GeoServer REST Client Library

This library allows to communicate to GeoServer via REST using a Java library.

It uses only a few external libraries, such as apache-http-common and jdom.

You will only need to instantiate GeoServerRESTReader for reading data from a running GeoServer instance

public GeoServerRESTReader(String restUrl, String username, String password);

or GeoServerRESTPublisher to modify the catalog (publish or remove styles, featuretypes or coverages).

public GeoServerRESTPublisher(String restURL, String username, String pw);

These classes just handles the REST URLs, and the upper level logic (e.g.: publishing a layer means sending the data, optionally a style, and configuring the layer). The basic HTTP calls are handled by HTTPUtils.

There are no beans mirroring GeoServer's ones. The info for publishing layers are simple Strings in method calls.

The info read from GeoServer are stored as XML elements and parsed using JDOM only when requested. The parsing is performed by the classes in the decoder package.

Some examples

In the following a few brief examples on how to use the library are provided.

Init reader and publisher

        String RESTURL  = "http://localhost:8080/geoserver";
        String RESTUSER = "admin";
        String RESTPW   = "geoserver";
        
        GeoServerRESTReader reader = new GeoServerRESTReader(RESTURL, RESTUSER, RESTPW);
        GeoServerRESTPublisher publisher = new GeoServerRESTPublisher(RESTURL, RESTUSER, RESTPW);

Create a Workspace

        boolean created = publisher.createWorkspace("myWorkspace")

Create a Style

        File sldFile = ...;
        boolean published = publisher.publishStyle(sldFile); // Will take the name from SLD contents

        File sldFile = ...;
        boolean published = publisher.publishStyle(sldFile, "myStyle");

Create a layer from a Shapefile

        File zipFile = ...;
        boolean published = publisher.publishShp("myWorkspace", "myStore", "cities", zipFile, "EPSG:4326", "default_point");

Note that the layername ("cities") should be the same as the shapefile in the .zip file. In our case, we have "cities.shp" in the zipfile.

If you want to remove this layer entirely from the configuration, you will have to remove the layer and the datastore:

        boolean ftRemoved = publisher.unpublishFeatureType("myWorkspace", "myStore", "cities");
        // remove  datastore
        boolean dsRemoved = publisher.removeDatastore("myWorkspace", "myStore");

Create a layer from a DB table

        boolean ok = publisher.publishDBLayer("myWorkspace", "pg_kids", "easia_gaul_0_aggr", "EPSG:4326", "default_polygon");

• ''pg_kids'' is a PostGIS datastore already configured in GeoServer
• ''easia_gaul_0_aggr'' is a table that has not yet been published in GeoServer

Layer Groups

Layer Group REST encoding has changed in GeoServer 2.3: if you want to read Layer Groups in GeoServer 2.3 or greater, you need at least geoserver-manager 1.5.1.

To get all Layer Groups:

RESTLayerGroupList allGroups = reader.getLayerGroups();

RESTLayerGroupList workspaceGroups = reader.getLayerGroups(workspace);

To get a specific Layer Group:

RESTLayerGroup groupReader = reader.getLayerGroup(groupName);

RESTLayerGroup groupReader = reader.getLayerGroup(workspace, groupName);

Available properties in GeoServer 2.2:

groupReader.getName();
groupReader.getWorkspace();
groupReader.getCRS();
groupReader.getMinX();
groupReader.getMaxX();
groupReader.getMinY();
groupReader.getMaxY();

Additional properties in GeoServer 2.3:

groupReader.getMode();
groupReader.getTitle();
groupReader.getAbstract();
groupReader.getRootLayer();

To get a list of layers contained in the group, in GeoServer 2.2:

RESTLayerList layers = groupReader.getLayerList();

Since GeoServer 2.3, a Layer Group can contain also other Layer Groups, its xml encoding doesn't contain a list of layers, but a list of publishable elements. To get a list of layers and layer groups contained in the group, in GeoServer 2.3:

RESTPublishedList publishables = groupReader.getPublishedList();

To configure a Layer Group for GeoServer 2.2 you can use the encoder GSLayerGroupEncoder. For GeoServer 2.3 you must use GSLayerGroupEncoder23.

To create a new Layer Group:

GSLayerGroupEncoder23 groupWriter = new GSLayerGroupEncoder23();
groupWriter.addLayer("topp:cities");
groupWriter.addLayerGroup("tasmania");
publisher.createLayerGroup(workspace, groupName, groupWriter)

To update an existing Layer Group:

publisher.configureLayerGroup(workspace, groupName, groupWriter)