rql #9856 changing the verbs [open]

It would be good to change the verbs of the RQL language. Today they remind of SQL, but RQL is in fact closer to the HTTP protocol than one might think at first. Trying to add SELECT to RQL (the select is currently implicit) would make it look even closer to SQL, but the SET verb will never look like the UPDATE one and this will be even more misleading.

On the opposite, RQL maps nicely to HTTP. Using RQL, one can GET, PUT, SET, DELETE objects in the database.

  • GET would return a selection of entities (currently we have [Any|EntityName] ...)
  • PUT would add entities in the database (currently we use INSERT)
  • SET would modify the entities in the database, be it attributes or relations (no change)
  • DELETE would remove entities from the database (no change, unless we want DEL instead of DELETE)

This would also get us closer to RESTful services in CubicWeb.

prioritynormal
typeenhancement
done in<not specified>
load0.500
load left0.500
closed by<not specified>

Comments

  • 2010/11/09 18:03, written by acampeas

    GET/PUT/SET/DEL (DEL could be an alias indeed for DELETE) has a nice symmetric feeling and is pleasantly compact.

    However (my whishlist ...) I would like to make the frequent case (GET ...) easier, expanding the current syntax to allow:

    Foo F WHERE ...  (current situation)
Foo F, Any N, D WHERE F in_state S, S name N, S creation_date D, ...

    That is typing the variables directly in the query head, also allowing one etype specifier to scope several variables. This could probably made compatible with the above proposal.

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Ticket #9856 - latest update on 2015/09/07, created on 2009/07/30 by Nicolas Chauvat