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POUpdate/create hierarchical resources REST
 

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    <p>I am working on an <code>REST API</code> and I am trying to understand how to deal with hierarchical resources.</p> <h1>Background</h1> <p>Let's start with a simple example. In my API I have <strong>Users</strong>, <strong>User profiles</strong> and <strong>Reviews</strong>.</p> <ul> <li><strong>Users</strong> must have a <strong>User Profile</strong> associated (a User Profile corresponds to only one User)</li> <li><strong>Users</strong> might have a <strong>Review</strong> associated (a Review corresponds to only one User)</li> </ul> <p>User's resource representation should be:</p> <pre><code>User: { "u1": "u1value", // User's attributes "u2": "u2value", ... "links": [{ "rel": "profile", "href": "http://..." // URI of the profile resource }, { "rel": "review", "href": "http://..." // URI of the review resource }] } </code></pre> <p>User profile resource representation should be:</p> <pre><code>UserProfile: { "p1": "p1value", // Profile attributes "p2": "p2value", ... "links": [{ "rel": "owner", "href": "http://..." // URI of the user resource }] } </code></pre> <p>Review resource representation should be:</p> <pre><code>Review: { "r1": "r1value", // Review attributes "r2": "r2value", ... "links": [{ "rel": "owner", "href": "http://..." // URI of the user resource }] } </code></pre> <p>Resources URIs could be: </p> <ul> <li><code>http://api.example.com/users/{userid}</code>: access to the user resource</li> <li><code>http://api.example.com/users/{userid}/profile</code>: access to the user's profile resource</li> <li><code>http://api.example.com/users/{userid}/review</code>: access to the user's review resource</li> </ul> <h1>Resource creation: what's the correct way to create a user?</h1> <p>Now I want to create a new user:</p> <ol> <li><code>POST http://api.example.com/users {"u1": "bar", "u2": "foo"}</code> and I get back the new userid = 42</li> <li><code>POST http://api.example.com/users/42/profile {"p1": "baz", "p2": "asd"}</code></li> <li><code>PUT http://api.example.com/users {"u1": "bar", "u2": "foo", links: [{"rel": "profile", "href": "http://api.example.com/users/42/profile"]}</code></li> </ol> <p>My concerns:</p> <ul> <li>What if something breaks between 1 and 2 or 2 and 3? </li> <li>In 3), should the server update automagically the links in the <a href="http://api.example.com/users/42/profile">http://api.example.com/users/42/profile</a>, to point to the correct owner?</li> <li>Updating link fields is the proper manner to create relationships? Or should I skip step 3) and let the system guess the relationships according to URI conventions? (I read on several books that URI should be considered as opaque.)</li> </ul>
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