# A few web services questions **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [July 21, 2007, 10:39pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/a-few-web-services-questions/110040 "2007-07-21T22:39:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![xmg-eric](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/x/f04885/32.png) [@xmg-eric](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/xmg-eric)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2007, 10:39pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/a-few-web-services-questions/110040/1 "2007-07-21T22:39:47Z")
Hey All, I’m currently in the process of building an API for a very large Rails project, which will mostly to be used by users to create software, widgets, etc… i’m just a bit lost and confused about what where to go with it. I’ve started building a XML-RPC/SOAP service by using ActionWebService, and built a little section for users to generate an API key (used for api authentication) in order to access the API. Now, thats all going fine, however, for example, Flickr’s REST API seems to be widly popular, and i’ve noticed almost all Flickr widgets and software use their REST service. However, the REST services available in rails seems quite different than Flickr’s REST, as the rails approach makes you put the REST response in with the actual function, requiring different URLS depending on what controller’s REST service your trying to access. While Flickr’s REST is located at a static URL ([flickr.com/services/rest/](http://flickr.com/services/rest/), or whatever) and then accepts specific method names to call a specific function. I find the latter seems to make more sense, it may not be very CRUD but it’s less confusing to be able to separate it like you do with ActionWebService from your actual application when working with such a large application. Can this be done in Rails? I may have it all wrong, but there is minimal documentation on this particular area of APIs and web services in rails and any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!