How to create an API REST?

Question

I want to reach the data saved in a mysql server for an Android phone. I thought about to connect directly the phone to the mysql but it is a bad practice because someone can get the user/pass of the DB.

However the REST architecture maybe it's a solution for my problem. I found the toolkit GWT but I don't know if it's the best way to solve my problem and what I need to use the GWT.

And I got 2 questions basically:

• The GWT is good for my purpose?
• Need a Tomcat server for example to set the GWT code?

One annotation, the data is for an app Android, there is no HTML interface .

Nowadays I'm working at localhost. Thanks for the answers.

Answer 1

As far as I understand, you want to implement a RESTful service (Web API). GWT targets the Web UI to be able to build it using Java and compile it into JavaScript. I think that it's not what you expect.

Here is a link that provides you hints about concepts of REST: https://templth.wordpress.com/2014/12/15/designing-a-web-api/. It will describe you what is a RESTful service and how to design it.

There are several technologies to build RESTful services (server-side frameworks). I can list two of them:

• Restlet (see this link http://restlet.com/technical-resources/restlet-framework/tutorials/2.3 and http://restlet.com/products/restlet-framework/)
• JAX-RS and its implementations (Restlet, Jersey, EasyRest). See this link for example: https://templth.wordpress.com/2015/03/06/getting-started-with-resteasy/.

Hope it helps you, Thierry