RESTApi - what should be the method when the actions is not sure

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I have 4 Apis that I expose, and I don't know what method should I use for them (POST/PUT/DELETE).

The DB object (let's call it User) contains

{"id", "foreignId1", "foreignId2"}

I have 4 methods -

assignForegin1
unassignForegin1
assignForegin2
unassignForegin2

In each one, I'm getting only 2 parameters - 1 id and 1 foreignId (after that I'm creating a User with the relevant fields out of it). Assign - if there is no id, I'm creating a new one with this foreignId, and if it exists, I override/assigning the new foreginId. Unassign - I'm removing the foreginId from this id, and if the id contains no foreginIds, I delete it.

So, assign is half PUT and half POST, and the unassign is half PUT and half DELETE.

What will be the best practice in this scenario?

Thanks

rest java
1 Answers

The API should follow single responsibility, it should only assign the foreign fields and should not create/delete if not present.

In your way, the end-user of the API doesn't know that you will delete the object if the object with id doesn't have that foreignId, he will also not know that a new object will be created if an object with an id doesn't exist. As a best practice, the client of your API shouldn't know about your implementation.

I would suggest you divide the APIs into multiple CRUD APIs. Lets call your object as foreign

createForeign
  type: POST
  input: foreignId1, foreignId2
  output: Foreign

assignForeignId1:
  type: PUT
  input: id, foreignId1
  output: Foreign

assignForeignId2:
  type: PUT
  input: id, foreignId2
  output: Foreign

In case the id doesn't exist in case of assignForeignId1, the API should throw an error and the client should call createForeign API if he wants to create one.

user_70033310
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