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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-12T00:58:49+00:00

I have a Rails app that needs to expose values from a database as

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I have a Rails app that needs to expose values from a database as a web service – since I’m using Rails 2.x, I’m going with REST (or at least try). Assuming my resource is Bananas, for which I want to expose several sub-characteristics, consider this:

 - /banana          -> give a summary of the first 10 bananas, in full (all characteristics)
 - /banana/?name=<name>         -> give all characteristics for banana named <name>
 - /banana/?number=<number>         -> give all characteristics for banana number <number>
 - /banana/?name=<name>/peel          -> give peel data for banana named <name>
 - /banana/?number=<number>/length         -> give length data for banana number <number>

I don’t want to search for ID, only name or number. And I have about 7 sub-characteristics to expose. Is this RESTful?

Thanks for any feedback!

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I would use these:

    • /banana
    • /banana/blah
    • /banana/123
    • /banana/blah/peel (and /banana/123/peel)
    • /banana/blah/length (and /banana/123/length)

    First, common practice for ReSTful URIs is /object_name/id/verb, with some of those absent (but in that order). Of course, this is neither required nor expected.

    If all your names aren’t made of digits, you don’t have to explicitly have name in /banana/name/blah. In fact, if anything, it would be better to have id as identifier: /banana/id/123/peel. Hope this helps.

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