CODEWITHSUNDEEP
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Joff
Joff

Reputation: 12197

REST API resource structure where there are multiple "owners"

I am struggling to see how to structure a REST API where multiple owners may use the same resource. For example if there are users and organizations and each of them has something like images or locations. An Image and a location is a database field, which is the same for both users and organizations... I can see two basic ways to go about it

Separate endpoints:

POST /users/:userID/documents
GET /users/:userID/documents/:id
POST /org/:orgID/documents
GET /org/:orgID/documents/:id

pros of separate endpoints: The logic is clean and everything is very obvious

cons of separate endpoints: There is a LOT of code copying between the endpoints.

Shared endpoints:

POST /documents
GET /documents/:id

pros of separate endpoints: There are fewer overall endpoints, less code copying.

cons of separate endpoints: The logic gets messy, IDK the best way to go about sending the orgID or userID with the request (without in effect creating a new endpoint within the /documents resource. I could use a query string, but that just feels wrong... (IDK if it is wrong)

Any advice?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 436

Answers (1)

Alex Marculescu
Alex Marculescu

Reputation: 5770

It all depends on the use case scenarios for your API.

There's nothing wrong with separate endpoints, if the flow would generally be to request users/organizations and their respective documents. It also doesn't have to mean code duplication - you can simply have some sort of common DocumentRepository in the backend, consumed in multiple places.

However, if the requirements are to simply search/display documents, a query string might be your best bet:

GET /documents?userId={userId}&organizationId={organizationId}

Upvotes: 1

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