Should the PATCH method return all fields of the resource in the response body?

Question

Should the PATCH method return all fields of the resource in the response body?
Or should it return only updated fields?

I\'m reading this

For example, i

Answer 1

I don't think the REST specification (btw I think you need to be looking at RFC 6902 for this) enforces any strong rules around this (what you should be returning). I'd rather return the whole resource so that the client can use it any way it needs. Theoretically, the client itself knows what what's been patched (at least what the request was). Getting confirmation from the server might not be trivial (especially given that PATCH is mostly used for collections), or at least not worthwhile.