Patch Method

PATCH is used for modify capabilities. The PATCH request only needs to contain the changes to the resource, not the complete resource.

This resembles PUT, but the body contains a set of instructions describing how a resource currently residing on the server should be modified to produce a new version.PATCH is neither safe nor idempotent. However, a PATCH request can be issued in such a way as to be idempotent, which also helps prevent bad outcomes from collisions between two PATCH requests on the same resource in a similar time frame. Collisions from multiple PATCH requests may be more dangerous than PUT collisions because some patch formats need to operate from a known base-point or else they will corrupt the resource. Clients using this kind of patch application should use a conditional request such that the request will fail if the resource has been updated since the client last accessed the resource.

PATCH request can usually be used to update the status of resource like from pending to accepted, active to expired

• /employees/{employee-id}
• /departments/{department-id}

Request Body

• Patch updating a single resource [/employees/1]

  {
    "email": "johndoe@xyz.com"
  }

• Creating collection resource [/employees]

  [
    {
      "id":"1",
      "email": "johndoe@xyz.com"
    },
    {
      "id":"2",
      "address": "123 Mockingbird Lane"
    }
  ]

Response Body

• Patch updating a single resource [/employees]

  {
    "id":"1",
    "email": "johndoe@xyz.com"
  }

• Patch updating collection resource [/employees]

  [
    {
      "id":"1",
      "email": "johndoe@xyz.com"
    },
    {
      "id":"2",
      "address": "123 Mockingbird Lane"
    }
  ]

Error Response Body

  {
    "error": "Invalid payoad.",
    "detail": {
      "name": "This field is required."
    }
  }

Response code	Result/Reason
200 OK	Sucessfully updated the Enity. Must include a response body.
204 (No Content)	When the REST API declines to send back any status message or representation in the response message’s body. Must not contains the response body
401 (Unauthorized)	Invalid Credentials/ Invalid Authentication
403 (Forbidden)	Invalid Authorization/ Insufficient rights/ Incorrect Role
400 (Bad Request)	Bad request object
404 (Not found)	If ID not found or invalid
405 (Method Not allowed)	If API supports methods other than PUT request
500 (Internal server error)	Server encountered an unexpected condition that prevented it from fulfilling the request.