Lab 3.2 - Beyond “GET”

Task 1 - Understand the ‘other’ HTTP Verbs

The iControl LX Framework also provides access to the following HTTP verbs: POST, PUT, PATCH and DELETE.

In this lab you will learn which HTTP verb to use.

POST is for Creating Resources

In the previous exercise we created a new user in the /mgmt/shared/authz/users/ collection. This was done by sending a POST to https://<ip_address>/mgmt/shared/authz/users/ and resulted in a new REST resource under the users collection.

The onPost() HTTP Method processor must be implemented to handle an HTTP POST in your iControl LX Extension.

PUT is for Replacing a Resources Properties

Think of PUT as a special type of POST for existing REST resources. Let’s say we have the following REST resource:

/mgmt/shared/authz/users/new_user

with the properties:

{
    "name": "new_user",
    "role": "manager",
    "password":"xyz1234"
}

If we were to perform the following PUT, the role would no longer exist:

PUT /mgmt/shared/authz/users/new_user
{
    "name": "new_user"
    "password":"xyz1234"
}

Performing a PUT on a REST resource is like performing a ‘select-all’ and then ‘replace’.

For your iControl LX Extension to handle an HTTP PUT, you must implement the onPut() HTTP Method processor.

PATCH is for Editing Parts of a REST Resource

PATCH is for situations where you may want to change only parts of a REST resource. For example, let’s say I want to change the role of our new_user resource:

PATCH /mgmt/shared/authz/users/new_user
{
    "role": "manager"
}

The other properties of the REST resource, in this case name and password, would be unchanged.

For your iControl LX Extension to handle an HTTP PATCH, you must implement the onPatch() HTTP Method processor.

DELETE a REST Resource

In the event that you want to delete a resource you would implement the onDelete() HTTP Method processor.

DELETE /mgmt/shared/authz/users/new_user

Note

You can delete a resource but not a collection. For example, you can DELETE /mgmt/shared/authz/users/new_user, but not /mgmt/shared/authz/users.