What is this?

Outline for a complementary REST API to our Restful Objects one, that is targetted at tools such as Angular UI

also:

see HAL and Collection+JSON for their latest ideas

NB: I drafted this back in 2014, just recovered the file. Since that time the RO viewer supports pluggable representations, so what's listed here is somewhat implemented already.

Tools to support:

- angular-ui.github.io/bootstrap

- angular xeditable

Sketch

Assuming:


@RestAlias("todos")
public class ToDoItem {

public String getDescription() { ... }
  public void setDescription(String d) { ... }
 
  @Optional
  public ToDo getDependsUpon() { ... }
  public void setDependsUpon(ToDoItem tdi) { ... }
 
  public Collection<ToDoItem> getRelatedTo() { ... }
}

Object Collection

http://localhost:8080/:objectType

eg: http://localhost:8080/todos

Supports:

GET
POST

Object Resource

http://localhost:8080/:objectType/:id

eg: http://localhost:8080/todos/4

Supports:

GET
DELETE
POST
PUT? or PATCH (but perhaps do put/post should behave like patch)

Headers ??:

LINK: ...? "relatedTo"

Representation:

 "description": "Buy bread",
 "status": "notComplete"
 "dependUpons": { "id": 3, and eagerly render the other properties of related object too ... }
 "dependencies": { "href": "http://...todos/4/dependencies" },
 "numberOfDependencies": { "href": "http://...todos/4/numberOfDependencies" } // a scalar
}

Or perhaps inline

{ 
 "description": "Buy bread",
 "status": "notComplete"
 "dependUpons": { "id": 3, and eagerly render the other properties of related object too ... }
 "dependencies": [ { ... }, { .... }, { ... } ]
}

B) http://localhost:8080/:objectType/:id/:property GET, PUT, DELETE?

eg: http://localhost:8080/todos/1/description

{ "description": "foo" }

C) http://localhost:8080/:objectType/:id/:collection?offset=:offset&limit=:limit GET

eg: http://localhost:8080/todos/1/dependencies

LINK: next
LINK: prev

[
{ ... },
{ ... },
{ ... }
]

C2) http://localhost:8080/:objectType/:id/:collection POST 200 (put) or 201 (post)

(not mandatory)
D) http://localhost:8080/:objectType/:id/:collection/:id GET, PUT, POST, DELETE

- same repr as (A)

eg: http://localhost:8080/todos/1/dependencies/1

D) http://localhost:8080/:objectType/:id/:action GET - prompt info, POST - invoke