CODEWITHSUNDEEP
rest
catcher
catcher

Reputation: 101

List of items in REST interface API and ACID

I'm creating REST API in which I'm going to assign some items to group:

POST /rest/group/<group1>/item

body

[
    {id: 'item1'},
    {id: 'item2'},
    {id: 'item3'},
    ...
]

The problem is that I need to cover following use-cases:

  1. assigning items to new group
  2. assigning items to existing group with already assigned items, those items must stay untouched
  3. removing items from group - all items
  4. and removing part of items
  5. might be needed to combine those use cases

I don't have a possibility to use PATCH method.

What is the best option to archive this?

One that I have in mind is something like this:

[
    {id: 'item1', action: 'add'},
    {id: 'item2', action: 'add'},
    {id: 'item3', action: 'remove'},
    ...
]

I'm asking because maybe there is a more efficient solution for that purpose.

I need to archive ACID also, so don't want to send multiple requests.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 296

Answers (1)

Rafael Costa
Rafael Costa

Reputation: 173

You don't really need to send actions in your body, as you have HTTP Methods that can express that.

  • First, to make your request a little more RESTful, I strongly suggest you to use /rest/groups/<group1>/items, because the guidelines recommend to take resources in plural.

  • Assigning items to a new group:

(POST) /rest/groups/<group1>/items

With the items inside the json body.

  • Assigning items to existing group with existing items:

(PUT) /rest/groups/<group1>/items

With the new items to be added inside the json body. In your application, make sure that you recognize it's a (PUT) request, and if so, only add them to the existing list of items. The (POST) should override the entire list so you have a way to quickly change the item collection if needed.

  • Removing items from group - all items

(DELETE) /rest/groups/<group1>/items

Delete the entire item collection for that group.

  • Removing part of items

(DELETE) /rest/groups/<group1>/items/<item1>

Sending an entity body in a (DELETE) method is not forbidden, but it's a practice that most of the known API's tend to avoid. You should be deleting specific items by sending its ID as a path variable.

To batch delete items, you could use query parameters like that:

(DELETE) /rest/groups/<group1>/items?ids=1,5,7

That should delete the items with ID's 1, 5 and 7. Other ways of filtering the deletion can be applied as well, depending on your item model.

Upvotes: 1

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