REST

Revision as of 16:10, 9 October 2008

The following is taken from Alan M Webb's OpenSim REST Support Draft document dated 8/18/08. The information here and specification are works in progress but provide the basis for useful OpenSim integrations including content input and retrieval without direct DB access. --MoHax 00:10, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

There are a number of REST interfaces1 implemented within OpenSim. This document describes the work done to support specific interactions required in support of external application integration. XML is used to encode the payloads associated with these requests. The specific XML used is documented as an appendix, this is an interim specification.

What is REST?

The notion of Representational State Transfer (REST) was introduced by Roy Fielding in his doctoral dissertation in 2000. It is essentially an architectural concept rather than a protocol, and this has led to a variety of implementations, all of which might claim to be compliant REST implementations.

A REST interface is built upon the HTTP protocol, making use of the four principle methods defined therein: GET, PUT, POST, and DELETE. A fifth method HEAD is also supported, but that is really just a semantic variation of GET. The TRACE and OPTIONS methods have a less fundamental role. No other protocol is involved.

Note that REST does not specify the nature of the payload either sent or received. The interface associated with this document uses XML meta-data to manage an arbitrary payload. The need for a schema document to give form to this XML will be dealt with as a separate discussion.

Of particular significance is the understood meaning of the methods themselves, which is (and must be) as defined by the HTTP specification:

• GET retrieves the information identified by the associated URI and returns it to the requester. GET is idempotent. If the URI identifies a process, then it is the output of that process which is returned, and not the source text of that process. GET is conditional when the headers include any of the If headers. GET is partial if a range related header is included. The results of GET may be able to be cached.

• HEAD is functionally equivalent to GET except that the payload is not included in the response. The result of a HEAD request may be able to be cached.

• POST requests that the server accept the payload as a new entity, subordinate to the existing entity identified by the URI. POST places requirements upon session capabilities in the server insofar as it requires persistent connection and flow control capabilities.

• PUT indicates that the payload should be stored on the server under1 the resource named by the URI. If the named resource already exists, then the payload is considered to be a modified version of that resource. If the named resource does not exist, then it should be created by the server.

• DELETE requests that the server delete the resource identified by the URI.

Other methods (TRACE, OPTIONS, CONNECT) may be supported, but are not fundamental to the principles of REST. Use of these methods also implies specific requirements in terms of how the response codes should be used.