Scenario: a database of images, with a REST API.

Get All is no problem: GET /images/
Get Single is no problem: GET /images/?id=12345
Add New is no problem: POST /images/ (header info)
Update is no problem: PUT /images/ (header info)

But what if I want to say to the API “I know you have an image, and I would like you to take that original image, make a copy, crop the copy to a dimensional size that I will provide to you, and then resize that cropped portion to a final size which I will also provide to you. Oh, and return the ID of the newly-created image.”

I guess technically I’m adding a new resource, but I’m not specifying the pure data for the new resource: I’m giving a set of transformations to apply to an existing resource.

Interesting conundrum. WWRFD?

I’m probably missing the boat here somewhere, but:

Say you’re modeling a beauty pageant (no pun intended).  JUDGES fill out BALLOTS on CONTESTANTS.   Each BALLOT has CATEGORIES: for example, “Poise”, “Swimsuit”, “Evening Gown”.

So far so good.  Easy enough.

Let’s say you want to extend the model to include AUDITOR functions.  The business rule is something like: “If a JUDGE returns a BALLOT that is missing entries for one or more CATEGORIES, the ballot is invalid and needs to be returned to the JUDGE.

So you’ve got a conceptual “bucket” that you can identify: bad ballots.  How do you model that RESTfully?

/ballots/bad

/ballots/bad/[id]

/ballots/bad/?category=[category]&judge=[judge]&competitor=[competitor]

??? Maybe this makes more sense the more I look at it.  I was initially thinking I needed to make all sorts of funky prefix URIs like /bycategory/ and /bycompetitor/, but just putting it in the query string makes sense for filtering entities, with no controller involved.

Score another one for thinking out loud via the blog