#54 - Added support for RFC5988 link headers.

Introduced new Links container element to group a list of links and allow parsing an RFC5988 compatible String representation of links into it. The parsing mechanism is currently regarding the rel attribute only.

Added valueOf(…) factory methods to allow Spring MVC to pick the types up out of the box.

src/main/java/org/springframework/hateoas/Links.java

@@ -0,0 +1,163 @@
+/*
+ * Copyright 2013 the original author or authors.
+ *
+ * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+ * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+ * You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+package org.springframework.hateoas;
+
+import java.util.ArrayList;
+import java.util.Arrays;
+import java.util.Collections;
+import java.util.Iterator;
+import java.util.List;
+
+import org.springframework.util.StringUtils;
+
+/**
+ * Value object to represent a list of {@link Link}s.
+ * 
+ * @author Oliver Gierke
+ */
+public class Links implements Iterable<Link> {
+
+	static final Links NO_LINKS = new Links(Collections.<Link> emptyList());
+
+	private final List<Link> links;
+
+	/**
+	 * Creates a new {@link Links} instance from the given {@link Link}s.
+	 * 
+	 * @param links
+	 */
+	public Links(List<Link> links) {
+		this.links = links == null ? Collections.<Link> emptyList() : Collections.unmodifiableList(links);
+	}
+
+	/**
+	 * Creates a new {@link Links} instance from the given {@link Link}s.
+	 * 
+	 * @param links
+	 */
+	public Links(Link... links) {
+		this(Arrays.asList(links));
+	}
+
+	/**
+	 * Returns the {@link Link} with the given rel.
+	 * 
+	 * @param rel the relation type to lookup a link for.
+	 * @return the {@link Link} with the given rel or {@literal null} if none found.
+	 */
+	public Link getLink(String rel) {
+
+		for (Link link : links) {
+			if (link.getRel().equals(rel)) {
+				return link;
+			}
+		}
+
+		return null;
+	}
+
+	/**
+	 * Returns all {@link Links} with the given relation type.
+	 * 
+	 * @return the links
+	 */
+	public List<Link> getLinks(String rel) {
+
+		List<Link> result = new ArrayList<Link>();
+
+		for (Link link : links) {
+			if (link.getRel().endsWith(rel)) {
+				result.add(link);
+			}
+		}
+
+		return result;
+	}
+
+	/**
+	 * Creates a {@link Links} instance from the given RFC5988-compatible link format.
+	 * 
+	 * @param source a comma separated list of {@link Link} representations.
+	 * @return the {@link Links} represented by the given {@link String}.
+	 */
+	public static Links valueOf(String source) {
+
+		if (!StringUtils.hasText(source)) {
+			return NO_LINKS;
+		}
+
+		String[] elements = source.split(",");
+		List<Link> links = new ArrayList<Link>(elements.length);
+
+		for (String element : elements) {
+
+			Link link = Link.valueOf(element);
+
+			if (link != null) {
+				links.add(link);
+			}
+		}
+
+		return new Links(links);
+	}
+
+	/*
+	 * (non-Javadoc)
+	 * @see java.lang.Object#toString()
+	 */
+	@Override
+	public String toString() {
+		return StringUtils.collectionToCommaDelimitedString(links);
+	}
+
+	/* 
+	 * (non-Javadoc)
+	 * @see java.lang.Iterable#iterator()
+	 */
+	@Override
+	public Iterator<Link> iterator() {
+		return links.iterator();
+	}
+
+	/* 
+	 * (non-Javadoc)
+	 * @see java.lang.Object#equals(java.lang.Object)
+	 */
+	@Override
+	public boolean equals(Object arg0) {
+
+		if (!(arg0 instanceof Links)) {
+			return false;
+		}
+
+		Links that = (Links) arg0;
+
+		return this.links.equals(that.links);
+	}
+
+	/* 
+	 * (non-Javadoc)
+	 * @see java.lang.Object#hashCode()
+	 */
+	@Override
+	public int hashCode() {
+
+		int result = 17;
+		result += 31 * links.hashCode();
+
+		return result;
+	}
+}