Hypermedia Api - Presenting picklist data

Question

I am creating a hypermedia api that conforms to the HAL spec

When a user submits a payment they need to specify what type of card they are using (Visa, Master Card etc)

So for a particular field that is submitted there is a specific list of values that can be used

How do I present that pick list to the user?

As embedded data?

Is there generally a way to associate a field with a given set of data?

I realise the HAL spec is very small and doesnt cover this issue specifically. But in general hypermedia apis how do people usually present this data?

Or should I simply explain the field in the CURIE link? thanks

Are the card types just names? What about a simple list of card type names? — , Mar 03 '16 at 15:09
yes - it will be a list of strings. Im just wondering about how to associate that list with a given field. so you know that field can only be a value from the list — ChrisCa, Mar 03 '16 at 15:15

Robert Bräutigam · Answer 1 · 2016-03-03T15:33:06.573

You are right, HAL does not specifically cover this issue. You can solve this by essentially copying HTML. There are different widgets defined in HTML to present stuff, for example a combobox with listed options.

You can define a media-type that has similar controls in it, and you can define the processing model for the media-type as well. It can be a json representation of course, does not need to be xml.

For example

{
    ...
    "cardType": {
       "inputType": "select",
       "possibleValues": ["Visa", "MasterCard", ... ]
    }
    ...
}

There is no ready-made format that I know of unfortunately.

Hypermedia Api - Presenting picklist data

1 Answers1