API Developer Guide

Daylight uses the MVC model provided by Rails to divide labor of an API request with some constraints.

Instead of views, serializers are used to generate JSON/XML. Routes have a great importance to the definition of the API. And the client becomes the remote proxy for all API requests.

To better undertand Daylight's interactions, we define the following components:

Rails model is the canonical version of the object
A serializer defines what parts of the model are exposed to the client
Rails controller defines which actions are performed on the model
Rails routes defines what APIs are available to the client
The client model is the remote representation of the Rails model

Expectations
Building Your API
- Models
- Serializers
- Controllers
- Routes
- Client
Underlying Interaction

Expectations

Rails 4: Daylight was built only using the most current version of Rails 4
Namespace APIs: Client Models are all namespaced, by default under API (namespace is customizable)
Versioned APIs: URLs will be versioned, by default v1 is the current and only version (versions are customizable)
ActiveModelSerializer: Serialization occurs via ActiveModel::Serailizer, typically in JSON

Building Your API

Building your Client from the bottom up you will need to develop your models, controllers, routes that you are familiar with today. Add serializers to describe the JSON generation of your object. Finally, build your client models based on the API actions available and the response from the server.

Models

Models are built exactly as they are in Rails, no changes are neccessary.

Through specifiecation on the routes, Daylight allows you to make scopes and methods available to the client.

NOTE: Daylight expects an model object or a collection when parsing results from a model method.

You can chose to allow models to be created, updated, and associated through a "parent" model using the accepts_nested_attributes_for mechansism.

  class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
    has_many :comments

    accepts_nested_attributes_for :comments
  end

Once the client is setup you can do the following:

post = API::Post.find(1)
post << API::Comment.new(text: "This is an awesome post")
post.save

INFO: ActiveResource looks up associations using foriegn keys but with Daylight you can call the associations defined on your model directly.

This is especially useful when you wish to preserve the richness of options on your associations that are neccessary for your application to function correctly. For example:

  class Post
    has_many :comments
    has_many :favorites, foreign_key: 'favorite_post_id', class_name: 'User'
    has_many :commenters, -> { uniq }, through: :comments, class_name: 'User'
    has_many :suppressed_comments, -> { where(spam: true) }, class_name: 'Comment'
  end

Here we have 4 examples where using the model associations are neccesary. When there is:

A configured foreign_key as in favorites
A through association as in commenters
A condition block as commenters and suppressed_comments (eg. uniq and where)
A class_name in all three favorites, commenters, and suppressed_comments

ActiveResource will not be able to resolve these associations correctly without using the model-based associations, because it:

Cannot determine endpoint or correct class to instantiate
Uses the wrong lookup key (in through associations and foreign key option)
Conditions will not be supplied in the request

NOTE: Daylight includes Daylight::Refiners on all models that inherit from ActiveRecord::Base. At this time there is no way to exclude this module from any model. It does not modify existing ActiveRecord functionality.

Natural Key

You can specify a column that can be used to look-up a record by a natural_key or "non-id dereferencing". This will allow records to be looked up by a unique id that is not the artificial (primary) key.

Set the natural key on the model (there can only be one):

  class Post
    set_natural_key :slug
  end

Within the client you will now be able to look up using both the artifical key and the natural key:

  p = API::Post.find(1)
  p.slug    # => "100-best-albums-of-2014"

  p = API::Post.find("100-best-albums-of-2014")
  p.id      # => 1

If the column values for the natural key is not unique, then the first will be returned by Rails. For consitent results, use natural key for only those columns that are unique.

Serializers

Daylight relies heavily on ActiveModelSerializers and most information on how to use and customize it can be found in their README. Serialize only the attributes you want to be public in your API. This allows you to have a separation between the model data and the API data.

By default Daylight will serialize all your model's attributes and has_one or belongs_to associations.

For example, for this model:

  class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
    belongs_to :blog
    has_many :comments
    has_one :company, through: :blog

    # this has attributes id, title, body, summary
  end

Will dynamically generate this default serializer if one doesn't exist:

  class PostSerializer < ActiveModel::Serializer
    embed :ids

    attributes :id, :title, :body, :summary

    has_one :blog
    has_one :company, through: :blog
  end

To customize this behavior create your own serializer.

