PHPMaster.com has posted the latest tutorial in their series covering RESTful APIS - part four of "REST - Can you do More than Spell it?" In this latest part of the series, they focus on something very key to RESTful services, the HTTP spec (and headers).

We're getting close to the end now, and the only thing remaining is to discuss a little more about the protocol you'll most likely use in any RESTful application that you write. Because HTTP is so often used with REST, that's the protocol I'd like to focus on.

He goes through the structure of a typical (raw) HTTP header and talks about some of the more common headers and what actions/settings they represent. He includes examples of setting headers (with header, naturally) and a curl example showing how to set the request headers. The tutorial is finished off with a brief mention of custom HTTP headers and the the good and bad that comes with them.

Padraic Brady has made a few updates to the PHPSpec software he's developed in preparation for the first stable release - additions to the reporting functionality to give as much information as possible.

PHPSpec is closing in on its first stable release, so the time had finally come to spruce up its output! No more the simple reporting of failed specs - now you get a few more details in a readable format, exceptions and errors even come with traces. In addition, I've implemented specdoc output as an option (using "-s") so you can get a list of specs in their plain text form.

He's also included an example of the new output in the post as well, showing the results of both successful and errored responses. You can check out the actual spec files on the googlecode repository for the project and get more details on the project itself (including the latest development snapshots) on the project's website.

Padraic Brady has made a few updates to the PHPSpec software he's developed in preparation for the first stable release - additions to the reporting functionality to give as much information as possible.

PHPSpec is closing in on its first stable release, so the time had finally come to spruce up its output! No more the simple reporting of failed specs - now you get a few more details in a readable format, exceptions and errors even come with traces. In addition, I've implemented specdoc output as an option (using "-s") so you can get a list of specs in their plain text form.

He's also included an example of the new output in the post as well, showing the results of both successful and errored responses. You can check out the actual spec files on the googlecode repository for the project and get more details on the project itself (including the latest development snapshots) on the project's website.