Hi Christopher,
> Yes I know what you mean, the "{}" are part of the JAX-RS specification.
They're part of the URI template specification. JAX-RS uses these URI templates.
> The Neo4j Rest server uses HTTP and JSON thats true, but it violates IMHO
> some of the REST principles. I think that a technical interface should
> contain, if the content is a link, a "well formed" URI. I know that a String
> like "GET /node/123/relationships/{dir}/{-list|&|types}" means that there
> are optional parameter or something like this. Thats OK for a description in
> a Wiki page but not in a returned JSON object.
It's OK for both, but I agree that in general I prefer fully formed URIs. We'll
need to tweak the response representations to include this.
> The String "GET /node/123/relationships/out/KNOWS&LOVES" is used as a
> query parameter. If it is used as a parameter for a query it should be a
> URL-query parameter.
Not necessarily. URIs are opaque, it's only because you're a smart human that
you can infer something from a string like that, but a machine can't.
> Using "POST /node/123/traverse/{returnType}" I can traverse though the
> nodes, where returnType is the definition of the kind of objects I want to
> have returned. In the basic REST sense POST is a Insert method where a newly
> created ressource will be returned in the Location tag of a HTTP Header. For
> me this POST is a GET as well, maybe with some query parameter.
Agree with you on that - a traversal is a query and so should be a GET. There
was a thread on that a while back if I remember correctly. The API will change
in future iterations, this would be one of the changes I'd favour.
> If you want to distinguish the returned Types, maybe it is a good idea to
> use custom mime types for node, path and relation, if you want to use the
> same URI for all.
I don't like creating custom mime types, but at the same time I don't like JSON
(because it's not a hypermedia format, it doesn't understand links). My
preference would be to use Clojure data structures (once the Clojure guys have
embedded the URI abstraction in the core), and create a standard media type
based on Clojure - but I am a dreamer.
In the meantime, I suspect we're stuck with this non-standard use of JSON.
Jim
PS - Bring on the controversial comments about the REST API, they're good
possible requirements for us.
PPS - I wrote a book about some of this REST stuff with Savas Parastatidis and
Ian Robinson. See: http://restinpractice.com
> And to be clear, I like this interface very much :-)
>
> Christopher
>
> On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 9:53 AM, Jim Webber <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Hi Christopher,
>>
>>> http://localhost:9999/node/1/relationships/in/{-list|&|types}"
>>
>> This is a URI template, inviting you to replace the {...} with values of
>> your own. In this case it's giving you the opportunity to provide a list of
>> ampersand separated types.
>>
>> Now I believe this URI template syntax is out of date compared to the
>> current spec, but I'll have to validate that.
>>
>> Perhaps it's even worth thinking about designing this out of the REST API
>> as we move forwards with Neo4j server. Hmmm....
>>
>> Jim
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Christopher
> twitter: @fakod
> blog: http://blog.fakod.eu
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