How to create an endpoint that receives a "timestamp"

Question

I need help to create an endpoint that receives a "timestamp" (complete date with time) and save it to the database.

Answer 1

An oversimplified example of receiving a MySQL timestamp into a java.sql.Timestamp object using a spring-boot @RestController would look something like this (I tried to work in as many Timestamp examples as possible so please forgive the poor API design):

package myresourceapp.controllers;

import myresourceapp.models.Resource;
import myresourceapp.services.ResourceService;  
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.*;

import java.sql.Timestamp;
import java.util.List;

@RestController
public class ResourceController {

    private final ResourceService resourceService; //service layer bean to either do DAO stuff or wrap DAO layer

    public ResourceController(ResourceService resourceService) { //dependency injection
        this.resourceService = resourceService;
    }

    @PostMapping("/resource")
    public @ResponseBody
    Resource createResource(@RequestBody Resource resource) {
        return resourceService.insertResource(resource); //<-- service method for eventual INSERT query
    }
    
    @GetMapping("/resources")
    public @ResponseBody
    List<Resource> getResources(@RequestParam Timestamp startTimestamp, @RequestParam Timestamp endTimestamp) {
        return resourceService.selectResourcesCreatedBetweenStartAndEndTimestamps(startTimestamp, endTimestamp); //<-- service method for eventual SELECT query
    }
    
    @PutMapping("/resource/{resourceId}")
    public @ResponseBody Resource updateResource(@PathVariable String resourceId, @RequestBody Resource resource) {
        return resourceService.updateResource(resourceId, resource); //<-- service method for eventual UPDATE query
    }
    
    @PatchMapping("/resource/{resourceId}")
    public @ResponseBody Resource updateTimestamp(@PathVariable String resourceId, @RequestParam Timestamp newTimestampToStore) {
        return resourceService.updateResourceLastUpdatedTimestamp(resourceId, newTimestampToStore); //<-- service method for eventual UPDATE query
    }
}

This example assumes that clients of the RESTful API, be it humans or other systems, are passing validly formatted MySQL timestamps to it.

The model object I used for this example looks like this:

package myresourceapp.models.Resource;

import java.sql.Timestamp;

public class Resource {
    private String id;
    private String name;
    private Timestamp createdOnTimestamp;
    private Timestamp lastUpdatedTimestamp;

    //getters, setters, etc.
}

Request for POST:

curl --location --request POST 'http://localhost:8080/resource' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--data-raw '{
  "name": "Rubber Duck"
}'

Response for POST:

{
    "id": "1",
    "name": "Rubber Duck",
    "createdOnTimestamp": "2022-01-27T21:45:32.064+00:00",
    "lastUpdatedTimestamp": "2022-01-27T21:45:32.064+00:00"
}

Request for GET:

curl --location --request GET 'http://localhost:8080/resources?startTimestamp=2022-01-01 12:00:00.000&endTimestamp=2022-01-31 12:00:00.000' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json'

Response for GET:

[
    {
        "id": "1",
        "name": "Rubber Duck",
        "createdOnTimestamp": "2022-01-27T21:45:32.064+00:00",
        "lastUpdatedTimestamp": "2022-01-27T21:45:32.064+00:00"
    }
]

Request for PUT:

curl --location --request PUT 'http://localhost:8080/resource/1' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--data-raw '{
  "name": "Plastic Goose",
  "lastUpdatedTimestamp": "2022-01-27T21:50:00.000+00:00"
}'

Response for PUT:

{
    "id": "1",
    "name": "Plastic Goose",
    "createdOnTimestamp": null,
    "lastUpdatedTimestamp": "2022-01-27T21:50:00.000+00:00"
}

Request for PATCH:

curl --location --request PATCH 'http://localhost:8080/resource/1?newTimestampToStore=2022-01-27 16:00:00.000' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json'

Response for PATCH:

{
    "id": "1",
    "name": "Plastic Goose",
    "createdOnTimestamp": "2022-01-27T21:48:03.627+00:00",
    "lastUpdatedTimestamp": "2022-01-27T22:00:00.000+00:00"
}