Restful API design

Question 1

What

Answer 1

Identify the Goal: What problem does the API solve? What resources will it manage?
Set Functionalities: List actions the API will support, like creating, reading, updating, or deleting resources.

Question 2

Identify Resources

Answer 2

Resources represent the main entities in your API and are typically nouns.
Users
Orders
Products

Question 3

Use Resource URIs

Answer 3

Design resource URLs that are hierarchical, predictable, and meaningful.
Use nouns to represent resources.
Use plural for resource names (e.g., /users instead of /user).
/users – Get all users or create a new user.
/users/{id} – Access a specific user by ID.
/users/{id}/orders – Access orders for a specific user.

Question 4

Map to HTTP Methods

Answer 4

GET: Retrieve resources.
POST: Create new resources.
PUT: Update an existing resource (replace the whole).
PATCH: Partially update a resource.
DELETE: Remove a resource.

GET /users – Fetch all users.
POST /users – Create a new user.
PUT /users/{id} – Update user details.
DELETE /users/{id} – Delete a user.

Question 5

Versioning Handling

Answer 5

API versions ensure backward compatibility when introducing changes
GET /v1/users

Question 6

Error Codes

Answer 6

200 OK: Successful GET or PUT request.
201 Created: Resource successfully created.
204 No Content: Successful DELETE request.
400 Bad Request: Invalid input.
401 Unauthorized: Authentication failure.
404 Not Found: Resource not found.
500 Internal Server Error: Server failure.