The application uses Spring Rest in which the paths of a CRUD are generated automatically for each entity, I have the Vehicle, Contact and Agency entities and each one with its respective repository.

Vehicle has as an attribute an Agency list and a Contact list, the paths are generated:

daniela.morais@tusk:~$ curl http://localhost:8181/api
{
  "_links" : {
    "agencias" : {
      "href" : "http://localhost:8181/api/agencias{?page,size,sort}",
      "templated" : true
    },
    "veiculos" : {
      "href" : "http://localhost:8181/api/veiculos{?page,size,sort}",
      "templated" : true
    },
    "contatos" : {
      "href" : "http://localhost:8181/api/contatos{?page,size,sort}",
      "templated" : true
    },
    "profile" : {
      "href" : "http://localhost:8181/api/alps"
    }
  }
}

I created a Vehicle object but I can only pass nome and tipo

daniela.morais@tusk:~$ curl http://localhost:8181/api/veiculos/55a50d42ccf2bc55501419d6
{
  "nome" : "veiculo",
  "tipo" : "tipo",
  "_links" : {
    "self" : {
      "href" : "http://localhost:8181/api/veiculos/55a50d42ccf2bc55501419d6"
    },
    "contatos" : {
      "href" : "http://localhost:8181/api/veiculos/55a50d42ccf2bc55501419d6/contatos"
    },
    "agencias" : {
      "href" : "http://localhost:8181/api/veiculos/55a50d42ccf2bc55501419d6/agencias"
    }
  }
}

This occurs when I try to send an Array:

daniela.morais@tusk:~$ curl -X POST -H "Content-Type:application/json" -d '{"nome": "teste", "tipo": "tipo", "agencias": [{"nome": "agencia"}]}' http://localhost:8181/api/veiculos
{"cause":{"cause":{"cause":null,"message":"Template must not be null or empty!"},"message":"Template must not be null or empty! (through reference chain: oknok.entities.Veiculo[\"agencias\"]->java.util.ArrayList[0])"},"message":"Could not read JSON: Template must not be null or empty! (through reference chain: oknok.entities.Veiculo[\"agencias\"]->java.util.ArrayList[0]); nested exception is com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.JsonMappingException: Template must not be null or empty! (through reference chain: oknok.entities.Veiculo[\"agencias\"]->java.util.ArrayList[0])"}

I can execute all requests for / api / vehicle / {id} but I do not know how to insert a list of agencies and contacts. My question is: by REST , all CRUD for contacts and agencies must be done in this path , api / vehicles / {id} / contacts and api / vehicles / {id} / agencies , which was generated because it will redirect all requests to their respective repositories, correct? So how do I create my list of Agencies and Contacts?

I can not give PUT, but only POST and GET in these paths, I tried to send a POST with a JSON that has an Array, but when I give GET it is not displayed

daniela.morais@tusk:~$ curl http://localhost:8181/api/veiculos/55a50d42ccf2bc55501419d6/agencias
  {
    "_links" : {
      "self" : {
        "href" : "http://localhost:8181/api/veiculos/55a50d42ccf2bc55501419d6/agencias"
      }
    },
    "_embedded" : {
      "agencias" : [ ]
    }
  }

daniela.morais@tusk:~$ curl-i -X PUT -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"agencias": [{"nome": "um"}]}' http://localhost:8181/api/veiculos/55a50d42ccf2bc55501419d6/agencias
  HTTP/1.1 204 No Content
  Server: Apache-Coyote/1.1
  X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
  X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block
  Cache-Control: no-cache, no-store, max-age=0, must-revalidate
  Pragma: no-cache
  Expires: 0
  X-Frame-Options: DENY
  Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2015 14:34:11 GMT

daniela.morais@tusk:~$ curl http://localhost:8181/api/veiculos/55a50d42ccf2bc55501419d6/agencias
  {
    "_links" : {
      "self" : {
        "href" : "http://localhost:8181/api/veiculos/55a50d42ccf2bc55501419d6/agencias"
      }
    },
    "_embedded" : {
      "agencias" : [ ]
    }
  }

