A simple API

Let's leave the form processing behind and continue with something completely different.

Introducing the bluemvc-api package, we will now build a simple JSON API for our previously created product list.

The ApiController

To implement this, we will use the ApiController class.

Create a new file ApiProductsController.php in the directory Application/Controllers/ with the following content:

<?php

declare(strict_types=1);

namespace Application\Controllers;

use BlueMvc\Api\ApiController;

class ApiProductsController extends ApiController
{
    public function getAction(): array
    {
        return ['Foo' => 'Bar'];
    }
}

Open Application/Setup/ApplicationSetup.php and add a new route for the controller:

<?php

declare(strict_types=1);

namespace Application\Setup;

use Application\Controllers\ApiProductsController;
use Application\Controllers\ErrorController;
use Application\Controllers\IndexController;
use Application\Controllers\ProductsController;
use BlueMvc\Core\Interfaces\ApplicationInterface;
use BlueMvc\Core\Route;
use BlueMvc\Twig\TwigViewRenderer;
use DataTypes\System\FilePath;

/**
 * The application setup.
 */
class ApplicationSetup
{
    /**
     * Sets up the application.
     *
     * @param ApplicationInterface $application The application.
     */
    public static function setup(ApplicationInterface $application): void
    {
        // Set up view handling.
        $application->addViewRenderer(new TwigViewRenderer());
        $application->setViewPath(FilePath::parseAsDirectory('../Application/Views'));

        // Set up routes.
        $application->addRoute(new Route('', IndexController::class));
        $application->addRoute(new Route('products', ProductsController::class));
        $application->addRoute(new Route('api/products', ApiProductsController::class));

        $application->setErrorControllerClass(ErrorController::class);
    }
}

Note that it is possible to set a multi-level path for a route, e.g. api/products. This is also true for ordinary controllers.

Open the url http://localhost/api/products/ and check the result:

{
    "Foo": "Bar"
}

So, what just happened?

For an ApiController, the action method name corresponds to the http method used.

In this case, the browser sent a GET request, which invoked the getAction method (action method names are case-insensitive for ApiControllers).

Also, the return value from the action method is automatically JSON-encoded for everything that is not an ActionResult or null.

Let's try it with our product list instead.

The product list

Open Application/Controllers/ApiProductsController.php and modify the content to look like this:

<?php

declare(strict_types=1);

namespace Application\Controllers;

use Application\Models\Product;
use BlueMvc\Api\ApiController;

class ApiProductsController extends ApiController
{
    public function getAction(): array
    {
        return Product::getAll();
    }
}

Reload the http://localhost/api/products/ page to see the new result:

[
    {
        "Id": "foo",
        "Name": "24 inch LCD Monitor",
        "Price": 140
    },
    {
        "Id": "bar",
        "Name": "USS Enterprise Scale Replica",
        "Price": 20
    }
]

As expected, this is the product list in JSON-format.

That concludes this short introduction to the bluemvc-api package.

In the next part of this tutorial, the website will be tested using PHPUnit.

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