REST Cheat Sheet

Example service URI

https://foobar.com/collection/element

Verb	Collection	Element	Success code
GET	List	Representation	200 OK
POST	Create element with system assigned URI	Not used	201 CREATED
PUT	Replace collection	Replace element	201 CREATED
DELETE	Delete collection	Delete element	204 NO CONTENT
OPTIONS	Describe interface	Describe interface	200 OK
HEAD	Metadata	Metadata	200 OK

Idempotent – same result each time (PUT, DELETE) Safe method (nullipotent) – no side effects (GET)

200 OK 201 CREATED 204 NO_CONTENT 400 BAD_REQUEST 401 UNAUTHORIZED 403 FORBIDDEN 404 NOT_FOUND 409 CONFLICT

URI based (.xml, .json, *.jpg, …)
ACCEPT header mime type list on requests. Then either deliver content using 3xx redirect code or select the most appropriate representation and deliver it directly