Changed the POST/create method to look for the query parameter "returnBody" and, if present and set to "true", return the entity in the body of the response. If it is not present or set to "false", then no content is returned in the body of the response, which is the current behaviour.

spring-data-rest-webmvc/src/main/java/org/springframework/data/rest/webmvc/RepositoryRestController.java

@@ -17,6 +17,7 @@ import java.util.Map;
 import java.util.Set;
 import java.util.Stack;
 import java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicReference;
+import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
 
 import org.codehaus.jackson.map.ObjectMapper;
 import org.springframework.beans.BeansException;
@@ -410,6 +411,7 @@ public class RepositoryRestController
       }
   )
   public ModelAndView create(ServerHttpRequest request,
+                             HttpServletRequest servletRequest,
                              UriComponentsBuilder uriBuilder,
                              @PathVariable String repository) throws IOException {
     URI baseUri = uriBuilder.build().toUri();
@@ -438,6 +440,14 @@ public class RepositoryRestController
 
       model.put(HEADERS, headers);
       model.put(STATUS, HttpStatus.CREATED);
+      if (null != servletRequest.getParameter("returnBody") && "true".equals(servletRequest.getParameter("returnBody"))) {
+        Map<String, Object> entityDto = extractPropertiesLinkAware(repoMeta.rel(),
+                                                                   savedEntity,
+                                                                   repoMeta.entityMetadata(),
+                                                                   buildUri(baseUri, repository, sId));
+        addSelfLink(baseUri, entityDto, repository, sId);
+        model.put(RESOURCE, entityDto);
+      }
     }
     return new ModelAndView(viewName("after_create"), model);
   }