Clients can populate nested collections in output with the populate argument. It is a comma-separated list of attribute names. Nested attributes can be specified using a dot notation.

The example below populates manager and manager.colleague.

GET /rest/users/1?populate=manager,manager.colleague

{
  "data": {
    "id": "1",
    "name": "Anthony",
    "manager": {
      "id": "3",
      "name": "Anna",
      "colleague": {
        "id": "4",
        "name": "David"
      }
    }
  }
}

GraphQL does not need the populate argument since it natively uses selection fields.

Write commands do not use the populate argument. Instead, any models present in either the data or cascade argument will be populated in output.

Modifying nested collections

Clients can modify nested collections by using a nested data argument.

The example below will create both the user and its manager.

PUT /rest/users/1

{
  "id": "1",
  "name": "Anthony",
  "manager": {
    "id": "3",
    "name": "Anna"
  }
}

Deleting nested collections

To delete nested collections, specify them using the cascade argument, as a comma-separated list of nested collections.

The example below will delete user, user.manager, user.manager.friends and user.colleague.

DELETE /rest/users/1?cascade=manager,manager.friends,colleague