How to implement a RESTful resource for a state machine or finite automata

Question

I\'m a Rails and REST newbie and I\'m trying to figure how best to expose a resource that is backed by a domain object that has a state machine (in other words is a finite a

Answer 1

If your resource has some kind of status attribute, you can use a technique called micro-PUT to update it's status.

PUT /Customer/1/Status
Content-Type: text/plain

Closed

=> 200 OK
Content-Location: /Customer/1

You can model resource states as collections and move resources between those collections.

GET /Customer/1
=>
Content-Type: application/vnd.acme.customer+xml
200 OK


POST /ClosedCustomers
Content-Type: application/vnd.acme.customer+xml
=>
200 OK

POST /OpenCustomers
Content-Type: application/vnd.acme.customer+xml
=>
200 OK

You could always use the new PATCH method

PATCH /Customer/1
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
Status=Closed
=>
200 OK