RESTful DELETE with a comment

Question

I have a RESTful API. DELETE /Collection/<Object-ID> will delete the specified object. We don't delete the objects internaly. It will only marked as deleted.

Now it is required to enter a delete comment. How is this possible with REST?

Possible duplicate: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14323716/restful-alternatives-to-delete-request-body — Jonathan W, Nov 14 '13 at 17:51

score 3 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:25

3

You have many options (as outlined in this question), but none of them are really considered standard practice. I personally would avoid using custom HTTP headers, but then you might run into trouble with certain HTTP implementations disallowing (or even ignoring) request bodies when sending DELETEs.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:25

Community

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answered Nov 14 '13 at 17:50

Jonathan W

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score 0 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:25

You can add a custom http header on the request from the client, and then read it from the server.

Edit:

Example for request with custom header:

DELETE /path/to/resource HTTP/1.1
Host: localhost:8080
Accept: */*
Delete-Comment: not needed anymore

Response:

HTTP/1.1 410 Gone
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 13:56:26 GMT
Content-Length: 0

Note that X-Headers are deprecated: Custom HTTP headers : naming conventions

RESTful DELETE with a comment

2 Answers2