Passing array in GET for a REST call

Question

I have a url to fetch appointments for a user like this    user  userId appointments   How should the url look like if I want to get appointments for multiple users   should it be    appointments users 1d1 1d2     Thanks  Chris

User · Accepted Answer

Collections are a resource so  appointments is fine as the resource   Collections also typically offer filters via the querystring which is essentially what users id1 id2    is   So     appointments users id1 id2    is fine as a filtered RESTful resource

User · Answer

As  Ravi MCA mentioned   users ids   id1 amp ids   id2 worked for me  too  When you want to send an array through PATCH or POST method  it s better to use JSON or XML   I use JSON  In HTTP Request body you should follow like this    quot params quot    quot arg1 quot    quot arg2 quot          You can even use JSON object instead of array

User · Answer

This worked for me    users ids   id1 amp ids   id2

User · Answer

Instead of using http GET  use http POST  And JSON  Or XML  This is how your request stream to the server would look like   POST  appointments HTTP 1 0 Content-Type  application json Content-Length   calculated by your utility    users   user  id id1   user  id id2      Or in XML   POST  appointments HTTP 1 0 Content-Type  application json Content-Length   calculated by your utility    lt users gt  lt user id  id1   gt  lt user id  id2   gt  lt  users gt    You could certainly continue using GET as you have proposed  as it is certainly simpler    appointments users 1d1 1d2   Which means you would have to keep your data structures very simple   However  if when your data structure gets more complex  http GET and without JSON  your programming and ability to recognise the data gets very difficult   Therefore unless you could keep your data structure simple  I urge you adopt a data transfer framework  If your requests are browser based  the industry usual practice is JSON  If your requests are server-server  than XML is the most convenient framework   JQuery  If your client is a browser and you are not using GWT  you should consider using jquery REST  Google on RESTful services with jQuery

User · Answer

appointments users 1d1 1d2      is fine  It s pretty much your only sensible option since you can t pass in a body with a GET

User · Answer

I think it s a better practice to serialize your REST call parameters  usually by JSON-encoding them    appointments users  id1 id2    or even    appointments params  users  id1 id2     Then you un-encode them on the server   This is going to give you more flexibility in the long run   Just make sure to URLEncode the params as well before you send them

User · Answer

Another way of doing that  which can make sense depending on your server architecture framework of choice  is to repeat the same argument over and over again  Something like this    appointments users id1 amp users id2   In this case I recommend using the parameter name in singular    appointments user id1 amp user id2   This is supported natively by frameworks such as Jersey  for Java   Take a look on this question for more details

[rest] Passing array in GET for a REST call

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