I've started creating a RESTful API (well, I did my best, I'm trying to follow the patterns) and I have stumbled upon a scenario that I'm not really sure how to handle. I will explain the current structure:
My application has 4 controllers:
- Customers
- Payments
- Log
Taking as example the Customers controller, I have defined the following actions:
- GET /customers: returns a list of customers
- POST /customers: creates a new customer
- GET /customers/{id}: returns the customer with the provided id
- PUT /customers/{id}: updates the customer with the provided id
- DELETE /customers/{id}: destroys the customer
This is the full code of the Customer controller:
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use App\Customer;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
class CustomerController extends Controller
{
/**
* Display a listing of the resource.
*
* @return \Illuminate\Http\Response
*/
public function index()
{
return Customer::all();
}
/**
* Store a newly created resource in storage.
*
* @param \Illuminate\Http\Request $request
* @return \Illuminate\Http\Response
*/
public function store(Request $request)
{
$customer = Customer::create($request->all());
return response()->json($customer, 201);
}
/**
* Display the specified resource.
*
* @param \App\Customer $customer
* @return \Illuminate\Http\Response
*/
public function show(Customer $customer)
{
return $customer;
}
/**
* Update the specified resource in storage.
*
* @param \Illuminate\Http\Request $request
* @param \App\Customer $customer
* @return \Illuminate\Http\Response
*/
public function update(Request $request, Customer $customer)
{
$customer->update($request->all());
return response()->json($customer, 200);
}
/**
* Remove the specified resource from storage.
*
* @param \App\Customer $customer
* @return \Illuminate\Http\Response
*/
public function destroy(Customer $customer)
{
$customer->delete();
return response()->json(null, 204);
}
}
The code is very similar in the other controllers. It's also important to note that:
- A Customer can have multiple Payments
- A Customer can have multiple records in the Log
The problem starts here:
I need to display in the front-end a summary page with all customer data (name, email, registration date, etc) and a box showing the number of payments made and another box showing the number of entries in the Log.
Do I need to make 3 requests? (One to /customers/id, other to customers/id/payments and other to customers/id/logs)
If I return all the customer related data in the customers/id call, am I breaking the RESTful convention?
