So, I'm building a RESTful API, that's like a Parking system, it have ParkingLots and Cars that enter or leave ParkingLots, at this moment, my endpoints looks like this.
POST '/parking-lots' // To create a ParkingLot
POST '/cars' // To create a Car
But, how to name an endpoint that has EnterParkingLot or LeaveParkingLot feature following REST best pratices? I didn't found an article or blog post that answer this question so far.
But, how to name an endpoint that has EnterParkingLot or LeaveParkingLot feature following REST best pratices? I didn't found an article or blog post that answer this question so far.
The key abstraction of information in REST is a resource. Resources are generalizations of documents, not endpoints.
Useful work is a side effect of editing documents (Webber, 2011).
If you are having trouble figuring out the URI, that probably means that you haven't been thinking enough about the documents (aka you don't yet have a clear understanding of your "resource model").
One idea that can sometimes help is to think about a client with cached documents. When they send you one of these messages, which document in the cache is the most important one to invalidate?
In REST, it is normal (not necessarily common) to have a single resource handle many different kinds of edits. For instance, we might submit an EnterParkingLot form, that would update a parking lot resource, and then later submit a LeaveParkingLot form that updates the same parking lot resource (with the code on the server parsing the requests to distinguish the different kinds of edits).
But it would also be fine to add a "parking ticket" resource to your resource model, with a different ticket tracking the arrival and departure of each car.
Domain experts are typically good at telling you what the documents are, and what names make sense.