For example, id, title and body are exposed but all other attributes are not serialized:

  class PostSerializer < ActiveModel::Serializer
    attributes :id, :title, :body
  end

NOTE: Make sure to include :id as an attribute so that Daylight will be able to make updates to the models correctly.

We encourage you to embed only ids to keep payloads down. Daylight will make additional requests for the associated objects when accessed:

  class PostSerializer < ActiveModel::Serializer
    embed :ids

    attributes :id, :title, :body

    has_one :category
    has_one :author, key: 'created_by'
  end

NOTE: Make sure to use key option in serializers, not foreign_key

INFO: belongs_to associations can be included using has_one in your serializer

There isn't any need for you to include your has_many associations in your serializer. These collections will be looked up from the Daylight client by a seperate request.

The serializer above will generate JSON like:

  {
    "post": {
      "id": 283,
      "title": "100 Best Albums of 2014",
      "body": "Here is my list...",
      "category_id": 2,
      "created_by": 101
    }
  }

There are 2 main additions Daylight adds to ActiveModelSerializer to enable functionality for the client. They are through associations and read only attributes.

`has_one :through`

In Rails you can setup your model to have a has_one :through. This is a special case for ActiveModelSerializers and for the Daylight client.

NOTE: Rails does not have belongs_to :through associations.

For example, if your model has associations setup like so:

  class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
    belongs_to :blog
    has_one :company, through: :blog
  end

To configure the PostSerializer to correctly use this through association set it up like similarly to your model.

  class PostSerializer < ActiveModel::Serializer
    embed :ids

    attributes :id, :title, :body

    has_one :blog # `has_one` in a serializer
    has_one :company, through: :blog
  end

This will create a special embedding in the JSON that the client will be able to use to lookup the association:

  {
    "post": {
      "id": 283,
      "title": "100 Best Albums of 2014",
      "body": "Here is my list...",
      "blog_id": 4,
      "blog_attributes": {
        "id": 4,
        "company_id": 1
      },
    }
  }

There's duplication in the JSON payload, but post["blog_id"] and post["blog_attributs"]["id"] are used for different purposes.

  API::Post.first.blog      #=> uses "blog_id"
  API::Post.first.company   #=> uses "blog_attributes"

INFO: blog_attributes are also used for accepts_nested_attributes_for mechansism.

Read Only Attributes

There are cases when you want to expose data from the model as read only attributes so they cannot be updated. These cases are when the attribute is:

Evaluated and not stored in the database
Stored into the database only when computed
Readable but should not be updated

Here we have a Post object that does all three things. Assume there are updated_at and created_at immutable attributes as well.

  class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
    before_create do
      self.slug = title.downcase.strip.gsub(' ', '-').gsub(/[^\w-]/, '')
    end

    def published?
      published_at.present?
    end
  end

To configure the PostSerializer to mark these attributes as read only:

  class PostSerializer < ActiveModel::Serializer
    embed :ids

    attributes :id, :title, :body
    read_only :created_at, :updated_at, :slug, :published?
  end

These attributes will be marked as read only in a special Metadata section in the object's JSON.

The client will be able to read each of these values but will raise a NoMethodError when attempting to write to them.

  post = API::Post.first
  post.created_at       #=> "2014-05-02T19:58:09.248Z"
  post.slug             #=> "100-best-albums-of-2014"
  post.published?       #=> true

  post.slug = '100-best-albums-of-all-time'
  #=> NoMethodError: Cannot set read_only attribute: display_name

Because these attributes are read only, the client will exclude them from being sent when the object is saved.

  post.title = "100 Best Albums of All Time"
  post.save  #=> true

In this case published?, slug, created_at, and updated_at are never sent in a PUT update.

Controllers

Controllers can be written without Daylight, but often times you must develop boilerplate code for index, create, show, update, and delete actions. Also, you may chose controllers that are for the API and controllers that are for your application.

Daylight simplifies building API controllers:

  class PostController < APIController
  end

NOTE: Any functionality built in ApplicationController will be available to your APIController subclasses.

Since your controller is a subclass of ActiveController::Base continue to add your own actions and routes for them as you do today in Rails.

