Anatomy of a REST API

In notebook:
FrontEndMasters API design
Created at:
2016-03-13
Updated:
2016-03-13
Tags:
backend JavaScript
determine what the actual resource looks like.
What a "lion" object looks like?
  {
    "name": "Simba",
    "id": 1,
    "age": 3,
    "pride": "the cool cats",
    "gender": "male"
}
Always model your data first!

It also helps you to mock this out for other developers.

Then design the routes to access the resources.
​GET, POST, PUT, DELETE​
get: I'm asking for something
post: I'm giivin you someting
put: I'm updating somethin
delete: destroy something
CRUD: create, read, update, delete on your data

diagram with JSON how our routes will look like
  {
  "GET /lions": {
    "desc": "returns all lions",
    "response": "200 application/json",
    "data": [{}, {}, {}]
  },

  "GET /lions/:id": {
    "desc": "returns one lion respresented by its id",
    "response": "200 application/json",
    "data": {}
  },

  "POST /lions": {
    "desc": "create and returns a new lion uisng the posted object as the lion",
    "response": "201 application/json",
    "data": {}
  },

  "PUT /lions/:id": {
    "desc": "updates and returns the matching lion with the posted update object",
    "response": "200 application/json",
    "data": {}
  },

  "DELETE /lions/:id": {
    "desc": "deletes and returns the matching lion",
    "response": "200 application/json",
    "data": {}
  }
}
​"data"​ is what the response should look like

​".../:id"​ describes an element in a collection (get by it's "id")

You can also use YAML for your blueprint.
POST route: you also want that the server creates AND responds back with the object it just created. Example a todo app, needs to send back the todo you just created for the UI.

- PATCH?
- doesn't have any opinion on it, he just uses PUT

You can also do sorts with REST:
http://example.com/lions?sort=age