README

Introduction

A Laravel base controller class and a trait that will enable to add filtering, sorting, eager loading and pagination to your resource URLs.

Dedicated to Giordano Bruno

This package is named after my hero Giordano Bruno. A true visionary who dared to dream beyond what was thought possible. For his ideas and his refusal to renounce them he was burned to the stake in 1600. I highly recommend this short cartoon on his life narrated by Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Functionality

Parse GET parameters for dynamic eager loading of related resources, sorting and pagination
Advanced filtering of resources using filter groups
Use Optimus\Architect for sideloading, id loading or embedded loading of related resources
... Ideas for new functionality is welcome here

Tutorial

To get started with Bruno I highly recommend my article on resource controls in Laravel APIs

Installation

For Laravel 5.3 and below

composer require optimus/bruno ~2.0

For Laravel 5.4 and above

composer require optimus/bruno ~3.0

Usage

The examples will be of a hypothetical resource endpoint /books which will return a collection of Book, each belonging to a Author.

Book n ----- 1 Author

Available query parameters

Key	Type	Description
Includes	array	Array of related resources to load, e.g. ['author', 'publisher', 'publisher.books']
Sort	array	Property to sort by, e.g. 'title'
Limit	integer	Limit of resources to return
Page	integer	For use with limit
Filter_groups	array	Array of filter groups. See below for syntax.

Implementation

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use Optimus\Api\Controller\EloquentBuilderTrait;
use Optimus\Api\Controller\LaravelController;
use App\Models\Book;

class BookController extends LaravelController
{
    use EloquentBuilderTrait;

    public function getBooks()
    {
        // Parse the resource options given by GET parameters
        $resourceOptions = $this->parseResourceOptions();

        // Start a new query for books using Eloquent query builder
        // (This would normally live somewhere else, e.g. in a Repository)
        $query = Book::query();
        $this->applyResourceOptions($query, $resourceOptions);
        $books = $query->get();

        // Parse the data using Optimus\Architect
        $parsedData = $this->parseData($books, $resourceOptions, 'books');

        // Create JSON response of parsed data
        return $this->response($parsedData);
    }
}

Syntax documentation

Eager loading

Simple eager load

/books?includes[]=author

Will return a collection of 5 Books eager loaded with Author.

IDs mode

/books?includes[]=author:ids

Will return a collection of Books eager loaded with the ID of their Author

Sideload mode

/books?includes[]=author:sideload

Will return a collection of Books and a eager loaded collection of their Authors in the root scope.

See mere about eager loading types in Optimus\Architect's README

Pagination

Two parameters are available: limit and page. limit will determine the number of records per page and page will determine the current page.

/books?limit=10&page=3

Will return books number 30-40.

Sorting

Should be defined as an array of sorting rules. They will be applied in the order of which they are defined.

Sorting rules

Property	Value type	Description
key	string	The property of the model to sort by
direction	ASC or DESC	Which direction to sort the property by

Example

[
    {
        "key": "title",
        "direction": "ASC"
    }, {
        "key": "year",
        "direction": "DESC"
    }
]

Will result in the books being sorted by title in ascending order and then year in descending order.

Filtering

Should be defined as an array of filter groups.

Filter groups

Property	Value type	Description
or	boolean	Should the filters in this group be grouped by logical OR or AND operator
filters	array	Array of filters (see syntax below)

Filters

Property	Value type	Description
key	string	The property of the model to filter by (can also be custom filter)
value	mixed	The value to search for
operator	string	The filter operator to use (see different types below)
not	boolean	Negate the filter

