# How to deal best with relationship in contained list item

**URL:** <https://discuss.jsonapi.org/t/how-to-deal-best-with-relationship-in-contained-list-item/1259>\
**Category:** Uncategorized\
**Created:** [April 9, 2018, 4:37pm UTC](https://discuss.jsonapi.org/t/how-to-deal-best-with-relationship-in-contained-list-item/1259 "2018-04-09T16:37:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![marceloverdijk](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discuss.jsonapi.org/marceloverdijk/32/521_2.png) [@marceloverdijk](https://discuss.jsonapi.org/u/marceloverdijk)\
**Post date:** [April 9, 2018, 4:37pm UTC](https://discuss.jsonapi.org/t/how-to-deal-best-with-relationship-in-contained-list-item/1259/1 "2018-04-09T16:37:23Z")

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Hi,

I have a design question related to a contained list within a resource.

The root resource is a recipe resource containing a list of ingredients.

In a traditional json representation this could look like:

```
{ 
  "title": "Baked potatoes",
  "ingredients: ["potatoes", "salt"]
}

```

But extending on this we are creating s specific ingredient resource to re-use.  
And we want to add quantity of the ingredient to the recipe, something like:

```
{ 
  "title": "Baked potatoes",
  "ingredients: [
    { "name": "potatoe", "quantity": "1 kg" },
    { "name": "salt", "quantity": "10 gr" }
  ]
}

```

The ingredients collection within the recipe is not a resource as on it’s own it does not exist.  
Technically in the datastore there will be something like recipe\_ingredient but not in the resource model.

How would this look like with jsonapi?  
Basically I want to have a relationship for each recipe ingredient to an actual ingredient resource.

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**Author:** ![michaelhibay](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discuss.jsonapi.org/michaelhibay/32/405_2.png) [@michaelhibay](https://discuss.jsonapi.org/u/michaelhibay)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2018, 2:11pm UTC](https://discuss.jsonapi.org/t/how-to-deal-best-with-relationship-in-contained-list-item/1259/2 "2018-04-11T14:11:58Z")

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Take a look [here](http://discuss.jsonapi.org/t/working-with-data-on-relationships/859/19?u=michaelhibay) where there is a great answer. Do note my follow up post just after.

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**Author:** ![marceloverdijk](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discuss.jsonapi.org/marceloverdijk/32/521_2.png) [@marceloverdijk](https://discuss.jsonapi.org/u/marceloverdijk)\
**Post date:** [April 22, 2018, 9:55am UTC](https://discuss.jsonapi.org/t/how-to-deal-best-with-relationship-in-contained-list-item/1259/3 "2018-04-22T09:55:30Z")

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Hi Michael,

It’s quite interesting discussion you linked with various opinions.  
With my case I just wanted represent a simple example as actually my model is a little bit more complicated 😉

That’s why using `"meta"` is not an option.  
So it probably best to introduce a fabricated resource.  
In the example below a use id’s `1, 2` but it probably would be better to use some opaque id here.

Note that I’m also not adding `self` links to the `ingredients` resources as I have no resource endpoint for them.  
Looking at the spec this is not required. So basically this `ingredients` resources can only be retrieved as part of the `recipes` resource, but not on itself, although that feels a little bit weird to be honest.

```
      {
        "data": {
          "type": "recipes",
          "id": "1",
          "attributes": {
            "title": "Baked potatoes",
            "ingredients: [
              { "name": "potatoe", "quantity": "1 kg" },
              { "name": "salt", "quantity": "10 gr" }
            ]
          },
          "ingredients": {
            "links": {
              "self": "http://example.com/recipes/1/relationships/ingredients",
              "related": "http://example.com/recipes/1/ingredients"
            },
            "data": [
              { "type": "ingredients", "id": "1" },
              { "type": "ingredients", "id": "2" }
            ]
          },
          "links": {
            "self": "http://example.com/recipes/1"
          }
        },
        "included": [{
          "type": "ingredients",
          "id": "1",
          "attributes": {
            "name": "potatoe",
            "quantity": "1 kg"
          }
        }, {
          "type": "ingredients",
          "id": "2",
          "attributes": {
            "name": "salt",
            "quantity": "10 gr"
          }
        }]
      }
```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![michaelhibay](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discuss.jsonapi.org/michaelhibay/32/405_2.png) [@michaelhibay](https://discuss.jsonapi.org/u/michaelhibay)\
**Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 2:29pm UTC](https://discuss.jsonapi.org/t/how-to-deal-best-with-relationship-in-contained-list-item/1259/5 "2018-05-18T14:29:55Z")

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I’m not gonna lie, this is pretty novel and interesting. Based on my knowledge of the spec, I have to agree this is valid.

I can see some interesting and unintended side effects of this, but I can’t even suggest this is against the intent of the spec.

My feedback, would be to remove the attributes, as they are extraneous, add a sortOrder field if ordering is significant. What is clear is using attribute and include is against the spec.

I’d suggest as a convention for resources using this method to not support the `include` and possibly even `field` parameters, as it _should_ render the ingredients unreachable.

Good find, cool idea!

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**Author:** ![maark](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discuss.jsonapi.org/maark/32/184_2.png) [@maark](https://discuss.jsonapi.org/u/maark)\
**Post date:** [February 8, 2019, 11:55pm UTC](https://discuss.jsonapi.org/t/how-to-deal-best-with-relationship-in-contained-list-item/1259/6 "2019-02-08T23:55:15Z")

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What is wrong with simply having an `ingredients` relationship?