Building a Basic API Tutorial Part 2

Setting up or first api endpoints

In this section we are going to setup our first api endpoints - boilerplating them quickely, we will then later look at securing and adding additional methodology:

1. install the api controller: composer require phpsa/laravel-api-controller
2. publish the config file to set your modules folder. php artisan vendor:publish --provider="Phpsa\LaravelApiController\ServiceProvider" --tag="config" I tend to store all my Models in a model subfolder (including my user one) - you may decide to do this differently.

3 add to your routes/api.php file (at the bottom)

Route::group(['namespace' => 'Api',], function () {
    
});

4. Lets create our first api endpoint: php artisan make:api User Once that is run you should find the following:

• your api.php routes file will now contain:

Route::group(['namespace' => 'Api',], function () {

    Route::apiresource('users', 'UserController')->only(['index','store','destroy','show','update']);
});

• a new controller file at App\Http\Controllers\api\UserController.php

5. add your routes to postman and test:
   1. GET {{API_DOMAIN}}/api/users - will show a paginated list of all the users
   2. GET {{API_DOMAIN}}/api/users/1 - will show a single user
   3. POST {{API_DOMAIN}}/api/users - with a json body of

{
	"name" : "test 1", 
	"email" : "test 2",
	"password" : "test 3"
}

Will respond with 201 status and

{
    "data": {
        "id": 52,
        "name": "test 1",
        "email": "test 2",
        "email_verified_at": null,
        "created_at": "2019-12-19 22:47:58",
        "updated_at": "2019-12-19 22:47:58"
    }
}

A second call will result in an 500 error - duplicate key violation. 4. PUT {{API_DOMAIN}}/api/users/52 - with a json body of

"email" : "[email protected]",

will return 200 status and body

{
    "data": {
        "id": 52,
        "name": "test 1",
        "email": "[email protected]",
        "email_verified_at": null,
        "created_at": "2019-12-19 22:47:58",
        "updated_at": "2019-12-19 22:50:43"
    }
}

And Finally: 5. DELETE {{API_DOMAIN}}/api/users/52 will delete the record. with a response code of 204

As quick as that we have a basic api up and running, Not very secure and no validation etc... however, next we will be adding those steps in.

Some notes:

1. the api.php Routes entry: Route::apiresource('users', 'UserController')->only(['index','store','destroy','show','update']);

• you can remove endpoints from the only to lock down available entry points:
• you can add new points using standard route practices eg: Route::get('users/fun/{id}', ...

2. Model Fillable / Hidden / Casts etc do affect your responses and insertables.

NEXT: Securing your Api Enpoints