Patch

All examples can be run in Postman. Here's a web view of these examples.
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In most Operations in FHIR, you manipulate a resource as a whole (create, update, delete operations). But sometimes you want to update specific data elements in a resource and do not care about the rest. In other words, you need an element/attribute level operation. 
With the patch operation, you can update a part of a resource by sending a declarative description of operations that should be performed on an existing resource. To describe these operations in Aidbox, you can use different notations (methods):
merge-patch — simple merge semantics (read more in RFC);
json-patch — advanced JSON transformation (read more in RFC);
Patch Method
You can specify a patch method by the content-type header or by the _method parameter.
method
parameter
header
json-patch
json-patch
application/json-patch+json
merge-patch
merge-patch
application/merge-patch+json
If the method is not specified, Aidbox will try to guess it by the following algorithm: 
if the payload is an array — json-patch
else merge-patch
Operation Description
patch
[base-url]/:resourceType/:id
Patch Operation
Example
You can exercise this tutorial using REST Console — just copy/paste queries into your console!
Let's suppose we've created a Patient resource with the id pt-1
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POST /Patient
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resourceType: Patient
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id: pt-1
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active: true
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name:
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  - given: ['John']
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    family: Doe
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    use: official
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  - given: ['Johny']
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    family: Doe
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telecom:
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  -  system: phone
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     value: '(03) 5555 6473'
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     use: work
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     rank: 1
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birthDate: '1979-01-01'
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​
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# 200
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​
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id: pt-1
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resourceType: Patient
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name:
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- use: official
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  given:
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  - John
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  family: Doe
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- given:
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  - Johny
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  family: Doe
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active: true
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telecom:
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- use: work
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  rank: 1
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  value: "(03) 5555 6473"
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  system: phone
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birthDate: '1979-01-01'
Copied!
You can copy/paste this request into REST Console of Aidbox.Cloud.
Merge Patch
Let's say we want to switch an active flag to false and remove telecom:
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PATCH /Patient/pt-1?_method=merge-patch
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​
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active: false
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telecom: null
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​
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# 200
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​
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id: pt-1
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resourceType: Patient
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name:
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- use: official
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  given:
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  - John
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  family: Doe
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- given:
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  - Johny
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  family: Doe
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active: false
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birthDate: '1979-01-01'
Copied!
JSON Patch
With JSON patch, we can do more sophisticated transformations — change the first given name, delete the second name, and change the active attribute value to true:
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PATCH /Patient/pt-1
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​
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- op: replace
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  path: '/name/0/given/0'
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  value: Nikolai
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- op: remove
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  path: '/name/1'
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- op: replace
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  path: '/active'
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  value: true
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# 200
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​
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# response 200
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​
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id: pt-1
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resourceType: Patient
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name:
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- use: official
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  given:
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  - Nikolai
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  family: Doe
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active: true
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birthDate: '1979-01-01'
Copied!
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Contents

Patch Method

Operation Description