CODEWITHSUNDEEP
restapiweb-services
ronapple14
ronapple14

Reputation: 93

Should I make my REST API a PUT or POST for a file upload?

I am working on an API that will take an xml file, parse the file to a DTO and return the results in the form of JSON. Technically you can say the API's purpose is to only parse the file and return the results in a "nice" format. I'm not sure whether or not it makes more sense to make this a POST vs PUT api? I know POST is usually for create and PUT is for update. In this case I'm not really creating or updating anything.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 927

Answers (2)

Evert
Evert

Reputation: 99851

The purpose of PUT is to replace what exists at your target url.

So if you do a PUT request with a file on /foo/bar, then I would expect a GET request afterwards on /foo/bar to return that same file.

It doesn't sound like that's what you're doing, so POST is likely the right choice.

Upvotes: 1

VoiceOfUnreason
VoiceOfUnreason

Reputation: 57397

If you aren't doing something standard, it's okay to use POST.

POST serves many useful purposes in HTTP, including the general purpose of “this action isn’t worth standardizing.”

Upvotes: 3

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