I am designing an HTTP API for a dataset. I want permanent links to each historical version of a file in the dataset as well as a URL that redirects to the latest version. I want to add a header to enable clients to discover the latest URL given the URL for a specific version:
GET /example/v1
200 OK
Link: </example/latest>; rel="latest"
GET /example/v2
200 OK
Link: </example/latest>; rel="latest"
GET /example/latest
303 See Other
Location: /example/v2
I want to know: is there a better value for the rel parameter than "latest" that I could/should use? Note: I am aware that I should add Link: </example/latest>; rel="canonical", but rel="canonical" captures a different semantic than I want to describe.
| rel="latest" | rel="canonical" |
|---|---|
| This is where you can find the latest version | Hint: if you are a search engine, this is the page I want you to use when grouping a set of similar results |
It is not infeasible that I may want to serve Link: </example/v2>; rel="canonical" or even Link: </example/v1>; rel="canonical"
Similar questions:
At the time of writing there is no suitable entry in this list on MDN
is there a better value for the rel parameter than "latest" that I could/should use?
A good place to look is the IANA Link Relations registry; there, you will find registered link relations, non-authoritative summaries, and a link to the authoritative reference.
Example
latest-version
Points to a resource containing the latest (e.g., current) version of the context.
https://www.iana.org/go/rfc5829
RFC 5829 is Link Relation Types for Simple Version Navigation between Web Resources, and it of course includes a definition for latest-version.