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Asked: 2026-05-10T14:24:56+00:00

We are trying to implement a REST API for an application we have now.

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We are trying to implement a REST API for an application we have now. We want to expose read/write capabilities for various resources using the REST API. How do we implement the ‘form’ part of this? I get how to expose ‘read’ of our data by creating RESTful URLs that essentially function as method calls and return the data:

GET /restapi/myobject?param=object-id-maybe

…and an XML document representing some data structure is returned. Fine.

But, normally, in a web application, an ‘edit’ would involve two requests: one to load the current version of the resources and populate the form with that data, and one to post the modified data back.

But I don’t get how you would do the same thing with HTTP methods that REST is sort of mapped to. It’s a PUT, right? Can someone explain this?

(Additional consideration: The UI would be primarily done with AJAX)

— Update: That definitely helps. But, I am still a bit confused about the server side? Obviously, I am not simply dealing with files here. On the server, the code that answers the requests should be filtering the request method to determine what to do with it? Is that the ‘switch’ between reads and writes?

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  1. If you’re submitting the data via plain HTML, you’re restricted to doing a POST based form. The URI that the POST request is sent to should not be the URI for the resource being modified. You should either POST to a collection resource that ADDs a newly created resource each time (with the URI for the new resource in the Location header and a 202 status code) or POST to an updater resource that updates a resource with a supplied URI in the request’s content (or custom header).

    If you’re using an XmlHttpRequest object, you can set the method to PUT and submit the data to the resource’s URI. This can also work with empty forms if the server supplies a valid URI for the yet-nonexistent resource. The first PUT would create the resource (returning 202). Subsequent PUTs will either do nothing if it’s the same data or modify the existing resource (in either case a 200 is returned unless an error occurs).

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