There are predefined actions provided by Daylight, that handle both REST actions and some specialized cases.

You must "turn on" these prede actions. Actions provided by Daylight are turned off by default so what is exposed is determined by the developer.

For example, to turn on show action:

  class PostController < APIController
    handles :show
  end

This is equivalent to;

  class PostController < APIController
    def show
      render json: Post.find(params[:id])
    end
  end

Daylight uses the name of the controller to determine the related model to use. Also, the primary_key name is retrived from that determined model. In fact, all of the actions are just ruby methods, so you can overwrite them (and call super) as you see fit:

  class PostController < APIController
    handles :show

    def show
      super

      @post.update_attributes(:view_count, @post.view_count+1)
    end
  end

To turn on multiple actions:

  class PostController < APIController
    handles: :create, :show, :update, :destroy
  end

Or you can turn them all (including the Specialized Actions):

  class PostController < APIController
    handles: :all
  end

For your reference, you can review the code of the equivalent actions in Controller Actions

Specialized Actions

Much of Daylight's features are offered through specialized controller actions. These specialized actions are what enables:

Query Refinements
Model Associations
Remote Methods

Index

You can refine queries of a resources collection by scopes, conditions, order, limit, and offset.

This is accomplished with a method called refine_by which is added to your models added by Daylight::Refiners

On the controller, see it called on the index action:

  class PostController < APIController
    def index
      render json: Post.refine_by(params)
    end
  end

Associated

Associations called through the model instance is accomplished using a method called associated added by Daylight::Refiners. Which associations allowed are defined in your Routes.

On the controller, see it called by the (similarly named) associated action:

  class PostController < APIController
    def associated
      render json: Post.associated(params), root: associated_params
    end
  end

Associations can also be refined similarly to index where you can specify scopes, conditions, order, limit, and offset. The associated action is setup in Through Associations on the client model.

NOTE: You can find more information on how to use these refinements in the Daylight Users Guide

Remoted

Any public method is allowed to be called on the model instance by use of the remoted method added by Daylight::Refiners. Which public methods are allowed are defined in your Routes.

FUTURE #4: It would be nice to allow public methods on the model class to be exposed and called against the collection.

Remoted methods should return a record or collections of records so that they may be instantiated correctly by the client and act as a proxy back to the API.

On the controller, see it called by the (similarly named) remoted action:

  class PostController < APIController
    def remoted
      render json: Post.remoted(params), root: remoted_params
    end
  end

All of the specialized actions can be enabled on your controller like the REST actions:

  class PostController < APIController
    handles :index, :associated, :remoted
  end

They are also included when specifying handles :all.

INFO: To understand how root option is being used in both assoicated and remoted please refer to the section on Symantic Data

Customization

Behind the scenes, the controller actions look up models based on its controller name. The portion before the word Controller (ie. when PostController is the controller name it determines the model name to be Post).

You may specify a different model to use:

  class WelcomeController
    set_model_name :post
  end

In create, show, update and destroy actions (member) results are stored in an instance variable. The instance variable name is based on the model name (ie. when PostController is the controller name the instance variable is called @post).

In index, associated, and remoted specialized actions results are stored in an instance variable simply called @collection

Both of these instance variables may be customized:

  class PostController
    set_record_name :result
    set_collection_name :results
  end

NOTE: Daylight calls the instance variables for specialized actions @collection because in associated and remoted actions the results may be any type of model instances.

In all customizations can use a string, symbol, or constant as the value:

  class PostController
    set_model_name Post
    set_record_name 'result'
    set_collection_name :results
  end

Lastly, your application may already have an APIController and there could be a name collision. Daylight will not use this constant if it's already defined.

In this case use Daylight::APIController to subclass from:

  class PostController < Daylight::APIController
    handles :all
  end

Routes

Setup your routes as you do in Rails today. Since Daylight assumes that your API is versioned, make sure to employ namespace in routes or use a simple, powerful tool like Versionist.

  API::Application.routes.draw do
    namespace :v1 do
      resources :users, :posts, :comments
    end
  end

You can modify the actions on each reasource as you see fit, matching your APIController actions:

  API::Application.routes.draw do
    namespace :v1 do
      resources :users, :posts
      resources :comments, except: [:index, :destroy]
    end
  end

To expose model assoications, you can do that with Daylight additions to routing options.

