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restrestful-architecture

REST: How to handle an action changing multiple resources

I am trying to understand the resource-based RESTful architecture. I understand that an HTTP GET on /accounts will list the accounts and GET on /accounts/123 will provide details on the given account. How do I implement active management in RESTful architecture, like transfer money from account A to account B?

Solution

  • Consider the idea of declaring the transaction itself as a resource, so that you could operate on your single resource atomically:

    POST /transaction

-> /transaction/456

    I suggest avoiding HTTP PUT in this case because idempotency is not what we want for this resource.

    Posting the new transaction will update the account A and B.