passing Complex type to rest service and standard way to pass parameters to rest services?

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5.00/5 (1 vote)

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Hi,

What is the standard way to pass parameters to REST services?

Is it parameterName = value?
In this way how the complex object would be passed?

I am using c# WebRequest class for calling Rest service.
Target service could be implemented in any language so the solution I have to implement should be generic.

Thanks,
Asif

Posted 19-Apr-11 21:21pm

Asif Ishaq

Updated 19-Apr-11 21:48pm

Dalek Dave

v2

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walterhevedeich 20-Apr-11 3:26am

Good question. Voted 5.

Dalek Dave 20-Apr-11 3:48am

Edited for Spelling and Readability.

BobJanova 20-Apr-11 8:02am

It seems that JSON and XML (in the content part of a POST request) are the most common formats for complex data, in my brief visit to Googleland.

Asif Ishaq 21-Apr-11 3:40am

Yes, But there is no way to know at run time which format a service is supporting. Right?

I am working on an application which requires this.

BobJanova 22-Apr-11 6:28am

I don't think REST has an equivalent of the WSDL or some other standard self-description call, no.

Karthik. A 20-Apr-11 11:35am

Nice question, but why would you need to pass a complex object to a page? Normally, a page takes in simple parameters(POST/GET) and returns simple or complex types. Can you provide an example?

Asif Ishaq 21-Apr-11 3:46am

E.g. If a service takes Employee object to save it.

Karthik. A 20-Apr-11 11:36am

Interesting - Check out this approach for passing complex types to a WCF operation contract - http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1709781/wcf-rest-parameters-involving-complex-types

Asif Ishaq 21-Apr-11 3:55am

Thanks Karthik.

But in my case I have to implement a generic solution which can handle all formats.

My application will get information about a service at run time and decide weather its REST or not.
If it is REST then it will generate a request to call that service.

I didn't find way to get the information(e.g. format, method type e.t.c) at run time about a REST service.

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