[Catalyst] OT: edit/add seperate actions?

[Peter Karman]

Zbigniew Lukasiak wrote on 03/03/2009 04:18 PM:
> On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 10:27 PM, Peter Karman <peter at peknet.com> wrote:
>> Zbigniew Lukasiak wrote on 03/03/2009 02:53 PM:
>>
>>>> If you use CatalystX::CRUD::REST, you can do:
>>>>
>>>>    # POST      /foo                -> create new record
>>>>    # GET       /foo                -> list all records
>>>>    # PUT       /foo/<pk>           -> update record
>>>>    # DELETE    /foo/<pk>           -> delete record
>>>>    # GET       /foo/<pk>           -> view record
>>>>    # GET       /foo/<pk>/edit_form -> edit record form
>>>>    # GET       /foo/create_form    -> create record form
>>>>
>>>> CatalystX::CRUD::REST uses the C::R::REST::ForBrowsers feature of
>>>> 'x-tunneled-method' param to support PUT and DELETE via POST.
>>> And where do the forms submit?  I mean what is their action address?
>>> Do they submit to themselves - or does edit_form submit to
>>> /foo/<pk>?x-tunneled-method=PUT and create to /foo both with POST
>>> method?  And it is the second - then what do you do when the form
>>> parameters are incorrect and you need to redisplay the form?
>> using the CXC REST API:
>>
>> if you GET /foo/1234, then you must PUT /foo/1234 to save it.
>> (or POST /foo/1234?x-tunneled-method=PUT  -- although I always put the
>> x-tunneled-method value in a hidden input body param, not as part of the
>> URL).
> Sure - that was just for clarification of how the PUT is done with browsers :)
> 
> 
>> if you GET /foo/create_form, then you must POST /foo.
>>
>> When the form is redisplayed on validation error, it just retains the
>> original action.
> 
> I was just thinking about the possible CRUD REST schemas and it found
> that under that schema you display the same form under two addresses:
> /foo/1234/edit_form and /foo/1234 (in case of the error).  And the
> other day I had that idea that perhaps instead of using path part -
> use another parameter so /foo/1234?x-view-method=edit_form  would
> render the form and /foo/1234 would render the standard view of the
> object.   This way the form would have just one address.
> 

In CXC REST, /foo/1234 is analogous to /foo/1234/view in the RPC format.
It does not return a HTML form. It just returns the object data. I.e.,
read-only. So the URLs represent two different things.

Of course, that's just how I implement the API in CatalystX::CRUD::YUI,
but you could make /foo/1234 return whatever you want. The basic API is
view-agnostic, and there's nothing in the core Controller API that
dictates what is returned. The controllers just stash the object
represented by the URL and leave representation up to the view.

> Both things are just different representations of the same thing - so
> using a parameter to differentiate between them seems quite logical.
> But on the other hand it might look too different from the traditional
> ways.
> 
> 

they could be different (as they are in CXC::YUI), or they could be the
same. That's up to the implementer of the API, I guess.


-- 
Peter Karman  .  peter at peknet.com  .  http://peknet.com/