CRUD Operations with REST APIs

REST APIs are the backbone of modern web applications, providing a standardized way to interact with resources. CRUD operations—Create, Read, Update, and Delete—form the fundamental actions you can perform on these resources. This guide will walk you through implementing CRUD operations in a REST API.

What is CRUD?

• Create: Add new resources to the system
• Read: Retrieve existing resources
• Update: Modify existing resources
• Delete: Remove existing resources

REST API Principles

REST (Representational State Transfer) is an architectural style that uses HTTP methods to perform operations on resources. Key characteristics include:

• Statelessness: Each request contains all information needed
• Client-server architecture: Separation of concerns
• Uniform interface: Consistent resource identification and manipulation
• Resource-based: Everything is a resource identified by a URI

Implementing CRUD Operations

1. Create (POST)

Best practices:

• Return status code 201 (Created) on success
• Include the created resource in the response body
• Provide a Location header with the URI of the new resource

2. Read (GET)

Best practices:

• Implement pagination for collections
• Allow filtering and sorting via query parameters
• Use proper error codes (404 for not found)

3. Update

Full Update (PUT)

Partial Update(PATCH)

Best practices:

• PUT requires the complete resource representation
• PATCH allows for partial updates
• Return 200 OK with the updated resource

4. Delete (DELETE)

Best practices:

• Return 204 No Content on successful deletion
• Alternatively, return 200 OK with information about what was deleted