Why HTTP methods define intent in Rest API - See It in Action

Why HTTP Methods Define Intent

📖 Scenario: Imagine you are building a simple web service for a library. The library wants to manage its books online. Each action you take on the books, like adding a new book, checking details, updating information, or removing a book, needs to be clear and easy to understand by the web service.

🎯 Goal: You will create a small program that shows how different HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE) clearly express what you want to do with the books. This helps the web service know your intent and respond correctly.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a dictionary called books with three books.

Create a variable called book_id set to 2.

Write code that uses the HTTP method GET to show the book details for book_id.

Print the result showing the HTTP method used and the book details.

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Web services use HTTP methods to know what users want to do, like reading or changing data.

💼 Career

Knowing HTTP methods is essential for jobs in web development, API design, and backend programming.

1

DATA SETUP: Create the books dictionary

Create a dictionary called books with these exact entries: 1: 'The Hobbit', 2: '1984', 3: 'Pride and Prejudice'.

Rest API

# Create the books dictionary with the given entries
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use curly braces {} to create a dictionary with keys 1, 2, 3 and their book titles as values.

2

CONFIGURATION: Set the book ID to access

Create a variable called book_id and set it to 2.

Rest API

books = {1: 'The Hobbit', 2: '1984', 3: 'Pride and Prejudice'}
# Set book_id to 2
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Just assign the number 2 to the variable book_id.

3

CORE LOGIC: Use GET method to fetch book details

Write code that uses the HTTP method GET to get the book title from books using book_id. Store the result in a variable called result as a string in this format: 'GET book: [book title]'.

Rest API

books = {1: 'The Hobbit', 2: '1984', 3: 'Pride and Prejudice'}
book_id = 2
# Use GET method to get book title and store in result
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use an f-string to combine 'GET book: ' with the book title from the dictionary using book_id.

4

OUTPUT: Print the result

Write a print statement to display the value of result.

Rest API

books = {1: 'The Hobbit', 2: '1984', 3: 'Pride and Prejudice'}
book_id = 2
result = f"GET book: {books[book_id]}"
# Print the result
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use print(result) to show the output.