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When an asset is the entity parameter of a resource method, it is used by the Apache Wink runtime to set the actual request entity by invoking the appropriate entity-consuming method of the asset.

Assets Overview

A typical application exposes each resource in a number of representations. Some form of data model usually backs the resource, and the application business logic relies on the manipulation of that data model. The application will most likely expose resource methods allowing the consumption of the data model in more than one representation (for example Atom and XML) and the production of the data model in other representation (for example Atom, XML and JSON).

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The following points describe the process of selecting the asset entity-consuming method to handle the request entity. This process occurs during the invocation of the AssetProvider#isReadable() method.

1. Collect all the entity-consuming methods of the asset. These are the public methods annotated with @Consumes annotation.
2. Sort the collected entity-consuming methods in descending order, where methods with more specific media types precede methods with less specific media types, following the rule n/m > n/* > /.
3. Select the first method that supports the media type of the request entity body as provided to the AssetProvider#isReadable() method, and return true.
4. If no entity-consuming method supports the media type of the request entity body, return false. The Apache Wink runtime continues searching for a different provider to handle the asset as a regular entity.

Response Entity Matching

The following points describe the process of selecting an entity-producing method to produce the actual response entity. The following process occurs during the invocation of the AssetProvider#isWriteable() method.

1. Collect all the entity-producing methods of the asset. These are the public methods annotated with @Produces annotation.
2. Sort the collected entity-producing methods in descending order, where methods with more specific media types precede methods with less specific media types, following the rule n/m > n/* > /.
3. Select the first method that supports the media type of the response entity body as provided to the AssetProvider#isWriteable()method and return true.
4.  If no entity-producing method supports the media type of the response entity body, return false. The Apache Wink runtime continues searching for a different provider to handle the asset as a regular entity.

Asset Example

The following example illustrates the use of an asset. The "Defect" bean is a JAXB annotated class.

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