Chapter 10 Updating, showing, and deleting users

In this chapter, we will complete the REST actions for the Users resource (Table 7.1) by adding edit, update, index, and destroy actions. We’ll start by giving users the ability to update their profiles, which will also provide a natural opportunity to enforce an authorization model (made possible by the authentication code in Chapter 8). Then we’ll make a listing of all users (also requiring authentication), which will motivate the introduction of sample data and pagination. Finally, we’ll add the ability to destroy users, wiping them clear from the database. Since we can’t allow just any user to have such dangerous powers, we’ll take care to create a privileged class of administrative users authorized to delete other users.