CODEWITHSUNDEEP
restasp.net-web-api
NullHypothesis
NullHypothesis

Reputation: 4506

Updating something in REST

Philosophically, I had questions about some examples on how to tackle the following REST scenarios:

1) A user who is signed in wants to 'favorite' someone's blog posting. The user id is a guid and the blog posting is a guid. Should this be a PUT because user/blog exist, or POST because there is no entry in the 'favorites' table?

2) A security row in the DB consists of 10+ properties, but I'd only want to update one part of the entity (# of failed login attempts for a user). What should the call be? Pass the entire data transfer object in JSON? Or just add a new api route for the specific action to update? I.e. a PUT with just one parameter (the # of login attempts) and pass the id of the user.

3) Similar to #2, a user class (consisting of 25+ properties) but I'd only like the user to update a specific part of the class, not the whole thing. Philosophically do I need to pass the entire user object over? Or is it OK to just update one thing. It seems I could get crazy and make lots of specific calls for specific properties, but the reality is I will probably only update 2-3 specific parts of the user (as well as obviously updating the whole thing in other cases). What's the approach here for updating specific parts of an entity in the DB?

Thanks so much

Upvotes: 1

Views: 95

Answers (1)

Dustin Oprea
Dustin Oprea

Reputation: 10236

  1. Use a POST if you don't have an ID/UUID yet.
  2. The resource is the security record. Do a PUT on that ID, and pass a block of the properties to be changed.
  3. Ditto (2). You should get whatever parameters will help you identify that record in the DB. If it's unsavory to send these in the POST request and you're doing AJAX, just stash them in the session.

With REST, everything is about updating discrete resources ("nouns"). It's up to you how you want to assign these, but a simple interface that uses verbs ("PUT", "GET", "DELETE", etc..) sensibly, returns relevant HTTP codes, and is easy for others to implement is the best way to go.

So, just ask yourself, "What nouns do I want to give CRUD to, and am I going to exhaust people who wish to consume my API?"

Upvotes: 1

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