Do REST API URLs have to look like this?

Question

Is it true that to implement a RESTful API, one has to implement a URL structure that looks like this

http://example.com/post/
http://example.com/post/123
         


        

Answer 1

A key aspect of REST is that the url is the resource. a uri like

http://example.com/script.php?etc-etc-etc

doesn't put the resource identifier in the resource portion of the uri. that's not to say that a RESTful API shouldn't ever use get parameters; in fact, that's just fine:

http://example.com/posts?sort=date_asc&offset=20&limit=10

might be a great way to get the URI's of the 3rd page of oldest posts. However, using get parameters in this way should only be used in requests where the method is also GET. PUT and especially POST methods should really use simple uri's with the resource that will be affected in only the path portion.