title: Design rest API with Criteria like filter
body: <p>I want to design a rest api something similar to below. but this  will require lot of work on server side, is there any generic framework/library available for handling this? Any suggestion is welcome..  </p>
  
  <pre><code>GET /app/items?finished_at=ge:15:30&amp;finished_at=lt:16:00
  {
    "items": [
      {"id": "item1", "started_at": "2016-10-10T15:00Z",
       "finished_at": "2016-10-10T15:30Z"}
    ]
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>For example:</p>
  
  <p>I have a search cafeteria as below </p>
  
  <pre><code>creation_date&gt;= 10-Jan-2017 and creation_date &lt;= 14-Jan-2017 and (user_role in (admin,read-only,sales) or user_id in (12,3,4))
  </code></pre>