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Representational State Transfer (REST) : Representing Information in Web 2.0 Applications

This document discusses Representational State Transfer (REST), which is an architectural style for distributed hypermedia systems like the World Wide Web. REST uses HTTP verbs like GET, POST, PUT, DELETE and uniform resource identifiers to manipulate representations of resources. It captures the characteristics that made the Web successful by exploiting HTTP and representing information as resources that can be addressed and transferred over the network.

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38 views23 pages

Representational State Transfer (REST) : Representing Information in Web 2.0 Applications

This document discusses Representational State Transfer (REST), which is an architectural style for distributed hypermedia systems like the World Wide Web. REST uses HTTP verbs like GET, POST, PUT, DELETE and uniform resource identifiers to manipulate representations of resources. It captures the characteristics that made the Web successful by exploiting HTTP and representing information as resources that can be addressed and transferred over the network.

Uploaded by

Logan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Representational State Transfer (REST):

Representing Information in Web 2.0


Applications

Emilio F Zegarra
CS 2650
Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
• A communications protocol

• Allows retrieving inter-linked text documents (hypertext)


• World Wide Web.

• HTTP Verbs GET /index.html HTTP/1.1


Host: www.pitt.edu
Browser Web Server
• HEAD
• GET
• POST HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: text/html
• PUT
• DELETE <html><head>…
• TRACE
• OPTIONS
• CONNECT

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Representational State Transfer (REST)

• A style of software architecture for distributed


hypermedia systems such as the World Wide Web. 

• Introduced in the doctoral dissertation of Roy Fielding


• One of the principal authors of the HTTP specification.

• A collection of network architecture principles which


outline how resources are defined and addressed

3
REST and HTTP
• The motivation for REST was to capture the
characteristics of the Web which made the Web
successful.

• URI Addressable resources


• HTTP Protocol
• Make a Request – Receive Response – Display Response

• Exploits the use of the HTTP protocol beyond HTTP


POST and HTTP GET
• HTTP PUT, HTTP DELETE

4
REST - not a Standard
• REST is not a standard
• JSR 311: JAX-RS: The JavaTM API for RESTful Web Services

• But it uses several standards:


• HTTP
• URL
• XML/HTML/GIF/JPEG/etc (Resource Representations)
• text/xml, text/html, image/gif, image/jpeg, etc (Resource Types, MIME
Types)

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Main Concepts

Nouns (Resources)
unconstrained
i.e., http://example.com/employees/12345

REST

Verbs Representations
constrained constrained
i.e., GET i.e., XML
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Resources
• The key abstraction of information in REST is a
resource.

• A resource is a conceptual mapping to a set of entities


• Any information that can be named can be a resource: a
document or image, a temporal service (e.g. "today's
weather in Los Angeles"), a collection of other resources, a
non-virtual object (e.g. a person), and so on

• Represented with a global identifier (URI in HTTP)

• http://www.boeing.com/aircraft/747
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Naming Resources
• REST uses URI to identify resources

• http://localhost/books/
• http://localhost/books/ISBN-0011
• http://localhost/books/ISBN-0011/authors

• http://localhost/classes
• http://localhost/classes/cs2650
• http://localhost/classes/cs2650/students

• As you traverse the path from more generic to more


specific, you are navigating the data

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Verbs

• Represent the actions to be performed on resources

• HTTP GET
• HTTP POST
• HTTP PUT
• HTTP DELETE

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HTTP GET
• How clients ask for the information they seek.

• Issuing a GET request transfers the data from the


server to the client in some representation

• GET http://localhost/books
• Retrieve all books

• GET http://localhost/books/ISBN-0011021
• Retrieve book identified with ISBN-0011021

• GET http://localhost/books/ISBN-0011021/authors
• Retrieve authors for book identified with ISBN-0011021

10
HTTP PUT, HTTP POST

• HTTP POST creates a resource


• HTTP PUT updates a resource

• POST http://localhost/books/
• Content: {title, authors[], …}
• Creates a new book with given properties

• PUT http://localhost/books/isbn-111
• Content: {isbn, title, authors[], …}
• Updates book identified by isbn-111 with submitted properties

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HTTP DELETE

• Removes the resource identified by the URI

• DELETE http://localhost/books/ISBN-0011
• Delete book identified by ISBN-0011

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Representations
• How data is represented or returned to the client for
presentation.

• Two main formats:

• JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)

• XML

• It is common to have multiple representations of the


same data
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Representations

• XML
• <COURSE>
• <ID>CS2650</ID>
• <NAME>Distributed Multimedia Software</NAME>
• </COURSE>

• JSON

• {course
• {id: CS2650}
• {name: Distributed Multimedia Sofware}
• }

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Why is it called
"Representational State Transfer"?

http://www.boeing.com/aircraft/747
Client Resource

Fuel requirements
Maintenance schedule
...

Boeing747.html

The Client references a Web resource using a URL. A representation of the resource is returned (in
this case as an HTML document).
The representation (e.g., Boeing747.html) places the client application in a state. The result of the
client traversing a hyperlink in Boeing747.html is another resource accessed. The new representation
places the client application into yet another state. Thus, the client application changes (transfers) state
with each resource representation --> Representation State Transfer!

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Architecture Style

Request HTTP GET


(XML doc) URL 1 doGet()

Response HTTP Response

Web/Proxy Server
(XML doc)

doPost(id)
Request HTTP POST
(XML doc) URL 1 REST Engine
(locate resource
Response HTTP Response and generate
(JSON doc)
response) doDelete()

PO HTTP DELETE
(XML doc) URL 1

Response HTTP Response


(TEXT doc)

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Real Life Examples

• Google Maps

• Google AJAX Search API

• Yahoo Search API

• Amazon WebServices

17
REST and the Web

• The Web is an example of a REST system!

• All of those Web services that you have been using all
these many years - book ordering services, search
services, online dictionary services, etc - are REST-
based Web services.

• Alas, you have been using REST, building REST


services and you didn't even know it.

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REST Implementations
• Restlet
• http://www.restlet.org/

• Project Zero
• http://www.projectzero.org

• GlassFish Jersey
• https://jersey.dev.java.net/

• JBoss RESTeasy
• http://www.jboss.org/resteasy/
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My Project - Web 2.0 IC Card

• Objective
• Transform the IC Card Application to support
REST resources

• http://www.cs.pitt.edu/icms/iccards
• http://www.cs.pitt.edu/icms/iccards/001
• http://www.cs.pitt.edu/icms/groups/1/users

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Invocation Model

http http

Client REST Service

SQL

Channels
Database 21
Tasks

• Design a REST resource model for the IC Card

• Review persistent model (MySql)

• Configure a REST engine (Project Zero)

• Create a new Rich User Interface (DOJO Toolkit)

22
References

• Representational State Transfer


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_State_Tr
ansfer

• Roy Fieldings Thesis

http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/top.
htm

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