RESTApi - 当操作不确定时应该是什么方法

Question

I have 4 Apis that I expose, and I don't know what method should I use for them (POST/PUT/DELETE).

The DB object (let's call it User) contains

{"id", "foreignId1", "foreignId2"}

I have 4 methods -

assignForegin1
unassignForegin1
assignForegin2
unassignForegin2

In each one, I'm getting only 2 parameters - 1 id and 1 foreignId (after that I'm creating a User with the relevant fields out of it). Assign - if there is no id, I'm creating a new one with this foreignId, and if it exists, I override/assigning the new foreginId. Unassign - I'm removing the foreginId from this id, and if the id contains no foreginIds, I delete it.

So, assign is half PUT and half POST, and the unassign is half PUT and half DELETE.

What will be the best practice in this scenario?

Thanks

Answer 1

The API should follow single responsibility , it should only assign the foreign fields and should not create/delete if not present.

In your way, the end-user of the API doesn't know that you will delete the object if the object with id doesn't have that foreignId , he will also not know that a new object will be created if an object with an id doesn't exist. As a best practice, the client of your API shouldn't know about your implementation.

I would suggest you divide the APIs into multiple CRUD APIs. Lets call your object as foreign

createForeign
  type: POST
  input: foreignId1, foreignId2
  output: Foreign

assignForeignId1:
  type: PUT
  input: id, foreignId1
  output: Foreign

assignForeignId2:
  type: PUT
  input: id, foreignId2
  output: Foreign

In case the id doesn't exist in case of assignForeignId1 , the API should throw an error and the client should call createForeign API if he wants to create one.