API Controllers

Routes

zcwilt/rest-api uses resource controllers. To define your routes for each controller you want, you will need to add the following to your api routes file.

Route::resource('modelName', 'controller');
Route::delete('modelName', 'controller@destroyByQuery');
Route::put('modelName', 'controller@updateByQuery');

modelName is the model name you want to have api access.

Controller is the name of your controller class.

As an example. To use the dummy simple controller supplied by the project, your routing entries would be.

Route::resource('dummySimple', 'Api\DummySimpleController');
Route::delete('dummySimple', 'Api\DummySimpleController@destroyByQuery');
Route::put('dummySimple', 'Api\DummySimpleController@updateByQuery');

or to use the default User model that comes with Laravel

Route::resource('user', 'Api\UserController');
Route::delete('user', 'Api\UserController@destroyByQuery');
Route::put('user', 'Api\UserController@updateByQuery');

For each Laravel Model that you want to use in the API you will need to create a Controller

Controller Definition

As mentioned above, for each Laravel model that you want to provide API access to you will need to create a Controller.

This should be placed in the standard laravel location e.g. App/Http/Controllers or a sub directory. Our suggestion is to use App/Http/Controllers/Api

The controller definition is fairly simple

<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers\Api;

use Zcwilt\Api\Controllers\ApiController;

class DummySimpleController extends ApiController
{
    protected $modelName = '\\Zcwilt\Api\\Models\\DummySimple';
}

Note

The protected $modelName defines the Eloquent Model that will be used by the controller. The factory class used will try and resolve the model from either your projects App folder or from the App/Models folder, If the Model is in one of these folders there is no need to namespace the model name. e.g. you could just do

protected $modelName = 'ModelName';

Validation

The base ApiController class that your controller extends contains calls to Laravels Validation system.

To use validation on your api request you must create a public rules method on the model your controller accesses.

e.g.

public function rules($id = 0)
{
    return [
        'email' => 'required|unique:zcwilt_users'.($id ? ",email,$id" : ''),
        'name' => 'required'
    ];
}

Note

For update methods, the primary key value is passed as the $id parameter.

Warning

The controller uses $request->all() to pass request fields to the model update/create methods. This could allow malicious users to update database fields that you did not want. You must therefore be very explicit in your models as to which fields can be used in this way. e.g. using the $fillable property.

Api Endpoints

The api endpoints provided by the resource controller and extra controller methods provide the following route/actions

GET api/modelname -> controller@index : allows for query filtering

GET api/modelname/{id} -> controller@show

POST api/modelname -> controller@store
The request body should be an array of field/values
e.g ['name' => 'foo', 'email' => 'bar@test.com']

PUT api/modelname/{id} -> controller@update
The request body should be an array of field/values
e.g ['name' => 'foo', 'email' => 'bar@test.com']

PUT api/modelname -> controller@updateByQuery : allows for query filtering
The request body should be an array of parser clauses however  field name/values
should be set in a fields array
e.g ['where' => 'status:eq:1', 'fields' => [name' => 'foo', 'email' => 'bar@test.com']]

DELETE api/modelname/{id} - controller@destroy

DELETE api/modelname - controller@destroyByQuery : allows for query filtering
The request body should be an array of parser clauses
e.g ['where' => ''status:eq:1]

Exception Handling

@todo