In our application we have a user who can be assigned multiple territories. What is the best way to expose the REST API?
Should it be as :
[POST] www.xyz.com/Territory/User
OR
[POST] www.xyz.com/User/Territory
BODY :
{ "UserId" : 6, "TerritoryId" : [1,2,5] }
I am designing this application using .net WEB API 2, so should the above action be placed in User controller or Territory controller or shall I create UserTerritory as a new controller? Any help is highly appreciated.
REST doesn't care what spelling you use for your identifiers.
GET /715f9784-4b51-461a-b3ee-fdf2823c25cb
is perfectly fine, as far as REST is concerned.
www.xyz.com/Territory/User
www.xyz.com/User/Territory
The only real difference between these two, seen from the client, is the way that relative references work. Where are dot-segments going to be useful?
www.xyz.com/Territory/User + ../Foo = www.xyz.com/Territory/Foo
www.xyz.com/User/Territory + ../Foo = www.xyz.com/User/Foo
If you are more interested in other things about Territory, then putting it at the root makes it easier to reach other resources starting with that stem; if you are more interested in other resources about User, then that belongs up top.
The good news: HTTP has standard semantics in place if you get it "wrong"
GET /Territory/User/...
307 Temporary Redirect
Location: /User/Territory/...
Because you are wisely using POST you don't have any parameters in the URL
Thus, you can use either or both or simply
www.xyz.com/User/AddUser
{ "UserId" : 6, "TerritoryId" : [1,2,5] }
If you are GETing users you would expect
/Territory/{territoryId}/Users
To return only the users in the selected territory
Whereas the Users controller would be used for more generic queries, possibly requiring a POST
POST /User/GetUserByTerritoryIds
{[1,2,3,4....]}
