Update PUT verb for services

[waltermoreira]

Code for handling PUT has gone out-of-date (b/c of duplication of code). Follow DRY and use the same code to specify the fields for creation and updating.

[vivekkrish]

Are there any plans to support the HTTP PATCH verb, which could incrementally (delta) update an existing namespace and/or adapter metadata? (http://restful-api-design.readthedocs.org/en/latest/methods.html#patch-vs-put)

[waltermoreira]

It's a possibility, indeed. However, I'm experimenting with a restructure of the registration procedure (and other things) in the branch async_registration, and I was thinking to deprecate the big number of parameters in favor of a smaller subset together with the metadata.yml. If we end up following this path, then a PATCH verb would not have the same possible set of parameters as a POST or PUT.

It could still make sense, as a way to update fields on the metadata without rebuilding the services, but it also means that the file metadata.yml and the actual metadata of the service can go out of sync.

I'm open to discussion, anyway.

[mwvaughn]

Is it plausible to simply allow re-POST without going through the delete cycle? This is the access pattern Agave services uses for apps and systems. The real pain point is having to delete first before updating.

[waltermoreira]

Yes, we could support this, i.e. issuing an implicit DELETE when POSTing to an existing service. I'll take a stab at this and push to the dev instance.