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RESTful Architecture

·244 words·2 mins
Darren Pruitt
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Darren Pruitt

Found the following in the article ASP.NET MVC: Using RESTful Architecture and thought it worth noting. It describes what the MVC command actions should be, no more than this is needed:

The endpoint needs to be something meaningful, and Rails uses a nice convention that divides the endpoints into 7 main bits:

  • Index - the main “landing” page. This is also the default endpoint.
  • List - a list of whatever “thing” you’re showing them - like a list of Products.
  • Show - a particular item of whatever “thing” you’re showing them (like a Product)
  • Edit - an edit page for the “thing”
  • New - a create page for the “thing”
  • Create - creates a new “thing” (and saves it if you’re using a DB)
  • Update - updates the “thing”
  • Delete - deletes the “thing”

Normally the last 3 are “action only ” and don’t have a view associated with them. So if you “create” a Product (from the New view, using Create as the action on the form), you’d just redirect then to the List or Edit views. Likewise if you Update a Product from the Edit page (using Update as the action on the form) you might want to go back to the Edit view and show a status update.

I don’t agree that this should be the ONLY command results you can have but I think it is a good guideline to follow. Now I have to go update my MVC commands.