RESTful Routes

Learning Objectives

• Review CRUD functionality
• Understand REST as it relates to CRUD
• Learn the 7 RESTful routes
• Understand the different between RESTful and non-RESTful routes

We will be continuing to build our MVC Movies application. Take a minute to make sure you have that project open and check out the branch your instructor will share in Slack.

But first…

The List of RESTful Routes

Here is a table of the list of RESTful routes. The given path is based on the context from our MvcMovies application.

• The Update route can also use the PATCH method. PUT updates an entire resource; PATCH updates a portion of the resource.

RESTful Routes

We will focus on two methods in our controller as it pertains to REST.

Index() method

// GET: /Movies
public IActionResult Index()
{
    var movies = _context.Movies;
    return View(movies);
}

This is the existing method in our controller from the MVC lesson. As we witnessed previously, this method returns a View that displays all the movies in our database.

Show(int id)

The Show() method takes an integer and returns the Movie record with that ID number from the database. To accomplish this, we need to do the following:

• Create a local variable that stores the movie from the context object.
• Return a View to display the details of that movie.

Add this code to MoviesController.cs file, preferably after the Index() method:

// GET: /Movies/<id>
public IActionResult Show(int id)
{
    var movie = _context.Movies.Find(id);
    return View(movie);
}

Show View

We have a View for our Index route that displays all the movies in our database: Index.cshtml. We will create a View for our Show route that displays a single movie.

From Solution Explorer:

• Expand the Views folder
• Right-click the Movies folder
• Add > New File
• Name the new file Show.cshtml

Add the following code to the Show.cshtml file:

@model Movie

<h1>Movie Details</h1>

<p>Title: @Model.Title</p>

<p>Genre: @Model.Genre</p>

We have just created a View for our Show route. However…

RESTful Annotation

We are ALMOST done. Here’s our problem: if we visit /movies/1 to see the movie with the ID 1, we get an error. To see the 1 movie, we would have to go to /movies/show/1. But this does not match the RESTful pattern from our table above. Instead, we need to add an annotation to make our route RESTful.

Add [Route("Movies/{id:int}")] above the Show() method declaration. The final method should look like this:

// GET: /Movies/<id>
[Route("Movies/{id:int}")]
public IActionResult Show(int id)
{
    var movie = _context.Movies.Find(id);
    return View(movie);
}

Our Show view should now display the 1 movie correctly.

Later Lessons

In later lessons, we will continue to build out the remaining routes from the RESTful table.

• New: This method offers a form for the user to create a new movie object.
• Create: This method creates a new movie object to add to our database, often in conjunction with the New() method.
• Edit: This method offers a form for the user to edit an existing movie object.
• Update: This method updates an existing movie object, often in conjunction with the Edit() method.
• Destroy: This method deletes an existing movie object from our database.

Check for Understanding

1. Which HTTP method(s) map to the following CRUD functions?
   • Create
   • Read
   • Update
   • Delete
2. If you had an application for vehicles, what are the paths for the 7 RESTful routes that need to be created?
3. What is the annotation you will need to add for the Show() method in the vehicles application?

Additional Resources

• Medium: The 7 RESTful routes!
• Medium: RESTful Routing: Mapping REST to CRUD
• If you’re feeling really adventurous today