CURD functions and REST api

Curd functions are synonymous of modifying the information in the database world. If you have heard the CRUD before. It means create, Read, Update & delete. Level 2 of Richardson maturity level is about matching services with their HTTP Verbs. CRUD functions are mapped to their HTTP equivalents. So, we use

• Create = POST
• Read = GET
• Update = PUT
• Delete = DELETE

Often times, people will use POST for Create and Update because of return types PUT allows.

JSON

1. JSON stands for JavaScript Object Notation
2. By the way, it is pronounced as "Jason"
3. It is preferred when working with JavaScript clients
4. It is looser way to represent data
5. It is Flexible and easy to work with
6. The most common reason, people use JSON. JSON is not XML. There are lot of good things that XML brings to the table. If you donot need it, JSON just works fine and if your clients are only going to be consumed or your clients are using only JavaScript. It makes sense to use JSON. There is no need to package something in XML. Send that down to a JavaScript client. Have it start with the parser and go through that.
7. It is difficult to validate JSON. There is no way to through and say 'It is valid JSON'.

To use JSON all we have to do to annotate our method Produces like

@Produces(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON)

It tells us that application is producing JSON

XML

1. XML offen associated with SOAP
2. It is still great solution for REST
3. REST does't mean unstructured
4. It is easy to validate, confirm well formed. We can put schema and structure around it so we know what we are navigating.
5. To use XML, all we have to do annotate our method Produces like

@Produces(MediaType.APPLICATION_XML)

Binary

Binary is not necessarily an alternative to JSON or XML
It is used to serve objects. e.g.,

Files
Images
PDFs

Here I does mean JAVA objects, binary things we normally serves statically or that are stored in your database. To use binary we annotate our method Produces like

@Produces(MediaType.APPLICATION_OCTET_STREAM)