FUTURE #7: The client only supports model associations on has_many relationships. We will need to evaluate the need to support model associations on has_one and has_many (as we never had a case for it)

  API::Application.routes.draw do
    namespace :v1 do
      resources :users,     associated: [:posts, :comments]
      resources :posts,     associated: [:comments]
      resources :comments,      except: [:index, :destroy]
    end
  end

Any of the rich has_many relationships setup may be exposed as a model associations, choose which ones to expose:

  API::Application.routes.draw do
    namespace :v1 do
      resources :users,     associated: [:comments, :posts]
      resources :posts,     associated: [:authors, :comments, :commenters]
      resources :comments,      except: [:index, :destroy]
    end
  end

To expose remoted methods, you can do that with Daylight additions to routing options.

  API::Application.routes.draw do
    namespace :v1 do
      resources :users,     associated: [:comments, :posts]
      resources :posts,     associated: [:authors, :comments, :commenters],
                               remoted: [:top_comments]
      resources :comments,      except: [:index, :destroy]
    end
  end

By default all model scopes are available but you can whitelist particular scopes you want available to the client.

  API::Application.routes.draw do
    namespace :v1 do
      resources :users,     associated: [:comments, :posts]
      resources :posts,     associated: [:authors, :comments, :commenters],
                               remoted: [:top_comments],
                                scopes: [:published, :edited]
      resources :comments,      except: [:index, :destroy]
    end
  end

As you can see when you develop your API, the routes file becomes a specification of what is exposed to the client.

Client

The client is where all our server setup is put together. Client models subclass from Daylight::API classes.

INFO: Daylight::API subclasses ActiveResource::Base and extends it

You can build your client model as you do today as an ActiveResource::Base as all functionality performs the same out of the box. (Only when using Daylight features is when Daylight additions to ActiveResource enabled)

  class API::V1::Post < Daylight::API
  end

Here again, we encourage you to namespace and version your client models. You can do this using module names and Daylight will offer several conviniences.

Aliased API

Daylight will alias to the current version defined in your setup!. Assuming you've have two versions of your client models:

  Daylight::API.setup!(version: 'v1', versions: %w[v1 v2])
  API::Post  #=> API::V1::Post

  Daylight::API.setup!(version: 'v2')
  reload!

  API::Post  #=> API::V2::Post

Using the aliased versions of your API is practical for your end users. They will not need to update all of the constants in their codebase from API::V1::Post to API::V2::Post after they migrate. Instead they can focus on differences provided in the new API version.

FUTURE #2: It may be possible to have different versions of a client model to run concurrently. This would aid end users of the API to move/keep some classes on a particular version.

Client Reloader

When developing your API when you reload! within your console, the aliased constants will still reference the older class definitions. Currently, this only works with IRB. To re-alias the constants during a reload! add the following to an initializer:

  require 'daylight/client_reloader'

This should not be needed for your end-users but is available for debugging purposes if needed.

Association Lookup

Daylight will lookup association classes using the namespace and version set in your client. This simplifies setting up your relationships becaause you do not need to define your class_name on each association:

  class API::V1::Post < Daylight::API
    belongs_to :blog

    has_many :comments
  end

Once all client models are setup, associationed models will be fetched and initialized:

  post = API::V1::Post.first

  post.blog       #=> #<API::V1::Blog:0x007fd8ca4717d8 ...>
  post.comments   #=> [#<API::V1::Comment:0x007fd8ca538ce8...>, ...]

There are times when you will need to specify a client model just like you do in ActiveRecord:

  class API::V1::Post < Daylight::API
    belongs_to :author, class_name: 'api/v1/user', foreign_key: 'created_by'
    belongs_to :blog

    has_many :comments
  end

NOTE: The foreign key needs to match the same key in your serailizer and the foreign_key in your ActiveRecord model.

