We’ve discussed how to use @RequestMapping at the method level, now let’s discover how it can be used at the class level.

When the @RequestMapping data annotation is used at the class level, the specified path argument will become the base path. For example, a class with the data annotation @RequestMapping("/books") will map all appropriate requests to this class, and in this case, “/books” becomes the base path. Methods in this class can be further mapped, as shown in the previous exercise. In the example shown below, “/books” is now the base path and the getBookThumbnails method is associated with the endpoint “/books/thumbnails”:

@RestController
@RequestMapping("/books")
public class VirtualLibrary
{
  @RequestMapping(value = "/thumbnails", method = RequestMethod.GET)
  public String[] getBookThumbnails() {
    //returns thumbnails for all available titles
  }
}

Note: When specifying a selection from the RequestMethod enum, be sure to import the annotation using:

org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMethod