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POHow to implement a RESTful resource for a state machine or finite automata
 

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  1. POHow to implement a RESTful resource for a state machine or finite automata
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    <p>I'm a Rails and REST newbie and I'm trying to figure how best to expose a resource that is backed by a domain object that has a state machine (in other words is a finite automata). </p> <p>I've seen a number of gems for making a model class a state machine, such as aasm, transitions, workflow, but none of them document examples of how they are actually used in a resource oriented controller. They all seem to imply that state transitions are triggered by an "event" , which is really a method call. Some questions I have with what this implies are:</p> <ol> <li>The update action (PUT method) is not appropriate because PUT is suppose to be idempotent. The only this would be possible is if the state was sent as part of the representation. This is inconsistet with an "event". Is this correct?</li> <li>Since, events aren't idempotent, then the a POST must be used. But, to which resource? Is there a subresource for each possible event? Or, is there one (/updatestate) that takes as its representation the event to trigger and any parameters to the event?</li> <li>Since the state of the resource is modified by an event triggered potentially by another resource, should the create action accept changes to the state attribute (or any other attributes that are dependent on the state machine)?</li> <li>[Updated question] What is a good way to expose the transitions in the UI? Since events aren't states, it would seem that it doesn't make sense to allow the state attribute (and any other attribute that is dependent on state transitions) to be updated. Does that mean that these attributes should be ignored in the update action?</li> </ol>
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    1. COMy advice: don't drive yourself crazy trying to satisfy REST trolls with 100% so-called RESTfulness. REST is a convenient tool for framing an API, but most complex APIs are forced to break REST, particularly PUT idempotence.
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      1. USKyle Wild
    2. CO@dorkitude: There are many levels of RESTfulness it seems, but at the very least adhere to the basic rules: GET/PUT/DELETE for idempotent, POST for non-idempotent, HTTP error codes for failures, pointers to subresources described by parent resources. Those are the (relatively) easy parts too.
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    3. COREST troll here: If you do not follow the REST constraints do not call it RESTfull but RESTlike ;)
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      1. USDerick Schoonbee
 

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