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In my single page application that uses RESTful services, I want to know what the best practice is for updating one item in an array of items.

Prerequisites
1. Front-end makes a GET request to fetch a list of items
2. Front-end formats the list of items (i.e. converts dates from UTC to local time)
3. Front-end makes a PUT request to the back-end to update the name of an item

Possible solutions

Solution #1
4. Back-end responds with HTTP-200 and the single updated item
5. Front-end reformats the updated item
6. Front-end splices the list of items, finding and replacing the updated item

PRO
- One API request to update the item
CON
- Duplication of data on the front-end, no single source of truth (i.e. the list of items)

Solution #2
4. Back-end responds with HTTP-200 and the updated list of items
5. Front-end reformats the list of items

PRO
- One API request to update the item
CON
- Does not follow the single responsibility principle (i.e. the API for updating the item updates the single item, and returns all items)

Solution #3
4. Back-end responds with HTTP-200 and the single updated item
5. Front-end makes a GET request to fetch all of the items
6. Front-end reformats the list of items

PRO
- More flexible for future implementations, APIs follow the single responsibility principle
CON
- Two API requests to update the item

cvalmonte
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    This is more of a debate/suggestive nature and I'm not sure is worthy of a Stack Overflow question/answer pattern as there is no definitive answer to be had. – ekscrypto Oct 11 '19 at 23:58
  • Solution #4 is a) update the item locally, on the front end, b) send the update (PUT), c) display "OK" if HTTP 200, handle the error (otherwise) ... but don't bother making another round trip to "update" anything. IN ANY CASE: the correct answer is "It depends". There's no One-Size-Fits-All answer. – paulsm4 Oct 12 '19 at 00:04
  • For simple frontend2backend communication you don't need REST. You can aim for it though if you really like. REST is more a technique you should use when you have multiple clients, especially ones not under your control, that use your service. It aims at decoupling clients from servers allowing the latter one to evolve freely and the former ones do adapt to changes more naturally. By that, you try to use well defined message formats (plain JSON is a bad one to start with) and standardized link relation names to increase interoperability. – Roman Vottner Oct 12 '19 at 03:27

2 Answers2

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Solution 2 does follow the single responsibility principle, you might be confused by the naming and 'responsibility', but if we consider the true definition of SRP: 'single reason for change' Solution 2 is completely fine and the preferred way if performance is not critical.

https://deviq.com/single-responsibility-principle/

marc_s
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Ali Nasserzadeh
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I want to know what the best practice is for updating one item in an array of items.

An important thing to understand about REST, or HTTP, is that we are designing messages to be consumed by general-purpose components. Which is to say, we are using the readily standardized forms to communicate the semantics.

An HTTP PUT has the semantics of upserting a document into a document store. For your example, where we GET a representation of a list resource, make local edits, and PUT the result, the payload of the PUT is a copy of the complete representation of the resource -- what we are asking is that the server make it's copy look like the client's copy.

Assuming that the server elects to apply the new representation to its copy of the resource, the payload of the response could be a status message ("It worked"), or a copy of the new representation of the resource, or even an empty document (204 No Content) with metadata that describing the new representation of the resource (and the implication that the server accepted the client's representation without modification).

The key idea behind PUT, however, is that the payload is a complete representation of the resource, not merely a description of a change made to it. If the document is very large (in particular, large in comparison to the HTTP headers), and the edit you are making is small, then you may prefer to send a patch-document describing the changes you made to the document, specifying the PATCH method in the request.

Of course, on the web, the most popular document format didn't include hypermedia support for PUT or PATCH, and the most popular clients were browsers, not document editors, so we had to design our change protocols around POST. So it's "fine" to do it that way too, you just need to think about how representations of form data are going to be applied to the resource.

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VoiceOfUnreason
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