ws.rs.core.MediaType;

    import org.jboss.resteasy.annotations.providers.multipart.PartType;

    public class MultipartBody {

        @FormParam("file")
        @PartType(MediaType.APPLICATION_OCTET_STREAM)
        public InputStream file;

        @FormParam("fileName")
        @PartType(MediaType.TEXT_PLAIN)
        public String fileName;
    }

The purpose of the annotations in the code above is the following:

- `@FormParam` is a standard Jakarta REST annotation used to define a form parameter contained within a request entity body

- `@PartType` is a RESTEasy specific annotation required when a client performs a multipart request and defines the content type for the part.

## Create the interface

Using the RESTEasy REST Client is as simple as creating an interface using the proper Jakarta REST and MicroProfile annotations. In our case the interface should be created at `src/main/java/org/acme/rest/client/multipart/MultipartService.java` and have the following content:

    package org.acme.rest.client.multipart;

    import jakarta.ws.rs.Consumes;
    import jakarta.ws.rs.POST;
    import jakarta.ws.rs.Path;
    import jakarta.ws.rs.Produces;
    import jakarta.ws.rs.core.MediaType;

    import org.eclipse.microprofile.rest.client.inject.RegisterRestClient;
    import org.jboss.resteasy.annotations.providers.multipart.MultipartForm;

    @Path("/echo")
    @RegisterRestClient
    public interface MultipartService {

        @POST
        @Consumes(MediaType.MULTIPART_FORM_DATA)
        @Produces(MediaType.TEXT_PLAIN)
        String sendMultipartData(@MultipartForm MultipartBody data);

    }

The `sendMultipartData` method gives our code the ability to POST a `multipart/form-data` request to our Echo service (running in the same server for demo purposes). Because in this demo we have the exact knowledge of the `multipart/form-data` packets, we can map them to the model class created in the previous section using the `@org.jboss.resteasy.annotations.providers.multipart.MultipartForm` annotation.

The client will handle all the networking and marshalling leaving our code clean of such technical details.

The purpose of the annotations in the code above is the following:

- `@RegisterRestClient` allows Quarkus to know that this interface is meant to be available for CDI injection as a REST Client

- `@Path` and `@POST` are the standard Jakarta REST annotations used to define how to access the service

- `@MultipartForm` defines the parameter as a value object for incoming/outgoing request/responses of the multipart/form-data mime type.

- `@Consumes` defines the expected content-type consumed by this request (parameters)

- `@Produces` defines the expected content-type produced by this request (return type)

| While `@Consumes` and `@Produces` are optional as auto-negotiation is supported, it is heavily recommended to annotate your endpoints with them to define precisely the expected content-types. It will allow to narrow down the number of Jakarta REST providers (which can be seen as converters) included in the native executable.

## Create the configuration

In order to determine the base URL to which REST calls will be made, the REST Client uses configuration from `application.properties`. The name of the property needs to follow a certain convention which is best displayed in the following code:

    # Your configuration properties
    quarkus.rest-client."org.acme.rest.client.multipart.MultipartService".url=http://localhost:8080/

Having this configuration means that all requests performed using `org.acme.rest.client.multipart.MultipartService` will use `http://localhost:8080/` as the base URL.

Note that `org.acme.rest.client.multipart.MultipartService` must match the fully qualified name of the `MultipartService` interface we created in the previous section.

## Create the Jakarta REST resource

Create the `src/main/java/org/acme/rest/client/multipart/MultipartClientResource.java` file with the following content:

    package org.acme.rest.client.multipart;

    import java.io.ByteArrayInputStream;
    import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;

    import jakarta.inject.Inject;
    import jakarta.ws.rs.POST;
    import jakarta.ws.rs.Path;
    import jakarta.ws.rs.Produces;
    import jakarta.ws.rs.core.MediaType;

    import org.eclipse.microprofile.rest.client.inject.RestClient;

    @Path("/client")
    public class MultipartClientResource {

        @Inject
        @RestClient
        MultipartService service;

        @POST
        @Path("/multipart")
        @Produces(MediaType.TEXT_PLAIN)
        public String sendFile() throws Exception {
            MultipartBody body = new MultipartBody();
            body.fileName = "greeting.txt";
            body.file = new ByteArrayInputStream("HELLO WORLD".getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8));
            return service.sendMultipartData(body);
        }
    }

Note that in addition to the standard CDI `@Inject` annotation, we also need to use the MicroProfile `@RestClient` annotation to inject `MultipartService`.

## Creating the server

For demo purposes, let’s create a simple Echo endpoint that will act as the server part.

Create the directory `src/main/java/org/acme/rest/client/multipart/server` and include a `EchoService.java` file with the following content:

    package org.acme.rest.client.multipart.server;

    import jakarta.ws.rs.Consumes;
    import jakarta.ws.rs.POST;
    import jakarta.ws.rs.Path;
    import jakarta.ws.rs.Produces;
    import jakarta.ws.rs.core.MediaType;

    @Path("/echo")
    public class EchoService {

        @POST
        @Consumes(MediaType.MULTIPART_FORM_DATA)
        @Produces(MediaType.TEXT_PLAIN)
        public String echo(String requestBody) throws Exception {
            return requestBody;
        }
    }

This will just return the request body and it’s useful for testing purposes.

## Update the test

We also need to update the functional test to reflect the changes made to the endpoint. Edit the `src/test/java/org/acme/rest/client/multipart/MultipartClientResourceTest.java` file to:

    package org.acme.rest.client.multipart;

    import io.quarkus.test.junit.QuarkusTest;
    import org.junit.jupiter.api.Test;

    import static io.restassured.RestAssured.given;
    import static org.hamcrest.CoreMatchers.containsString;

    @QuarkusTest
    public class MultipartClientResourceTest {

        @Test
        public void testMultipartDataIsSent() {
            given()
                    .when().post("/client/multipart")
                    .then()
                    .statusCode(200)
                    .body( containsString("Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\"file\""),
                            containsString("HELLO WORLD"),
                            containsString("Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\"fileName\""),
                            containsString("greeting.txt"));
        }

    }

The code above uses REST Assured to assert that the returned content from the echo service contains multipart elements

Because the test runs in a different port, we also need to include an `application.properties` in our `src/test/resources` with the following content:

    # Your configuration properties
    quarkus.rest-client."org.acme.rest.client.multipart.MultipartService".url=http://localhost:8081/

## Package and run the application

Run the application with:

CLI

    quarkus dev

Maven

    ./mvnw quarkus:dev

Gradle

    ./gradlew --console=plain quarkusDev

In a terminal, run `curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/client/multipart`

You should see an output similar to:

    --89d288bd-960f-460c-b266-64c5b4d170fa
    Content-Disposition: form-data; name="fileName"
    Content-Type: text/plain

    greeting.txt
    --89d288bd-960f-460c-b266-64c5b4d170fa
    Content-Disposition: form-data; name="file"
    Content-Type: application/octet-stream

    HELLO WORLD
    --89d288bd-960f-460c-b266-64c5b4d170fa--

As usual, the application can be packaged using:

CLI

    quarkus build

Maven

    ./mvnw install

Gradle

    ./gradlew build

And executed with `java -jar target/quarkus-app/quarkus-run.jar`.

You can also generate the native executable with:

CLI

    quarkus build --native

Maven

    ./mvnw install -Dnative

Gradle

    ./gradlew build -Dquarkus.native.enabled=true

## Further reading

- RESTEasy Multipart Provider

- MicroProfile Rest Client specification