Hi Adrian My limited understanding is that RESTful URLs should point to a data resource rather than service logic resources. The verbs (HTTP request method) are used to indicate the type of operation (CRUD) to be performed on the noun (data object). So you'd have something like a URL that points to say the "person" resource and using that URL you can GET a person(s), create or update (POST) a person(s) and DELETE a person.
If what I say above is correct then what OFBiz lacks primarily is the ability to map a verb and nouns combination to a specific service. I believe David has taken some steps to resolving that in Moqui which we could achieve by altering the way we define services or alternatively as a stop-gap measure we could introduce an additional mapping layer which defines resource end-points and maps the request type to the appropriate service (perhaps not so easy for POST operations that use a create or update approach but possible by checking for the presence of specific record identifying parameters to indicate an update). What you've described below sounds more like a regular HTTP web service approach that just makes a bit more use of the request headers than we do currently. Regards Scott HotWax Media http://www.hotwaxmedia.com On 5/05/2011, at 12:11 PM, Adrian Crum wrote: > I'm working on a project that might require accessing OFBiz services via > REST. I know there have been discussions about using Axis, and Chris Snow was > able to get a REST library to work with OFBiz. Please correct me if I'm > wrong, but it seems to me OFBiz already has most of what is needed to > implement REST, so there shouldn't be any need to use any additional > libraries. > > From what I understand, REST services are simply HTTP requests sent to a > particular URL to invoke a particular service. The request response contains > any requested data in a format the REST client specified in the request. The > HTTP commands GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE are used in the requests. The > meaning of the REST HTTP commands are server-specific. > > So here is what I'm thinking: Let's say we want to access OFBiz services via > REST. We don't need to support the PUT and DELETE commands because the > services themselves determine what actions will be performed on the data. So, > let's say that a GET command gets information about the service, and the POST > command invokes the service. > > From my perspective, this could be implemented in two different ways: a REST > servlet or a REST view handler. In either case, the basic flow would be > something like: > > 1. Get service name from request URL, look up service model. If export is > false, return 404. > 2. If service model auth is true, get credentials from HTTP header. If no > credentials, return 401. If credentials are found, attempt to log in user. If > login fails, return 401. > 3. If command is GET, get Accept content type(s) from HTTP header, use those > to find a converter. Convert service model info to requested type and put it > in the response. > 4. If command is POST, get content type from HTTP header, use that to find a > converter. Convert POST data to service parameters and invoke the service. > Get Accept content type(s) from HTTP header, use those to find a converter. > Convert service result to requested type and put it in the response. > > So, we could implement REST with existing artifacts - no additional libraries > are needed (except maybe for data conversions). > > What do you think? I'm not a REST expert, so comments are welcome! > > -Adrian >
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