SODA for REST uses the representational state transfer (REST) architectural style to implement Simple Oracle Document Access (SODA). You can use this API to perform create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) operations on documents of any kind, and you can use it to query JSON documents.
Your application can use the API operations to create and manipulate JSON objects that it uses to persist application objects and state. To generate the JSON documents, your application can use JSON serialization techniques. When your application retrieves a document object, a JSON parser converts it to an application object.
SODA is a set of NoSQL-style APIs that let you create and store collections of documents in Oracle Database, retrieve them, and query them, without needing to know Structured Query Language (SQL) or how the data in the documents is stored in the database.
Familiarity with the following can help you take best advantage of the information presented here:
Oracle Database relational database management system (RDBMS)
JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)
Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
Note:
Documents used with SODA for REST are limited to approximately 2 gigabytes.
See Also:
SODA for REST HTTP Operations for detailed information about the operations defined by SODA for REST
Oracle Database Introduction to Simple Oracle Document Access (SODA) for general information about SODA
Oracle Database SODA for Java Developer's Guide, which explains how to use the Java client API on which SODA for REST is built
Oracle Database JSON Developer’s Guide for information about using SQL with JSON data
The REST architectural style was used to define HTTP 1.1 and Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs). A REST-based API strongly resembles the basic functionality provided by an HTTP server, and most REST-based systems are implemented using an HTTP client and an HTTP server.
A typical REST implementation maps create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) operations to HTTP verbs POST, GET, PUT, and DELETE, respectively.
A key characteristic of a REST-based system is that it is stateless: the server does not track or manage client object state. Each operation performed against a REST-based server is atomic; it is considered a transaction in its own right. In a typical REST-based system, many facilities that are taken for granted in an RDBMS environment, such as locking and concurrency control, are left to the application to manage.
A main advantage of a REST-based system is that its services can be used from almost any modern programming platform, including traditional programming languages (such as C, C#, C++, JAVA, and PL/SQL) and modern scripting languages (such as JavaScript, Perl, Python, and Ruby).
See Also:
Principled Design of the Modern Web Architecture, by Roy T. Fielding and Richard N. Taylor, at: