Rails core - Sep 2013 - Should Scaffold generate PUT/PATCH methods that respond with 200 OK (rather than 204 No Content)?

I know there is no clear consensus in the web community about this subject, 
so my issue is mainly to know the opinion of Rails core about this, 
especially @josevalim who last touched the code in
80768b<https://github.com/rails/rails/commit/80768b739ed7e2053d85a01dd5fa60bde67aad9a>
.

When generating a RESTful controller with `rails g scaffold`, the JSON part 
of the update method (responding to PUT/PATCH) looks like this:

      if @item.update(item_params)
        head :no_content
      else
        render json: @item.errors, status: :unprocessable_entity
      end

Therefore, in order to get the whole changed object, another request must 
be sent to the show method (GET).

Responding with :ok and an object representation might save this extra 
request. Citing Vinay Sahni''s Best Practices for Designing a Pragmatic 
RESTful
API<http://www.vinaysahni.com/best-practices-for-a-pragmatic-restful-api#useful-post-responses>
:
> A PUT, POST or PATCH call may make modifications to fields of the 
underlying
> resource that weren''t part of the provided parameters (for
example:
created_at or
> updated_at timestamps). To prevent an API consumer from having to hit the 
API
> again for an updated representation, have the API return the updated (or 
created)
> representation as part of the response.
Rails *already behaves in this way* for POST (create method). Would you 
accept a pull request that changed the behavior of the scaffold generator 
to have PUT and PATCH (update method) also return the full object 
representation?

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I am strongly in favor of this change. I didn''t realize the scaffold
was
not returning the whole changed object for update, but I believe it should. 
For consistency with the other methods and for the convenience of the 
caller. As you point out, without this change the caller will have to make 
another HTTP round-trip when they want the complete, updated object 
(including any server-side side-effects that may have been applied).


Brian Morearty



On Monday, September 2, 2013 10:42:58 AM UTC-7, Claudio B.
wrote:
>
> I know there is no clear consensus in the web community about this 
> subject, so my issue is mainly to know the opinion of Rails core about 
> this, especially @josevalim who last touched the code in
80768b<https://github.com/rails/rails/commit/80768b739ed7e2053d85a01dd5fa60bde67aad9a>
> .
>
> When generating a RESTful controller with `rails g scaffold`, the JSON 
> part of the update method (responding to PUT/PATCH) looks like this:
>
>       if @item.update(item_params)
>         head :no_content
>       else
>         render json: @item.errors, status: :unprocessable_entity
>       end
>
> Therefore, in order to get the whole changed object, another request must 
> be sent to the show method (GET).
>
> Responding with :ok and an object representation might save this extra 
> request. Citing Vinay Sahni''s Best Practices for Designing a
Pragmatic
> RESTful
API<http://www.vinaysahni.com/best-practices-for-a-pragmatic-restful-api#useful-post-responses>
> :
>
> > A PUT, POST or PATCH call may make modifications to fields of the 
> underlying
> > resource that weren''t part of the provided parameters (for
example:
> created_at or
> > updated_at timestamps). To prevent an API consumer from having to hit 
> the API
> > again for an updated representation, have the API return the updated
(or
> created)
> > representation as part of the response.
>
> Rails *already behaves in this way* for POST (create method). Would you 
> accept a pull request that changed the behavior of the scaffold generator 
> to have PUT and PATCH (update method) also return the full object 
> representation?
>
>
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I feel like we had discussed this before, but am not 100% sure. I do
think that this change is nice, but not mandatory. I''m neutral to
mildly
positive about this.

Well, in case you tend more for the "mildly positive", I''ve
submitted a
pull request: 
https://github.com/rails/rails/issues/12096#issuecomment-23834726



On Wednesday, September 4, 2013 10:38:53 AM UTC-7, Steve Klabnik
wrote:
>
> I feel like we had discussed this before, but am not 100% sure. I do 
> think that this change is nice, but not mandatory. I''m neutral to
mildly
> positive about this. 
>
>
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