设计REST API

Question

I'm designing API for my web application with django-REST, and frontend with Vue.js. There are several "catalog" models. Each catalog item has id field and can have link field to other catalog item. Here is example

Device item

{
"id": 1,
"serial_num": "xxx",
"comment": "",
"nomenclature": 2,
"device_type": 3
}

Nomenclature item

{
"id": 2,
"label": "HP probook 450",
}

Device_type item

{
"id": 3,
"label": "Laptop",
}

Full label for Device item must be " device_type + nomenclature " = "Laptop HP probook 450". So, when I need full label for Device item in frontend I must resolve fields "nomenclature" and "device_type", and then I get label. But for each type of object I should make special function to resolve its label. And hierarchy of objects can be much deeper.

Maybe I should just add label field in Device object, which will assemble in backend. What is the best practice?

Answer 1

Data representation is front end's job. Your api's only job is to serve raw data to users with access as fast as possible. That's why it's not great to have joined data in api answers.

Also you'll make your api bloated including fields that don't really belong to Device. Next time front end needs to update label format it will also trigger changes to api.

But. If joining label to Device allows you to not expose Nomenclature and Device_type to api, ie decreasing number of needed http-calls by at least 2 every time, I think it's a good decision to allow retreiving label via Device endpoint (or rather just joining those objects into api response and still allowing front end to build label format by itself).