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Rest URL design - multiple resources in one http call

I have looked for answers on this site and the net, but haven't quite figured out the best way to approach this problem.

As an example, say I have the following REST API

Single resource REST API is straightforward:

/car/{id} --> get car by an id

Multiple resource get for a list of cars:

/cars;ids={id1,id2,id3 etc} --> get list of cars by ids

/cars;list-id={listId};count=5 --> get cars defined by a list id saved in the cloud

/cars;relatives={id};count=5 --> get cars that are related to the car specified by id

A list-id can specify an arbitrary list of elements to return. /cars will just return cars defined in that list.

Note: the matrix params relatives, ids, and list-id cannot all be used in a single GET request. E.g if ids and list-id both appear, then ids will take priority.

Question: Should this be redesigned? And if so, how? Thanks.

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    this might be helpful stackoverflow.com/questions/969585/… Commented Oct 3, 2011 at 2:16
  • Marc, Why isn't the question also getting merged? This isn't an identical question but an embellishment of the above question (BTW, the link isn't very descriptive). Commented Oct 3, 2011 at 11:50
  • Well, this gives me a little more food for thought, but it also seems that the current design I have in place isn't really a RESTful web design? Thanks for that link. Commented Oct 8, 2011 at 23:49

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What if you view a car as a list ID with just one car? A list ID could then refer to one car or multiple cars. For this to work a list ID and a car ID have to share the same 'domain'. One doesn't take priority over the other because they are actually the same thing - a list of cars.

GET /car/{id} could be one car or a list of cars.

GET /car/{id}/related would return a list of those cars related to the list of cars in the car ID. But this list would have no ID of it's own (yet).

POST /car/{id}/related would return a list ID for the list of cars. That could then be used with GET /car/{id} to return the same list of cars that was also retrieved indirectly with GET /car/{id}/related.

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