API Design Patterns

17 Copy and move

This chapter covers

• How to use the copy and move custom methods for rearranging resources in an API
• Choosing the right identifier (or identifier policy) for copy and move operations
• How to handle child and other resources when copying or moving parent resources
• Dealing with external data references for copied or moved resources
• What level of atomicity should be expected from these new custom methods

While very few resources are considered immutable, there are often certain attributes of a resource that we can safely assume won’t change out from under us. In particular, a resource’s unique identifier is one of these attributes. But what if we want to rename a resource? How can we do so safely? Further, what if we want to move ...