RESTful URLs for distinct versions of a resource

Question

I\'m having a real hard time conceptually understanding something proper concerning URLs for versioned resources.

Let\'s say I have an application that tracks recipes in

Answer 1

I have a use case where the creation time of each version is crucial. So common questions that the API must answer are:

1. What is the most recent version of /recipes/ultimate-thing?
2. What version of /recipes/ultimate-thing was the most recent on 2019-01-01?
3. What versions of /recipes/ultimate-thing were created between 2019-01-01 and and 2019-01-31?

Number 3. seems to me an obvious case for for query parameters:

-- /recipes/ultimate-thing?versions_since=2019-01-01&versions_until=2019-01-31

It will probably not hurt to use the same approach for 2.:

-- /recipes/ultimate-thing?version=2019-01-01

Then let's be consistent and use the same approach for 1.:

-- /recipes/ultimate-thing?version=latest

From this point of view your option 1) - using query parameters - seems most natural.