Is it possible to implement a RESTful interface over WebSocket protocol?

The RESTful interface is traditionally built on top of the HTTP protocol, which is stateless and uses methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE) for interaction.

WebSocket is a bidirectional, persistent communication channel that is not limited by HTTP methods and does not have a built-in resource model like REST.

Nevertheless, it is possible to implement a REST-like interface over WebSocket by independently implementing request and response routing logic, mimicking HTTP methods and resources. This would require:

• Defining a message format containing information about the method, path, and data.
• Processing these messages on the server as REST requests.
• Sending responses in the same format.

An example of a simple JSON message over WebSocket:

{
  "method": "GET",
  "path": "/users/123",
  "body": null
}

And the server responds with the corresponding JSON data.

However, such an implementation is not standard REST, but rather REST-like over WebSocket. Usually, WebSocket is used for events and bidirectional communication, while REST is used for HTTP requests.