Using REST with Ajax
Pages: 1, 2, 3

Here's the POST implementation. This has to add a new feed to the user's list of feeds:

def post(http):
    """Update a user's list of feeds with a new feed."""
    username       = http.user
    form           = util.FieldStorage(http)
    suggested_feed = form["suggested_feed"]

    def add_feeds():
        try:
            dbcon = PgSQL.connect(http.get_options()["DBURL-" + http.hostname])
            curs  = dbcon.cursor()
            curs.execute("select add_feed('%s', '%s')" % (username, suggested_feed))
            curs.execute("select id, url from get_feeds('%s')" % (username))
            result = curs.fetchone()
            while result != None:
                yield result
                result = curs.fetchone()
            dbcon.close()
        except:
            pass
        return

    http.content_type = "text/html"
    http.status = HTTP_CREATED
    xmlout(add_feeds, http)
    return apache.OK

Here's what the HTTP spec says about POST:

The POST method is used to request that the web server accept the entity enclosed in the request as a new subordinate of the resource identified by the Request-URI.

The spec goes on to say that one specific reason for POST is to allow append operations on databases. That is exactly what this part of the feeds application does; it appends a new feed to a user's list.

I am cheating a bit here. The return from the POST is not exactly REST compliant. A 201 response indicates that the server has created a new resource, but this response is supposed to include a resource indicating a reference to the new resource (including a Location header, as in a redirect response).

However, the example simply returns the same list of feeds as returned from the GET method. In my defense, this isn't too big a heresy, and it simplifies these examples a bit. Again, it's possible to support XML output by adding content negotiation.

The last method to implement is the DELETE method. This must remove a feed specified by its ID from the user's feed list:

def delete(http):
    """Remove a feed from the user's list"""
    username = http.user
    todelete_match = re.match("/([0-9]+)", http.path_info)
    todelete = todelete_match.groups()[0]

    try:
        dbcon = PgSQL.connect(http.get_options()["DBURL-" + http.hostname])
        curs = dbcon.cursor()
        curs.execute("select delete_user_feed('%s', %d)" % (username, int(todelete)))
    except Exception, e:
        # Possibly just from the proc, whatever - it failed.
        http.status = apache.HTTP_NOT_FOUND
        dbcon.close()
    else:
        dbcon.commit()
        dbcon.close()
        http.status = apache.HTTP_OK

    return apache.OK

This is pretty obvious. It simply makes another database call to remove the specified feed.

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