Resources representations with POST/PUT/PATCH and embedded resources

[michalbundyra]

Hi, we are creating a Backbone project to easily manage HAL in our SPA apps.

On one of our project we need to POST/PUT/PATCH resources which embed other resources. After reading some posts on the net (mainly https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/hal-discuss/0-CYh0oFUUo and https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/hal-discuss/SLAchdbd8E0/discussion) it seems HAL does not defines how we should send the payloads.

As an exemple if we have a User with an embedded Address we could POST it using 2 different representations.

application/hal+json (is refused by Apigility)

PATCH /api/users/1 HTTP/1.1
Accept: application/hal+json
Content-Type: application/hal+json
{
    "firstName": "John",
    "lastName": "Doe", 
    "_embedded" : {
        "address": {}
    }
}

application/json (works with Apigility)

PATCH /api/users/1 HTTP/1.1
Accept: application/json
Content-Type: application/json
{
    "firstName": "John",
    "lastName": "Doe", 
    "address": {}
}

By default the first payload seems to be refused by Apigility which returns the following error :

{
    "type":"http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html",
    "title":"Bad Request",
    "status":400,
    "detail":"Unrecognized field \"_embedded\""
}

In my opinion the 2 payloads should be authorized because the first one uses an application/hal+json content type and the second one an application/json content type, is this valid ?

But if we use HAL representations for GET requests why forbid the same representation for POST/PUT/PATCH requests by default ?

Perhaps Apigility should be able to manage both HAL serialization and deserialization ? Would it be a good or bad idea ?

What are best practices about this ?

Thanks,

Baptiste

---

Originally posted by @bgaillard at https://github.com/zfcampus/zf-apigility/issues/114

[michalbundyra]

Currently, HAL is used as the response format only within Apigility. I'm open to allowing it on incoming requests, and would welcome a pull request that would enable it. :)

---

Originally posted by @weierophinney at https://github.com/zfcampus/zf-apigility/issues/114#issuecomment-119362007

[michalbundyra]

I added a pull request here which should be enough to add this enhancement.

---

Originally posted by @Wilt at https://github.com/zfcampus/zf-apigility/issues/114#issuecomment-125665586