- 3.1 REST in a Rather Small Nutshell
- 3.2 Resources and Representations
- 3.3 REST in Rails
- 3.4 Routing and CRUD
- 3.5 The Standard RESTful Controller Actions
- 3.6 Singular Resource Routes
- 3.7 Nested Resources
- 3.8 RESTful Route Customizations
- 3.9 Controller-Only Resources
- 3.10 Different Representations of Resources
- 3.11 The RESTful Rails Action Set
- 3.12 Conclusion
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
3.3 REST in Rails
The REST support in Rails consists of methods to define resources in the routing system, designed to impose a particular style and order and logic on your controllers and, consequently, on the way the world sees your application. There's more to it than just a set of naming conventions (though there's that too). In the large scheme of things, the benefits that accrue to you when you use Rails's REST support fall into two categories:
- Convenience and automatic best practices for you
- A RESTful interface to your application's services for everyone else
You can reap the first benefit even if you're not concerned with the second. In fact, that's going to be our focus here: what the REST support in Rails can do for you in the realm of making your code nicer and your life as a Rails developer easier.
I don't mean to minimize the importance of REST itself, nor the seriousness of the endeavor of providing REST-based services. Rather, it's an expedient; we can't talk about everything, and this section of the book is primarily about routing and how to do it, so we're going to favor looking at REST in Rails from that perspective.
Getting back to practical matters, the focus of the rest of this chapter will be showing you how REST support works in Rails opening the door to further study and practice including the study of Fielding's dissertation and the theoretical tenets of REST. We won't cover everything here, but what we do cover will be onward compatible with the wider topic.
The story of REST and Rails starts with CRUD...