REST API for Complex Queries

Question

How do I implement count, group by, and other commonly used SQL constructs using GET REST API calls and still adhering to good standards? I haven't seen any documentation that describes how to do this. Are there any standards already in place? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

SOLR has a REST API supporting complex querying: https://lucene.apache.org/solr/guide/7_1/json-request-api.html — Bart Kiers, Sep 20 '18 at 18:07
Thanks Bart. Do you know if REST has any standards for creating complex queries? Isn't there any documentation that informs developers how to do this? — Foobar, Sep 20 '18 at 18:13

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 20 '18 at 18:14

From the other answer, I think you are looking for this:

POST /books/search

    {
        "keywords": "...",
        "yearRange": {"from": 1945, "to": 2003},
        "genre": "..."
    }

There is nothing un-RESTful about this endpoint. It accepts data (entity) in the form of the request body. That data is the Search Criteria - a DTO like any other. This endpoint produces a resource (entity) in response to the request: Search Results. The search results resource is a temporary one, served immediately to the client, without a redirect, and without being exposed from some other canonical url.

It's still REST, except the entities aren't books - the request entity is book search criteria, and the response entity is book search results.

Look at this answer for more details: https://stackoverflow.com/a/31984477/37083

Using this structure you can easily expand the search with other complex items

POST /books/search

    {
        "keywords": "...",
        "yearRange": {"from": 1945, "to": 2003},
        "genre": "...",
        "groupby": "year",
        "countby": "keywords"
    }

REST API for Complex Queries

1 Answers1