RESTful API设计通过相同的HTTP方法区分对相同URI的操作

Question

I would like to design a RESTful API in order to control a Bluetooth Dongle over a web interface.

What happens if I have the following conflict

POST /IDofDongle/

Let's say I want this specific USB dongle to either start a discovery/inquiry process (append information about surrounding Bluetooth devices to the resource) or connect to any Bluetooth device (create a new subordinate resource by appending the MAC Address of the Bluetooth device to the URI above)?

Differentiating using a QueryString seems very RPC like to me. Or do I need to define other resources?

Answer 1

You've run into the REST fallacy. Not everything is a resource, so you shouldn't try to treat everything as such. By POSTint to that endpoint, you're saying you want to create an USB dongle. As you aren't accessing a 3D printer, this won't work. You are building an RPC service.

So break with REST and introduce your own verbs:

POST /IDofDongle/Discover
POST /IDofDongle/Connect

Of course you could treat "discoveries" and "connections" as a resource:

POST /IDofDongle/Discoveries
POST /IDofDongle/Connections

"Creating" those entities. You can then return a Discovery or Connection entity that relates to the specified dongle, holding the relevant properties for such entities (DiscoveredDevices, ConnectionID, ...).