REST Partial update with several fields

Question

Lets say I have a rest service that allows applications to create User object

URI: /users
HTTP Method:POST

{
   "firstName":"Edward",
   "lastName": "Nygma",
   "dob": "01011981",
   "email": "en@gc.com",
   "phone": "0123456789"
}

On the first POST the User object is created and and the User ID is returned

Lets say there is a second service that allows the user to update the lastName and email fields.

URI: /user/1/last-email

HTTP Method: POST

{
   "lastName": "scissorhands",
   "email": "ec@bc.com"
}

Let's say for the sake of bandwidth sending the full User object is not an option for this update call.

Is this the correct way to do a partial update that involves several fields? Also using PATCH is out of the question.

Edit: I know that the correct way to do this restfully would be to post an update to each field as a sub resource but lets say for the sake of bandwidth/business requirements that this update has to be done in a single call. Is this the correct way to do so?

Edit 2:

Our implementation does not support the HTTP PATCH method, hence why I indicated in the initial question that using patch is out of the question. That being said, maybe I should rephrase the question.

Since system/business requirements prevent us from implementing this correctly in a RESTful manor. What is the best way to handle this scenario.

I don´t know the context, but make sense. On other hands, if you have too long data maybe you should consider compress the data to be send — Cristhian Boujon, Nov 13 '15 at 19:11

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:59

1

Putting the verb "update-" suddenly makes it feel like it's an RPC call. What do you do when you want to delete this email? Doing a DELETE action on this URI looks a bit silly.

URI: /user/1/email and URI: user/1/lastname would make more sense as EMAIL would just be a subresource and you can use all the verbs on those resources.

Yes, this would take 2 calls in case you want to update 2 resources instead of 1.

For partial updates of a resource use "PATCH" verb on the resource. This way you would not need a new URI at all. (Best practice for partial updates in a RESTful service)

Reference: http://restcookbook.com/HTTP%20Methods/patch/

Quote:

When should we use the PATCH HTTP method?

The HTTP methods PATCH can be used to update partial resources. For instance, when you only need to update one field of the resource, PUTting a complete resource representation might be cumbersome and utilizes more bandwidth

See more at: http://restcookbook.com/HTTP%20Methods/patch/#sthash.jEWLklrg.dpuf

edited May 23 '17 at 11:59

Community

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answered Nov 13 '15 at 19:43

Kay Tsar

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I know that the correct way to do this restfully would be to post an update to each field as a sub resource but lets say for the sake of bandwidth/business requirements that this update has to be done in a single call. Is this the correct way to do so? – mad_fox Nov 13 '15 at 20:01
Also, I removed "update-" and let the http post method indicate that some action is happening – mad_fox Nov 13 '15 at 20:21
If you want to do it RESTful, then it is "not correct". See my updated answer. – Kay Tsar Nov 14 '15 at 20:47

REST Partial update with several fields

1 Answers1