Correct way to design endpoints

Question

I am designing REST. I have user and user has contacts of different types. What should my endpoints be like according to REST?

This looks reasonable:

GET /users/:id/contacts

GET /contacts

On users endpoint I check contacts for another user and on contacts endpoint I check logged in user in contacts, but then if I need to get all contacts for all users I need to make a filter:

GET /contacts?user_id=:id

And make this endpoint return all contacts. And this makes endpoint on users redundant.

What is correct way to do it according to REST?

Answer 1

What should my endpoints be like according to REST? [...] What is correct way to do it according to REST?

That's a misconception.

The REST architecture doesn't enforce any URI design ^{(see notes below)}. It's totally up to you to pick the URIs that better identify your resources.

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The URI syntax is defined in the RFC 3986. As general rule, the path is organized in hierarchical form (with segments separated by /) and can contain non-hierarchical data in the query component (starting with ?).

So /users/{id}/contacts seems to be just fine to identify a collection of contacts that belongs to a particular user.

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^{Note 1: The REST architectural style is described in the chapter 5 of Roy T. Fielding's dissertation and it defines a set of constraints that must be followed by the applications that follow such architecture. However it says nothing about what the URIs must be like.}

^{Note 2: The examples of a popular article written by Martin Fowler explaining a model defined by Leonard Richardson suggest a URI structure that looks friendly and easy to read.}