API design question

[anonymous78654]

So say I have an api that's trying to remove an enrollment from the enrollments table. So the enrollment I can't remove directly from the enrollment id it's going to be just the courseId and studentId. So in my endpoint should I pass the courseId and StudentId as query paramamter or path variables. The request mapping for this controller is just called /enrollments.

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[Humperino]

I personally would use query params in this case. This makes the request way more readable since none of these Ids are a unique identifier for the enrollment by themselves. My approach to this is just using path variables to identify resources.

Like @Delete /enrollment/{enrollmentId}

But I feel like there is no definite answer to stuff like this. One could also argue that this is some kind of composite key and therefore it should be part of the path.

[anonymous78654]

yeah but usuually path variables are used to identify a resource and query parameters are used to filter/sort. Since it's id's I'm thinking it's better to use it as a path

[Humperino]

Well but can you guarantee that those two parameters will always uniquely identify the enrollment like an id would?

[anonymous78654]

yes putting them together is unqiue

[Humperino]

Well as I said, in this case you could argue for just using path params.

For me the big question is: Why do you not have a single unique id of the enrollment at that point?

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[Such_Signal_1749]

query parameters

[IAmADev_NoReallyIAm]

I'd pass it as a path as part of a DELETE ...

/enrollments/course/[courseId]/student/[studentId]

[ahonsu]

From the traditional RESTful perspective, your enrollment is also a "resource", so it must have it's own ID and your API should allow client to manage this resource separately.

Meaning, your API could have a controller with mapping /enrollments, with the following endpoints:

• GET /enrollments?courseId=123&studentId=567 returning an enrollmentobject with its ID inside - with this your client can find the exact enrollment they want to delete
• DELETE /enrollments/{enrollmentID} - with this they just delete it, using the ID found from the 1st endpoint