Extending Collection+JSON and Automatic CRUD Interfaces

In this paper we discuss the Collection+JSON protocol for implementing Restful self-documenting API known as Hypermedia API. We present a minimal extension to the protocol that allows consumers of the service to automatically generate a rich client interface to search the collection, create, read, delete, and update (CRUD) items. We provide a working example of a Python library that, based on a web2py database model, exposes the API to access the data described by the mode using our extended Collection+JSON protocol, along with a working client that can consume the API and automatically generate the CRUD interface without coding.