Operators

Type	Description	Example
ct	String contains	`ior` matches `Giordano Bruno` and `Giovanni`
sw	Starts with	`Gior` matches `Giordano Bruno` but not `Giovanni`
ew	Ends with	`uno` matches `Giordano Bruno` but not `Giovanni`
eq	Equals	`Giordano Bruno` matches `Giordano Bruno` but not `Bruno`
gt	Greater than	`1548` matches `1600` but not `1400`
gte	Greater than or equalTo	`1548` matches `1548` and above (ony for Laravel 5.4 and above)
lte	Lesser than or equalTo	`1600` matches `1600` and below (ony for Laravel 5.4 and above)
lt	Lesser than	`1600` matches `1548` but not `1700`
in	In array	`['Giordano', 'Bruno']` matches `Giordano` and `Bruno` but not `Giovanni`
bt	Between	`[1, 10]` matches `5` and `7` but not `11`

Special values

Value	Description
null (string)	The property will be checked for NULL value
(empty string)	The property will be checked for NULL value

Custom filters

Remember our relationship Books n ----- 1 Author. Imagine your want to filter books by Author name.

[
    {
        "filters": [
            {
                "key": "author",
                "value": "Optimus",
                "operator": "sw"
            }
        ]
    }
]

Now that is all good, however there is no author property on our model since it is a relationship. This would cause an error since Eloquent would try to use a where clause on the non-existant author property. We can fix this by implementing a custom filter. Where ever you are using the EloquentBuilderTrait implement a function named filterAuthor

public function filterAuthor(Builder $query, $method, $clauseOperator, $value)
{
    // if clauseOperator is idential to false,
    //     we are using a specific SQL method in its place (e.g. `in`, `between`)
    if ($clauseOperator === false) {
        call_user_func([$query, $method], 'authors.name', $value);
    } else {
        call_user_func([$query, $method], 'authors.name', $clauseOperator, $value);
    }
}

Note: It is important to note that a custom filter will look for a relationship with the same name of the property. E.g. if trying to use a custom filter for a property named author then Bruno will try to eagerload the author relationship from the Book model.

Custom filter function

Argument	Description
$query	The Eloquent query builder
$method	The where method to use (`where`, `orWhere`, `whereIn`, `orWhereIn` etc.)
$clauseOperator	Can operator to use for non-in wheres (`!=`, `=`, `>` etc.)
$value	The filter value
$in	Boolean indicating whether or not this is an in-array filter

Examples

[
    {
        "or": true,
        "filters": [
            {
                "key": "author",
                "value": "Optimus",
                "operator": "sw"
            },
            {
                "key": "author",
                "value": "Prime",
                "operator": "ew"
            }
        ]
    }
]

Books with authors whoose name start with Optimus or ends with Prime.

[
    {
        "filters": [
            {
                "key": "author",
                "value": "Brian",
                "operator": "sw"
            }
        ]
    },
    {
        "filters": [
            {
                "key": "year",
                "value": 1990,
                "operator": "gt"
            },
            {
                "key": "year",
                "value": 2000,
                "operator": "lt"
            }
        ]
    }
]

Books with authors whoose name start with Brian and which were published between years 1990 and 2000.

Optional Shorthand Filtering Syntax (Shorthand)

Filters may be optionally expressed in Shorthand, which takes the a given filter array[key, operator, value, not(optional)] and builds a verbose filter array upon evaluation.

For example, this group of filters (Verbose)

[
    {
        "or": false,
        "filters": [
            {
                "key": "author",
                "value": "Optimus",
                "operator": "sw"
            },
            {
                "key": "author",
                "value": "Prime",
                "operator": "ew"
            }
            {
                "key": "deleted_at",
                "value": null,
                "operator": "eq",
                "not": true
            }
        ]
    }
]

May be expressed in this manner (Shorthand)

[
    {
        "or": false,
        "filters": [
            ["author", "sw", "Optimus"],
            ["author", "ew", "Prime"],
            ["deleted_at", "eq", null, true]
        ]
    }
]

Standards

This package is compliant with PSR-1, PSR-2 and PSR-4. If you notice compliance oversights, please send a patch via pull request.

Testing

$ phpunit

Contributing

Please see CONTRIBUTING for details.

License

The MIT License (MIT). Please see License File for more information.

optimus / laravel-controller

Maintainers

Details