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Given this:

GET /users

/users is called endpoint in REST terminology.

How do you call the whole GET /users (verb + endpoint) instead? I hope there is one word for it.


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4 Answers 4

up vote 7 down vote accepted

You probably won't like this answer, but here it is anyway: REST does not use the terminology "endpoint" at all. You can check Fielding's thesis yourself: http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/top.htm - open the PDF and search for "endpoint".

Fumanchu's answer is probably the closest you get: "/Users" is a relative path and can be used as the Request-URI in the Request-Line as per the 2616 HTTP spec.

In a web API documentation I would probably call "/Users" an "Endpoint" reference as you do, and "GET /Users" would be an "Operation". Maybe you can get some inspiration here: https://nhs.3scale.net/docs

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I actually liked your answer very much :) –  dan Sep 10 '13 at 14:18

RFC 2616 (the HTTP spec) calls the first line of a request the "Request-Line". It consists of the method, Request-URI, and version. See http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2616#section-5.1 for complete details.

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Close...however we don't want the HTTP version in the mix. –  dan Sep 4 '13 at 8:00

The API Bluprint Language Specification refers to the HTTP method, when applied to a resource, as a resource action. This name seems to be consistent with the terminology in section Representations, of Fielding's dissertation.

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We call it 'resource operation'

Basically, you are mapping your operations like

  • Create a new user
  • Get User info
  • Update User info
  • Remove user

to "HTTP verb + Resource"

  • POST /user/
  • GET /user/
  • PUT /user/
  • DELETE /user/
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