Support for Http PATCH

OData has supported two types of updates for a while now:

Replace Semantics via a standard PUT: this updates the whole entry with what has been provided on the wire, so any properties missing from the wire will be reset to their default values.
Merge Semantics via a MERGE tunneled through POST using the X-Http-Method header: this updates only the properties on the wire, so any properties missing will be left unchanged.

Now when we added MERGE there wasn't a standard HTTP way to request merge semantics.

However PATCH is now a standard, and is semantically equivalent to OData's MERGE.

So we think - given our principle of adopting HTTP and ATOM standards wherever possible - that the next version of OData should support both PATCH and MERGE, and treat PATCH requests like MERGE requests.

Thoughts?

Alex

This entry was written by Alex James, posted on Monday, October 18, 2010 Bookmark the permalink.

Christopher

Posted Friday, April 01, 2011 at 1:39:25 AM

Is datajs - JavaScript Library for data-centric web applications a library to use with the oData Javascript SDK cod, the same thing or a replacement.<br/> <br/> Cheers.
C. Chippington

Posted Wednesday, December 08, 2010 at 2:12:28 AM

Absolutely a great idea! I understand OData must keep MERGE for backwards compatibility. Adopting the new PATCH verb keeps OData honest and true to its framework.