The User will be correctly retrieved for the author association:

  API::V1::Post.first.author   #=> #<API::V1::User:0x007fd8ca543e90 ...>

Through Associations

There are two types of Through Associations in Daylight:

has_one :through
has_many :through

First, once you've setup your has_one :through association in your model and serializer. You can use it in the client model. This is setup similar to the ActiveRecord model:

  class API::V1::Post < Daylight::API
    belongs_to :blog
    has_one    :company, through: :blog
  end

The associations will be available:

  post = API::Post.first
  post.blog     #=> #<API::V1::Blog:0x007fd8ca4717d8 ...>
  post.company  #=> #<API::V1::Company:0x007f8f83f30b28 ...>

Second, once the has_many :through associations are exposed in the Routes you can them up in the client model:

  class API::V1::Post < Daylight::API
    has_many 'comments'
    has_many 'commenters', through: :association
  end

The value is always :association and is a directive to Daylight to use the associated action on the PostController.

The associations will be available:

  post = API::Post.first
  post.comments    #=> [#<API::V1::Comment:0x007f8f83f91c20 ...>, ...]
  post.commenters  #=> [#<API::V1::Company:0x007f8f83fe1f40 ...>, ...]

Here we can see a typical ActiveResource association for commentsis used along-side our has_many :through. If there is no reason to use the model assoication, the flexibility is up to you. Please review the reasons to use Model Association.

You can setup both to use model associations:

  class API::V1::Post < Daylight::API
    has_many 'comments',   through: :association
    has_many 'commenters', through: :association
  end

Refer to the Daylight Users Guide to see how to further work associations.

Scopes and Remoted Methods

Adding scopes and remoted methods is very simple.

Given the ActiveRecord model setup:

  class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
    scope :published,     -> { where(published: true) }
    scope :by_popularity, -> { order_by(:view_count) }

    def top_comments
      comments.order_by(:like_count)
    end
  end

Remoted methods are available once the remoted action is handled by the controller and the method name is included in your routes.

FUTURE #6: Scopes may need to be whitelisted like remoted methods.

Then you can setup the your client model:

  class API::V1::Post < Daylight::API
    scopes :published, :by_popularity
    remote :top_comments
  end

And used like so:

  API::Post.published.by_popularity #=> [#<API::V1::Post:0x007f8f890219b0 ...>, ...]
  API::Post.top_comments            #=> [#<API::V1::Comment:0x007f8f89050da0 ...>, ...]

FUTURE #9: Remote methods cannot be further refined like associations

Underlying Interaction

This section is to help understanding what the client is doing so you can access your API server directly through your browers. This is useful for triaging bugs, but also can help examining requests and responses.

NOTE: This information can be used for when a client would need to be built in another platform or language but wishes to use the server API.

Symantic URLs

Daylight strives to continue to keep its API URLs symantic and RESTful. ActiveResource does most of the work:

HTTP       URL                                                      # ACTION                CLIENT EXAMPLE

GET        /v1/posts.json                                           # index                 API::Post.all
POST       /v1/posts.json                                           # create                API::Post.create({})
GET        /v1/posts/1.json                                         # show                  API::Post.find(1)
PATCH/PUT  /v1/posts/1.json                                         # update                API::Post.find(1).update_attributes({})
DELETE     /v1/posts/1.json                                         # destroy               API::Post.find(1).delete

Daylight adds to these symantic URLs with the associated and remoted actions. In fact, they look similar to nested URLs:

HTTP       URL                                                      # ACTION                CLIENT EXAMPLE

GET        /v1/posts/1/comments.json                                # associated            API::Post.find(1).comments
GET        /v1/posts/1/top_comments.json                            # remoted (collection)  API::Post.find(1).top_comments
GET        /v1/posts/1/statistics.json                              # remoted (record)      API::Post.find(1).statistics

By URL alone, there's no way to distinguish between associated and remoted requests (they are not RESTful per se). For all intents and purposes they both are an associated data nested in a member of a Post.

To treat them differently, both the client and the server need to have knowledge about what kind of specialized action they are. On the server this is done through Routes. On the client model, this is done by setting up remote and scopes

The difference is in the response:

associated is always a collection
remoted may be a single record or a collection

FUTURE #4: Is there any reason why remoted couldn't just be an associated from the client point of view?

Request Parameters

Daylight supports scopes, conditions, order, limit, and offset. Together these are called refinements. All of these refiniments are supplied through request parameters.

