How to use spring.data.rest.enable-enum-translation in Spring Data REST

Question

I'm using Spring Boot 1.5.3, Spring Data REST, HATEOAS, Hibernate. In my model sometimes I'm using enum like:

    public enum Roles {
    ROLE_ADMIN, ROLE_USER, ROLE_MANAGER, ROLE_TECH
}

According to Spring Boot documentation, there is a property that seems useful:

# DATA REST (RepositoryRestProperties)
spring.data.rest.enable-enum-translation=true

I didn't find documentation about how to use that. I found old references where seems I should add something like:

roles.role_admin=Amministratore

in my messages.properties. That would be cool but it doesn't work and my REST reply contains enum value shown like in the class, without any translation. Could someone explain me the right way to use this function of Spring?

Answer 1

To use this feature you have to add a 'rest-messages' Resource Bundle to your project 'resources' folder. Then describe your enums in these files like this:

com.example.myproject.myapp.Roles.ROLE_ADMIN=Amministratore
com.example.myproject.myapp.Roles.ROLE_USER=Utente

If you have a nested enums you have to join them and the parent class with '$' sign:

com.example.myproject.myapp.User$Roles.ROLE_ADMIN=Amministratore
com.example.myproject.myapp.User$Roles.ROLE_USER=Utente

In the same manner you can describe your links:

_links.user.title=Utente
_links.users.title=Lista utenti

Then you get something like this:

"_links": {
    "user": {
        "href": "http://localhost:8080/api/users/1",
        "title": "Utente"
    }
}

"users": {
    "href": "http://localhost:8080/api/users{?page,size,sort}",
    "templated": true,
    "title": "Lista utenti"
}

There is also a little bit info in the SDR reference regarding to this issue.

See Restbucks example.