Diffrence b/w @ResponseStatus and ResponseEntity.created(location).build() in post method of rest controller in spring boot

Question

For a POST method in Rest controller I want to return status code 201.

I saw two approaches for that.

First one is:

    @PostMapping("/offers")
    @ResponseStatus(HttpStatus.CREATED)
    public Offer createOffer(@Valid @RequestBody Offer offer) {
        return offerRepository.Save(offer);
    }

Second approach is:

   @PostMapping("/offers")
   public ResponseEntity<Object> createOffer(@Valid @RequestBody Offer offer) {
        return offerService.createOffer(offer);
    }

Below is my service class:

    @Override
    public ResponseEntity<Object> createOffer(Offer offer) {
         Offer uOffer=OfferRepository.save(offer);
         URI location = ServletUriComponentsBuilder.fromCurrentRequest().path("/{jobTitle}").
                    buildAndExpand(uOffer.getJobTitle()).toUri();
         return ResponseEntity.created(location).build(); 
    }

So my question is: for first approach we are not using any ResponseEntity.created as we are simply returning @ResponseStatus(HttpStatus.CREATED) from controller. But in the second we are not using @ResponseStatus(HttpStatus.CREATED) and we are handling that status code 201 by using uri and response entity.

What is the difference b/w the both approaches? Both seems to be same as they are returning the same response code 201. which one is preferred?

Answer 1

In my opinion you should apply the following rules. If you want to return a ResponseEntity then use that to affect the status. Thus something like:

@PostMapping("/offers")
public ResponseEntity<Offer> createOffer(@Valid @RequestBody Offer offer) {
     Offer offer = offerService.createOffer(offer);
     URI location = ServletUriComponentsBuilder.fromCurrentRequest().path("/{jobTitle}").
                buildAndExpand(uOffer.getJobTitle()).toUri();
     return ResponseEntity.created(location)
                          .body(offer)
                          .build(); 
}

Do not allow your service to generate the ResponseEntity as this is a view class for controllers and should not be in a service.

The second option is by using the class rather then response entity. Then the example would be something like:

@PostMapping("/offers")
@ResponseStatus(HttpStatus.CREATED)
public Offer createOffer(@Valid @RequestBody Offer offer) {
     // Do not return response entity but the offer
     return offerService.createOffer(offer);
}