HTTP       URL                                                      # PARAMETER TYPE        CLIENT EXAMPLE

GET        /v1/posts.json?order=created_at                          # Literal               API::Post.order(:created_at)
GET        /v1/posts.json?limit=10                                  # Literal               API::Post.limit(10)
GET        /v1/posts.json?offset=30                                 # Literal               API::Post.offset(30)
GET        /v1/posts.json?scopes=published                          # Literal               API::Post.published
GET        /v1/posts.json?scopes[]=published&scopes[]=by_popularity # Array                 API::Post.published.by_popularity
GET        /v1/posts.json?filters[tag]=music                        # Hash                  API::Post.where(tag: "music")
GET        /v1/posts.json?filters[tag][]=music&[tag][]=best-of      # Hash of Array         API::Post.where(tag: %w[music best-of])

None, one, or any combination of refinements can be supplied in the request. Combining all of the examples above:

  API::Post.published.by_popularity.where(tag: %w[music best-of]).order(:created_at).limit(10).offset(30)

Will yield the following URL:

/v1/posts.json?scopes[]=published&scopes[]=by_popularity&filters[tag][]=music&[tag][]=best-of&order=created_at&offset=30&limit=10

NOTE: Collection of these parameters is how single requests to the server are are made by the client

Refinements are supported only on the index and associated actions because these are requests for collections (as opposed to manipulating individual members).

The only difference between index and associated is the target which the refinements are applied. For example:

HTTP       URL                                                       # ACTION               TARGET

GET        /v1/posts.json?order=created_at                           # index                Orders all Posts
GET        /v1/posts/1/comments.json?order_created_at                # associated           Orders all Comments for Post id=1

Symantic Data

Data transmitted in requests and responses are formatted the same and use the same conventions. Any data recieved can be encoded in a response without any issues.

Root Element

Both requests and responses will have a root element. For responses, root elmeents define which client model(s) will be instantiated. For requests, root elements define the parameter key that object attributes are sent under.

For an Post object, when encoded to JSON:

  {
    "post": {
      "id": 1,
      "title": "100 Best Albums of 2014",
      "created_by": 101
    }
  }

For collection of Post objects, when encoded to JSON:

  {
    "posts": [
      {
        "id": 1,
        "title": "100 Best Albums of 2014",
        },
      {
        "id": 2,
        "title": "Loving the new Son Lux album",
      }
    ]
  }

In both these cases, post is identified as the root, it's pluralized for to posts for a collections.

Associated Attributes

Associations for has_one are delivered as specified by the (serializers)[#serializer] and are embedded as IDs (eg. blog_id). Foriegn key names (eg. created_by) when specified are embedded as well:

  {
    "zone": {
      "id": 1,
      "title": "100 Best Albums of 2014",
      "blog_id": 2,
      "created_by": 101
    }
  }

When setting a new object:

  p.author = API::User.new({username: 'reidmix', fullname: 'Reid MacDonald'})

The new object will be updated using the accepts_nested_attributes_for mechanism on ActiveRecord. These attributes are passed along in its own has which accepts_nested_attributes_for expects:

  {
    "zone": {
      "id": 1,
      "title": "100 Best Albums of 2014",
      "author_attributes": {
        "username": "reidmix",
        "fullname": "Reid MacDonald"
      }
    }
  }

New items in a collections will be added to the existing set:

  p.comments << API::Comment.new({created_by: 222, message: "New Comment"})

And will be encoded as an array:

  {
    "zone": {
      "id": 1,
      "title": "100 Best Albums of 2014",
      "comments_attributes": [
        {
          "created_by": 101,
          "message": "Existing Comment"
        },
        {
          "created_by": 222,
          "fullname": "New Comment"
        }
      ]
    }
  }

FUTURE #10: It would be useful to know which associations the client model accepts_nested_attributes_for so that we can turn "on/off" the setter for associated objects.

Lastly, has_one :through associations also uses the accepts_nested_attributes_for mechanism to describe the relationship in an attributes subhash. For example

  {
    "post": {
      "id": 283,
      "title": "100 Best Albums of 2014",
      "blog_id": 4,
      "blog_attributes": {
        "id": 4,
        "company_id": 1
      },
    }
  }

Our previous example describes when a Post has a Company through a Blog. The Blog is referenced directly using the blog_id. Company is referenced through the Blog using both of the blog_attribtues.

