In the previous request, we returned a string as the response. Now, let's create an API that returns a proper JSON response.

To be able to return a JSON response, we would need to create a Plain Old Java Object (POJO) to hold the response structure. We will create a simple POJO WelcomeBean class with a member field called message and one argument constructor, as shown in the following code snippet:

    package com.mastering.spring.springboot.bean;

    public class WelcomeBean {
      private String message;

       public WelcomeBean(String message) {
         super();
         this.message = message;
       }

      public String getMessage() {
        return message;
      }
    }

Take a look at the following method. It returns a simple WelcomeBean class initialized with a message—"Hello World":

    @GetMapping("/welcome-with-object")
    public WelcomeBean welcomeWithObject() {

      return new WelcomeBean("Hello World");

   }