I have a situation where people consuming our API will need to do a partial update in my resource. I understand that the HTTP clearly specifies that this is a PATCH operation, even though people on our side are used to send a PUT request for this and that's how the legacy code is built.
For exemplification, imagine the simple following struct:
type Person struct {
Name string
Age int
Address string
}
On a POST request, I will provide a payload with all three values (Name, Age, Address) and validate them accordingly on my Golang backend. Simple.
On a PUT/PATCH request though, we know that, for instance, a name never changes. But say I would like to change the age, then I would simply send a JSON payload containing the new age:
PUT /person/1 {age:30}
Now to my real question:
What is the best practice to prevent name from being used/updated intentionally or unintentionally modified in case a consumer of our API send a JSON payload containing the name field?
Example:
PUT /person/1 {name:"New Name", age:35}
Possible solutions I thought of, but I don't actually like them, are:
On my
validatormethod, I would either forcibly remove the unwanted fieldnameOR respond with an error message saying thatnameis not allowed.-
Create a DTO object/struct that would be pretty much an extension of my
Personstruct and then unmarshall my JSON payload into it, for instancetype PersonPut struct { Age int Address string }
In my opinion this would add needless extra code and logic to abstract the problem, however I don't see any other elegant solution.
I honestly don't like those two approaches and I would like to know if you guys faced the same problem and how you solved it.
Thanks!
