Bill Moseley schrieb:
I'm looking for suggestions how to best support multiple API versions in an application.The API and web share many controller actions. As is not uncommon, actions available for the API are defined with an attribute: sub foo : Local XMLRPC( 'foo.get' ) { This is great for sharing code as often the API just exposes the same functionality as the web interface. When a new version of the web application is released then all web users see the new version at the same time. If an action in the new version expects an additional new parameter then the form posting to that action is modified at the same time. But, the API access to an application typically needs to be backward compatible to allow API users time to update their client applications with the newer requirements. So, it seems I would need multiple controller actions that are dispatched based on some version. Here's one idea I was kicking around: Say I have an existing controller action that is used by the web users, but also available as an XMLRPC API method: sub widget : Local XMLRPC( 'widget.get' ) { So in a new application version that controller action is changed and now requires a new parameter and returns new data. In the new version I want to support the new action but remain backward compatible. # fetch widget for web and API sub widget : Local XMLRPC( 'widget.get' ) Version( 2 ) { # deprecated to support old version of API sub widget_old : XMLRPC( 'widget.get' ) Version( 1 ) { Then in my custom API dispatcher match method I take the version into consideration when matching actions. Any better suggestions?
You could make the version of the api being used a parameter of the request, falling back to the latest stable version if not present. Then, in your controller you use a simple dispatch table to call the function that should the lifting.
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