Associated and Remoted Responses

The root element for the associated and remoted methods simply use the name of the action in the response.

Typically this keeps things simple when retrieving /v1/blog/1/top_comments.json:

  {
    "top_comments": [
      {
        "id": 2,
        "post_id": 1,
        "created_by": 101,
        "message": "Existing Comment"
      },
      {
        "id": 3,
        "post_id": 1,
        "created_by": 222,
        "fullname": "New Comment"
      }
    ]
  }

The associated and remoted methods will use configured name to look up the client model. In the case of top_comments, set the class_name correct to the corresponding client model (ie. api/v1/comment)

Response Metadata

Metadata about an object and its usage in the framework is delivered in the meta section of the response data. Anything can be stored in this section (by the serializer).

For example:

  {
    "post": {
      "id": 1,
      "title": "100 Best Albums of 2014",
    },
    "meta": {
      "frozen": true
    }
  }

It is retrieved using the metadata hash on the client model.

  # example metadata that could specify when a Post cannot be updated
  Post.find(1).metadata[:frozen] #=> true

Daylight uses metadata in two standard ways:

read_only attributes
where_values clauses.

read_only

The way that Daylight know which methods are read only and cannot be written is using the list of attributes that are read_only for that client model:

  {
    "post": {
      "id": 1,
      "title": "100 Best Albums of 2014",
    },
    "meta": {
      "post": {
        "read_only": [
          "slug",
          "published",
          "created_at"
        ]
      }
    }
  }

Here, we will not be able to set slug, published?, and created_at and Daylight will raise a NoMethodError

NOTE: ActiveResource handles predicate lookups for attributes (eg. published vs. published?)

nested_resources

The way that Daylight know what Nested Resources are available to be set is is using a list of classes that are nested_resources for that client model:

  {
    "post": {
      "id": 1,
      "title": "100 Best Albums of 2014",
    },
    "meta": {
      "post": {
        "nested_resources": [
          "author",
          "comments"
        ]
      }
    }
  }

Here, we will be able to create or associate the author resource when creating or updating a post. We can also create a new comment and add it to the collection in the same way.

INFO: You can read up more in the User's Guide on how to use Nested Resources.

where_values

How Daylight keeps track of how a model was looked up when using find_or_initialize and find_or_create is by returning the where_values from ActiveRecord. These will be merged when the ActiveResource is saved.

  {
    "post": {
      "id": 1,
      "title": "100 Best Albums of 2014",
    },
    "meta": {
      "where_values": {
        "blog_id": 1
      }
    }
  }

To see this in action, if the Post with the queried title was not found:

  p = API::Blog.first.posts.find_or_create(title: "100 Best Albums of 2014")
  p.title   #=> "100 Best Albums of 2014"

  # from the `where_values` during the lookup
  p.blog_id #=> 1

Since, where_values clauses can be quite complicated and are resolved by ActiveRecord we determine them server-side and send them as metadata in the response.

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API Developer Guide

Table of Contents

Expectations

Building Your API

Models

Natural Key

Serializers

`has_one :through`

Read Only Attributes

Controllers

Specialized Actions

Index

Associated

Remoted

Customization

Routes

Client

Aliased API

Client Reloader

Association Lookup

Through Associations

Scopes and Remoted Methods

Underlying Interaction

Symantic URLs

Request Parameters

Symantic Data

Root Element

Associated Attributes

Associated and Remoted Responses

Response Metadata

read_only

nested_resources

where_values

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API Developer Guide

Table of Contents

Expectations

Building Your API

Models

Natural Key

Serializers

has_one :through

Read Only Attributes

Controllers

Specialized Actions

Index

Associated

Remoted

Customization

Routes

Client

Aliased API

Client Reloader

Association Lookup

Through Associations

Scopes and Remoted Methods

Underlying Interaction

Symantic URLs

Request Parameters

Symantic Data

Root Element

Associated Attributes

Associated and Remoted Responses

Response Metadata

read_only

nested_resources

where_values

`has_one :through`