Theory

Request Structure

http request

Example

POST israel-train.com/station

Accept: application/json
Authorization: sdfjshdfjh83748374
Connection: keep-alive

{
	nisim: 42
}

Response Structure

http response

Example

200 OK

Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Content-Encoding: deflate
Connection: keep-alive

{
	"id": 123,
	"city": "Ashkelon"
}

STATUS CODE

Code Meaning
200 – 299 GOOD
400 – 499 CLIENT MESSED UP
500 – 599 SERVER FAULT

Methods

  • GET
  • POST
  • DELETE
  • PATCH
  • PUT

Headers

  • Content-Type

Demo

On our local host runs REST API server. One of it’s entities is “users”. In this demo we will review the execution of the following set of HTTP requests:

Method Route Body
GET /users
GET /users/1
GET /users/2
POST /users { “name”: “avi biter”, “email”: “avi@gmail.com” }
GET /users
DELETE /users/2
GET /users
PATCH /users/4 { “email”: “avi@walla.com” }
GET /users

We will review the “curl” command that can execute each request. Those HTTP request can also be executed by different software. We will also review the response of each request.

GET - /users

curl "localhost:3000/users"

Response

status code: 200

body:

[
  { "id": 1, "name": "nisim", "email": "nisim@gmail.com" },
  { "id": 2, "name": "shlomo", "email": "shlomo@gmail.com" },
  { "id": 3, "name": "david", "email": "david@gmail.com" }
]

GET - /users/1

curl "localhost:3000/users/1"

Response

status code: 200

body:

{ "id": 1, "name": "nisim", "email": "nisim@gmail.com" }

GET - /users/2

curl "localhost:3000/users/2"

Response

status code: 200

body:

{ "id": 2, "name": "shlomo", "email": "shlomo@gmail.com" }

POST - /users

curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{
    "name": "avi biter",
    "email": "avi@gmail.com"
}' http://localhost:3000/users

Response

status code: 201

GET - /users

curl "localhost:3000/users"

Response

status code: 200

body:

[
  { "id": 1, "name": "nisim", "email": "nisim@gmail.com" },
  { "id": 2, "name": "shlomo", "email": "shlomo@gmail.com" },
  { "id": 3, "name": "david", "email": "david@gmail.com" },
  { "id": 4, "name": "avi biter", "email": "avi@gmail.com" }
]

DELETE - /users/2

curl -X DELETE http://localhost:3000/users/2

Response

status code: 200

GET - /users

curl "localhost:3000/users"

Response

status code: 200

body:

[
  { "id": 1, "name": "nisim", "email": "nisim@gmail.com" },
  { "id": 3, "name": "david", "email": "david@gmail.com" },
  { "id": 4, "name": "avi biter", "email": "avi@gmail.com" }
]

PATCH - /users/4

curl -X PATCH -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{
    "email": "avi@walla.com"
}' http://localhost:3000/users/4

Response

status code: 200

GET - /users

Response

status code: 200

body:

[
  { "id": 1, "name": "nisim", "email": "nisim@gmail.com" },
  { "id": 3, "name": "david", "email": "david@gmail.com" },
  { "id": 4, "name": "avi biter", "email": "avi@walla.com" }
]