How to design REST API for non-CRUD “commands” like activate and deactivate of a resource?

Question

Before I decided to ask this question I have searched quite a long for the answer but I haven\'t found any satisfactory. (e.g. Examples of the best SOAP/REST/RPC web APIs? A

Answer 1

The POST method would create the resource 'account'. Active can be seen as one of the properties of the resource 'account'. Hence it should be a PUT request.

I would say even deactive must be a PUT request as the account resource will still exist.

To active an account you can set a property on the resource. That is:

/api/account/{accountId}?activate=true

To deavtivate:

/api/account/{accountId}?activate=false

A GET request on the account would return a JSON with activate value in it.

A DELETE request should completely delete the account resource.