Where should the parameters values be for this REST API and why?

StackOverflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8829694

  •  27-10-2019
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Question

I have the following REST API: 

POST /users/martin/notify/...

The API is suppose to notify a list of users that the user Martin has something to say. The list of users to be notified can vary from 1 to a thousand. Where the list of a thousand users should be: Querystring, HTTP Header or the Request body? Why?

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Solution

Request body. Headers and querystrings often have size limitations in practice that you would definitely hit with a thousand identifiers. At a more theoretical level, the request body should be the entity which you wish the server to process via POST. Headers are for protocol-level metadata about that entity; that is, information that helps the entity be processed, but not the entity itself. Querystrings are part of the identifier for the resource, and also not a representation of that resource.

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