How to model file system operations with REST?

Question

There are obvious counterparts for some of file systems\' basic operations (eg. ls and rm), but how would you implement not straightforwardly RESTf

Answer 1

You could expose a new service that takes (POST) a simple xml doc that outlines what you want to do.

   /videos/my_videos/2-gigabyte-video.avi
   /videos/johns_videos/copied-2-gigabyte-video.avi

Then this service could return a URI where the client can go and check the status of the operation. Then the client could interact with that new resource to say cancel the move if still pending, or check on it's success.