Hierarchical REST URI support?

[solstice]

I've gone through the docs, examples and forums, but haven't found something that addresses this.

When using a RestDataSource, is there any support for a hierarchical URI?

For example, a REST URI for a list of all employees might be http://myserver/employees. The REST URI for the details of a specific employee might be http://myserver/employees/{id} where {id} is the ID of the employee. Similarly, to update an employee's record, we would POST or PUT to http://myserver/employees/{id} with the payload being the actual data to change.

This is a very common approach to REST interfaces but I haven't seen how to accomplish this in SmartClient without implementing a custom transformRequest. Is this how we are supposed to implement this standard URI format or have I overlooked something? Does SC provide support for a parameterized hierarchical REST URI?

Thanks in advance,

Solstice

[solstice]

Guess I'll answer my own question: yes, it has to be done through transformRequest.

[davidj6]

You are correct. If the W3C URI group ever finishes the URI template spec it will likely be incorporated.

[solstice]

In the meantime, if anyone is interested, here is how it's done.

Place the following code in a DataSource. I recommend creating a new class.

   transformRequest : function(dsRequest) {
      // map form values to parameterized URL
      var url = this.dataURL;
      var params = url.match(/\{([^\}]+)\}/g); 
      for(var i = 0; i < params.length; i++) {
         var p = params[i].substring(1, params[i].length-1);
         if(dsRequest.data[p] != null)
            url = url.replace(params[i], dsRequest.data[p]);
      }
      dsRequest.actionURL = url;    
   
      return this.Super('transformRequest', arguments);
   }