I'm trying to follow JSON API. I need to expose CRUD access to a nested resource: product reviews.
Prior to using JSON API, I'd expect a REST interface like this:
GET /products/:product_id/reviews - list reviews for a product
POST /products/:product_id/reviews - add a review for a product
PATCH /products/:product_id/reviews/:id - update a review for a product
DELETE /products/:product_id/reviews/:id - delete a review for a product
I see some mention of a nested structure like this in the spec:
For example, the URL for a photo’s comments will be:
/photos/1/comments
But I'm not sure whether this structure is intended for all actions.
On the one hand, POST /products/:product_id/reviews for creation seems redundant if I'm going to specify the product in the POST body, under the review data's relationships.
On the other hand, if it's useful to specify a product id when deleting a review (maybe it isn't), DELETE /products/:product_id/reviews/:id seems like the only sane way to do it; people argue about whether a request body is even allowed for DELETE requests.
I could nest for some requests and not others:
GET /products/:product_id/reviews - list reviews for a product
POST /products/:product_id/reviews - add a review for a product
PATCH /reviews/:id - update a review
DELETE /reviews/:id - delete a review
But that seems weirdly inconsistent.
I could never nest:
GET /reviews - list reviews for the product specified in params
POST /reviews - add a review for the product specified in params
PATCH /reviews/:id - update a review
DELETE /reviews/:id - delete a review
But that seems awkward, and doesn't seem to match the first quote I made from the docs.
Should nested resource relationships be reflected in the URL when using JSON API?