[Dancer-users] a Dance for the REST of us

[Flavio Poletti]

I don't know much about REST, but the base should be that you have to map
the thing you want to do upon HTTP methods, which have a well-defined
semantics. In particular, if you want to...

... get some data, without having collateral effects on the data => use HTTP
GET
... modify some existing data => use HTTP POST
... add some data => use HTTP PUT
... delete some data => use HTTP DELETE

Dancer happens to support the four methods via the usual route definition
approach, with lowercase functions for each HTTP METHOD, except that (HTTP)
DELETE is called "del" (this is due to the fact that "delete" is a built-in
keyword in Perl and it's better to leave it alone).

So, if you want to delete something under the REST umbrella, you're supposed
to use Dancer's "del" instead of "get":

del '/:foo_id' => sub { ... }

Regarding the ordering, there is an example in the "ACTION SKIPPING" section
of Dancer::Introduction, even though the example is a bit wrong because it
does not include the due "return" before pass (see documentation about
"pass" for this). This is how it should be:


    get '/say/:word' => sub {
        return pass if (params->{word} =~ /^\d+$/);
        "I say a word: ".params->{word};
    };

    get '/say/:number' => sub {
        "I say a number: ".params->{number};
    };


Cheers,

   Flavio.




On Fri, Dec 24, 2010 at 12:42 AM, Puneet Kishor <punk.kish at gmail.com> wrote:

> I have widgets called "foo," and I am building web app that will also serve
> as a RESTful app for data access via the command line. All "foo" related
> routes are packaged together, and are loaded via
>    `load_app "app::foo", prefix => "/foo"`
>
> so that `get '/:foo_id'` really become `http://server/foo/:foo_id`<http://server/foo/:foo_id>
> .
>
> My routes are
>
> 1. get  '/'
> ===========
> Returns a welcome page via a full html request. A full html request is
> where a full web page is loaded, as opposed to an ajax request where only a
> part of the web page is refreshed.
>
> 2. get  '/all'
> ==============
> Returns minimal info for all valid "foo" from the data store via a full
> html request. However, I would also like to return them as a json string via
> the command line. Now, when requested via the web browser, this method
> should really return only some minimal info for each "foo." Clicking on any
> specific "foo" should fire #3 below to get its details -- a typical
> drill-down application. However, when requested via the commandline, there
> should be an option to return *all* the details, with some checks, so that
> gigabytes of data are not returned.
>
> 3. get  '/:foo_id'
> ==================
> Returns all the details for a specific "foo" as a json string via an ajax
> request.
>
> 4. get  '/new'
> ==============
> Returns a page to begin constructing a new "foo" in the browser via a full
> html request. There is no equivalent command line method for this.
>
> 5. post '/save'
> =======================
> Saves a new "foo" created in #4 or above, or via a command line method. In
> other words, a user should be able to supply in a json string via the
> command line everything that a user would create interactively in #4 above.
>
> 6. get  '/delete/:foo_id'
> =========================
> This method removed a specific foo. Now, two things I don't understand
> about this -- one, of course, in a RESTful app, this would be a DELETE
> method. This is a bit confusing to me -- is the HTTP get (I am using a
> lowercase 'get') not the same as a REST GET (using an uppercase get)? In
> other words, can I use a `get` to perform a `DELETE`? Two, how do I send
> authentication? I don't want Sukrieh deleting Sawyer's widget.
>
> In fact, this authentication theme runs through all the routes -- do I just
> pass a session token for authentication with every route?
>
> Finally, should #3 be the last route? Else, how do I differentiate between
> `get '/delete/5'` and `get '/5'` and `get '/all'`?
>
> Thanks in advance for a quick lesson, whosoever cares to give one.
>
>
>
> --
> Puneet Kishor
> _______________________________________________
> Dancer-users mailing list
> Dancer-users at perldancer.org
> http://www.backup-manager.org/cgi-bin/listinfo/dancer-users
>
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