@Service
public class SimpleRestService {
    @Autowired
    private RestTemplate restTemplate;  

    public String getMessage() {
        String result;
        try {
            String httpResult = restTemplate.getForObject("http://google.com",
                                      String.class);
            result = "Message SUCCESS result: " + httpResult;
        } catch (HttpStatusCodeException e) {
            result = "Get FAILED with HttpStatusCode: " + e.getStatusCode()
                       + "|" + e.getStatusText();
        } catch (RuntimeException e) {
            result = "Get FAILEDn" + ExceptionUtils.getFullStackTrace(e);
        }
        return result;
    }
}
``` `

The only real setup you need for testing is to configure your IDE to find the static imports. In Eclipse this is in Java>Editor>Content Assist>Favorites. Add these to go along with the hamcrest CoreMatchers and junit Assert that you probably already have. If using Spring 3.2.x: org.springframework.test.web.client.match.MockRestRequestMatchers org.springframework.test.web.client.response.MockRestResponseCreators If using Spring 3.1.x, the static import classes are named differently: org.springframework.test.web.client.match.RequestMatchers org.springframework.test.web.client.response.ResponseCreators  

Each test will chain expect() and respond() methods. [MockRestRequestMatchers](http://static.springsource.org/spring/docs/3.2.x/javadoc-api/index.html?org/springframework/test/web/client/match/MockRestRequestMatchers.html) offers many hamcrest matchers to check your request URL, headers, HTTP method, and even json and xpath matchers to check body content. [MockRestResponseCreators](http://static.springsource.org/spring/docs/3.2.x/javadoc-api/index.html?org/springframework/test/web/client/response/MockRestResponseCreators.html) allows you to easily build both success and error responses.  

Also, each test must call mockServer.verify() after the RestTemplate call is made to run the Mock Server assertions.  

Setup the MockRestServiceServer in the setUp method: `<!-- TODO: Add language to code block -->

@Test
    public void testGetMessage() {
        mockServer.expect(requestTo("http://google.com"))
                .andExpect(method(HttpMethod.GET))
                .andRespond(withSuccess("resultSuccess", MediaType.TEXT_PLAIN));  

        String result = simpleRestService.getMessage();  

        mockServer.verify();
        assertThat(result, allOf(containsString("SUCCESS"),
                       containsString("resultSuccess")));
    }
``` `

testGetMessage_404() shows a response with the specific 404 Not Found client http status code: `<!-- TODO: Add language to code block -->

    String result = simpleRestService.getMessage();  

    mockServer.verify();
    assertThat(result, allOf(containsString("FAILED"),
                   containsString("404")));
}

@Test
    public void testGetMessage_500() {
        mockServer.expect(requestTo("http://google.com"))
                .andExpect(method(HttpMethod.GET))
                .andRespond(withServerError());  

        String result = simpleRestService.getMessage();  

        mockServer.verify();
        assertThat(result, allOf(containsString("FAILED"),
                       containsString("500")));
    }
``` `

Additional matcher test examples can be found in the [spring-test-mvc](https://github.com/SpringSource/spring-framework/tree/master/spring-test-mvc/src/test/java/org/springframework/test/web/client/samples) section of the spring 3.2.x github repo.  

Hopefully the new mock server in Spring helps you as much as it helped me, by cleaning up and reducing the amount of testing code required in both a reusable and standard fashion. The full java code from these examples are on [my github page](https://github.com/jeffsheets/MockRestServiceServerExample).