What is Spring Boot’s WebClient used for?
Answer:
Explanation:
Spring Boot’s WebClient
is a non-blocking, reactive client that is used to handle HTTP requests and responses in a reactive way. It is the recommended replacement for RestTemplate
when building applications that need to perform HTTP requests asynchronously or in a reactive style.
WebClient is part of the Spring WebFlux module and supports both synchronous and asynchronous communication. It provides a flexible and powerful way to interact with RESTful web services, making it ideal for modern, scalable applications:
WebClient client = WebClient.create("https://api.example.com");
Mono<String> response = client.get()
.uri("/data")
.retrieve()
.bodyToMono(String.class);
response.subscribe(System.out::println);
In this example, the WebClient
instance sends a GET request to https://api.example.com/data
and retrieves the response body as a Mono
of type String
. The response is processed asynchronously, making the application more responsive and able to handle more concurrent requests.
WebClient’s non-blocking nature makes it a suitable choice for applications that require high throughput and scalability, particularly when building microservices or reactive systems.