My entities are these (I hid the getters and setters) with their repositories:

Veiculo

@Document
public class Veiculo {

    @Id
    private String id;

    @Indexed(unique = true)
    private String nome;

    private String tipo;

    @DBRef
    List<Contato> contatos;

    @DBRef
    List<Agencia> agencias;

}

Veiculo Repository

@RepositoryRestResource(collectionResourceRel = "veiculos", path = "veiculos")
public interface VeiculoRepository extends MongoRepository<Veiculo, String> {
    Veiculo save(Veiculo veiculo);

    List<Veiculo> findAll();
}

Agencia

@Document
public class Agencia {

    @Id
    String id;
    String nome;

    @CreatedBy
    String createdBy;

    @LastModifiedBy
    String lastModifiedBy;

    @CreatedDate
    @DateTimeFormat(iso = DateTimeFormat.ISO.DATE)
    Date createdAt;

    @LastModifiedDate
    @DateTimeFormat(iso = DateTimeFormat.ISO.DATE)
    Date lastModified;

}

Agencia Repository

@RepositoryRestResource(collectionResourceRel = "agencias", path = "agencias")
public interface AgenciaRepository extends MongoRepository<Agencia, String> {

    @PreAuthorize("hasRole('ADMIN')")
    Agencia save(Agencia t);
    List<Agencia> findAll();

}

Contato

@Document
public class Contato {

    @Id
    private String id;

    String nome;

    List<Info> dados;

    @DBRef
    Agencia agencia;

}

Contato Repository

@RepositoryRestResource(collectionResourceRel = "contatos", path = "contatos")
public interface ContatoRepository extends MongoRepository<Contato, String> {

    List<Contato> findByNome(@Param("nome") String nome);
    List<Contato> findByAgencia(@Param("agencia") String agencia);

}

** UPDATE I was able to send an Array by adding the @RestResource(exported = false) annotation to the attributes that are lists in Vehicle, however:
I. this data is not "relational"
II. If I create an agency in api / agencies and then pick up this ID to update agencies on api / vehicles it does not recognize the reference.
How do I fix this?

daniela.morais@tusk:~$ curl -X POST -H "Content-Type:application/json" -d '{"nome": "teste", "tipo": "tipo", "agencias": [{"nome": "agencia"}]}' http://localhost:8181/api/veiculos
{"timestamp":1437133673823,"status":500,"error":"Internal Server Error","exception":"org.springframework.data.mapping.model.MappingException","message":"Cannot create a reference to an object with a NULL id.","path":"/api/veiculos"}daniela.morais@tusk:~$ ^C
daniela.morais@tusk:~$ curl -X POST -H "Content-Type:application/json" -d '{"nome": "teste", "tipo": "tipo", "agencias": [{"nome": "agencia", "id": "1"}]}' http://localhost:8181/api/veiculos
{
  "nome" : "teste",
  "tipo" : "tipo",
  "contatos" : null,
  "agencias" : [ {
    "nome" : "agencia",
    "createdBy" : null,
    "lastModifiedBy" : null,
    "createdAt" : null,
    "lastModified" : null
  } ],
  "_links" : {
    "self" : {
      "href" : "http://localhost:8181/api/veiculos/55a8eb8544ae13951d3f2b6f"
    },
    "agencia" : {
      "href" : "http://localhost:8181/api/veiculos/55a8eb8544ae13951d3f2b6f/agencia"
    }
  }
}
daniela.morais@tusk:~$ curl http://localhost:8181/api/agencias
{
  "_links" : {
    "self" : {
      "href" : "http://localhost:8181/api/agencias"
    }
  },
  "_embedded" : {
    "agencias" : [ ]
  },
  "page" : {
    "size" : 20,
    "totalElements" : 0,
    "totalPages" : 0,
    "number" : 0
  }
}