[Catalyst] RFC: Catalyst::Controller::REST::DBIC

[Matt S Trout]

On Mon, May 05, 2008 at 07:50:08AM -0700, J. Shirley wrote:
> On Mon, May 5, 2008 at 4:31 AM, Matt S Trout <dbix-class at trout.me.uk> wrote:
> >
> > On Sun, May 04, 2008 at 09:06:30AM -0700, J. Shirley wrote:
> >  > On Sun, May 4, 2008 at 8:52 AM, Zbigniew Lukasiak <zzbbyy at gmail.com> wrote:
> >  > >
> >  > >  Sorry but I don't understand your point - so maybe first I'll restate
> >  > >  mine.  If you have primary key in the database that is of type varchar
> >  > >  (or char or ...) then 'create' is a legitimage value for that primary
> >  > >  key.
> >  > >
> >  > >  If you just don't like the string 'id' in the URI - then I have not
> >  > >  any preference to that - it can be /foo/primary_key/ for me.
> >  > >
> >  >
> >  > My point is that you do not have to use the primary key as the record
> >  > lookup identifier.
> >  >
> >  > A user has no control over the record lookup identifier (ID) when you
> >  > do things like /user/{primary_key} (or /user/id/{primary_key}, which
> >  > is just converting named params to positional in a weird way).  In a
> >  > lot of cases, the record lookup identifier makes more sense to be
> >  > somewhat bound to the user.  As an example, lets say registering for a
> >  > web service where you have to have a unique login:
> >  >     POST /user/jshirley
> >  >     ---
> >  >     login: jshirley
> >  >     first_name: Jay
> >  >     last_name: Shirley
> >  >     ...
> >  >
> >  > Now, it's a simple check here - does /user/jshirley exist?  If so,
> >  > reject the request appropriately.  If not, create the user at
> >  > /user/jshirley.
> >  >
> >  > The primary key that the database uses is completely useless to the
> >  > user.  /user/1634254 is silly, /user/jshirley is meaningful.
> >
> >  I fail to see how whether the PK is the lookup key or not has any
> >  relevance at all to the original point, which was "your lookup key and
> >  names of actions might clash so it can be nice to have an extra path component
> >  such as 'id' for the lookup part to disambiguate".
> >
> >
> 
> Because I'm talking about REST and a verb in the URI doesn't need to be there.

You'd never have a /user/recent or similar URL? I guess if you assume that
all views onto the collection are done via query parameters, or just
move that funcationality to /recent-users or similar then it doesn't matter.

But that's a different sort of uglification of the URL; it doesn't get rid
of it.

And it still doesn't help if you want to allow lookup by more than one
name so far as I can see.

-- 
      Matt S Trout       Need help with your Catalyst or DBIx::Class project?
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