Doesn't HATEOAS multiplicate HTTP requests? - rest

Question

I came across HATEOAS on my researches and was thinking : doesn't HATEOAS multiplicate HTTP requests ?
Let's take the basic customer and order example.
Let's say you want to retrieve an order, the endpoint would be /orders/2
with the following JSON response :
{
"id": 2,
"total": 50.00,
"links": [{
"rel": "customer",
"href": "http://api.domain.com/customer/1
}]
}
Now what if I also need the customer ? Do I have to make another request to /customer/1 ? Doesn't this overload the HTTP traffic ?
Couldn't I get the couple customer + order with a single endpoint like /customers/1/orders/2 ?
Or just send the customer in the /orders/2 JSON response ?
{
"id": 2,
"total": 50.00,
"customer": {
"id": 1,
"name": "Dylan Gauthier"
}
}
What's the benefit(s) of one solution or another ? When do I need one or the other ?
Thanks ! :-)

Answer 1

If the server only supplies the customer and order separately, then you have to make two requests regardless of whether they are following REST or not.
Nothing about REST or its HATEOAS constraint prevents the server from providing both customer and order in the same resource, exactly as you have suggested:
GET /orders/2
{
"id": 2,
"total": 50.00,
"customer": {
"name": "Dylan Gauthier"
}
}
But the customer in that response has no connection to the identifier /customers/1 — the server could combine the two ideas:
{
"id": 2,
"total": 50.00,
"links": [{
"rel": "customer",
"href": "http://api.domain.com/customer/1
}],
"resources": {
"http://api.domain.com/customer/1": {
"name": "Dylan Gauthier"
}
}
}
or better yet, group the links by their relation to the requested resource:
{
"id": 2,
"total": 50.00,
"links": {
"customer": [{
"href": "http://api.domain.com/customer/1"
}]
},
"resources": {
"http://api.domain.com/customer/1": {
"name": "Dylan Gauthier"
}
}
}
Whilst this would make it a bit more work for the client to print the name of the customer (nothing at all taxing, mind), it allows the client to fetch more information about the customer if they want to!

Answer 2

Just to add to Nicholas' answer:
Embedding related resources
Pros: saves you a trip to the server
Cons: While it saves you a trip the first time and may be a few lines of code, you are giving up on caching: if something changes in a related resource (that you embedded) client cache is no more valid, so the client has to make the request again. Of course, assuming you leverage HTTP caching. Which you should...
If you want to go this route, you are better off using something like GraphQL... but wait!
Going "pure" HATEOS
Pros: resources have independent life-cycles; easier to make each (type of) resource evolve without impacting the others. By fully leveraging the cache, overtime, the overall performance is far better.
Cons: more requests (at first access), this might be a little slower on first access; some more code to manage the HATEOS thing...
I personally tend to use the second approach whenever possible.
The classic web analogy:
If it can help, a classic website is just another api that serves html related resources, the client app being the browser itself. If you have ever done some html/css/js, you might want to approach it the same way:
For the given particular website, given its navigation architecture...etc would you rather inline all/part of the css/js (the related resources) in the html pages (the main resource) or not.