问题
How should a random number generator properly be implemented in REST?
GET RANDOM/
or..
POST RANDOM/
The server returns a different random number each time.
I can see arguments for both ways.
回答1:
I'd say this is the same as for a page returned that contains the current time - and many of these are done using GET. Abstractly, fetching a random number (or time) the server's state doesn't change - both time and random numbers can be described as an observation of an external event. E.g. http://random.org use atmospheric noise.
GET seems most appropriate, although caching will need to be disabled via appropriate headers, e.g.
Expires: <Current Time>
Last-Modified: <Current Time>
Cache-Control: no-cache, must-revalidate
Pragma: no-cache
If you want to ensure that the served content is already expired:
To mark a response as "already expired," an origin server sends an Expires date that is equal to the Date header value. (See the rules for expiration calculations in section 13.2.4.)
- http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec14.html
回答2:
Definitely GET. Even though it might modify server-side state (if it uses a pseudo-RNG), that's just an implementation detail the client shouldn't care about.
回答3:
- definition of REST-call with GET: the result have to be the same -> not GET.
- definition of REST-call with PUT: the result of the call can be repeatable, the server should not have problem with it -> use PUT
POST is the weakest method and can used if other are not useful.
Why not GET: the result of GET-call can be cachet (cache-header, etag oder transparent proxies) and you dont will get random results ...
来源：https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2985889/rest-get-a-random-number-get-or-post