JSON:API Resource for Laravel

Make your Laravel API JSON:API compliant with the Brainstud\JsonApi package.

Table of contents

• Installation
• Usage
• Relationships
• Resource depth
• Exception handler
• Example
• Deprecated register method
• Tweaking responses
• License

Installation

Require the package

composer require brainstud/json-api-resource

Usage

• Let your resource object extend from JsonApiResource instead of JsonResource.
• Set the type of your resource as a string in $this->type.
• For each part of your resource, define the matching to{resourcePart} method.

class Resource extends JsonApiResource
{
    protected string $type = 'resources';

    protected function toAttributes(Request $request): array
    {
        return [
            'field' => $this->resource->field,
            'other_field' => $this->resource->other_field,
        ];
    }

    protected function toRelationships(Request $request): array
    {
        return [
            'relation' => ['relationMethod', Relation::class],
        ];
    }

    protected function toLinks(Request $request): array
    {
        return [
            'type_of_link' => ['href' => 'link'],
        ];
    }

    protected function toMeta(Request $request): array
    {
        return [
            'meta' => 'data',
        ];
    }
}

Relationships

JSON:API: Includes For the relationships to be included they need to be loaded. This can be done by implementing a ?include parameter or using spatie/laravel-query-builder.

Resource depth

The resource depth has a default of 2. This can be changed by passing an array to the resource where the second item is the required resource depth. In the following example we use a depth of 3:

public function show(ShowCourseRequest $request, Course $course)
{
    $query = (new CoursesQueryBuilder)->find($course->id);
    return new CourseResource([$query, 3]);
}

Which allows us to ask for an include nested 3 levels deep: /courses/{identifier}?include=content,content.answers,content.answers.feedback

Exception handler

This package contains an exception handler to render exceptions as JSON:API error messages. Either use this handler directly by editing your app.php and registering this singleton

// app.php
$app->singleton(
    Illuminate\Contracts\Debug\ExceptionHandler::class,
    \Brainstud\JsonApi\Handlers\JsonApiExceptionHandler::class
);

Or register your own exception handler and delegate the render to the JsonApiExceptionHandler::render method.

// app.php
$app->singleton(
    Illuminate\Contracts\Debug\ExceptionHandler::class,
    App\Exceptions\Handler::class
);

// handler.php
public function render($request, Throwable $exception)
{
    if ($request->wantsJson()) {
        return (new JsonApiExceptionHandler($this->container))->render($request, $exception);
    }

    return parent::render($request, $exception);
}

Return error response

There are multiple ways to return an error page

// Throw an exception that will be handled by the JsonApiExceptionHandler
throw new UnprocessableEntityHttpException();

// Return a defined error response
return (new UnprocessableEntityError)->response();

// Return a custom error response
return ErrorResponse::make(new DefaultError(
    'PROCESSING_ERROR',
    'Could not save item',
    'An error occurred during saving of the item'
), Response::HTTP_INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR);

Example usage

// Course.php

/**
 * @property int $id
 * @property string $title
 * @property string $description
 * @property Carbon $created_at
 * @property Collection $enrollments
 */
class Course extends Model
{
    protected $fillable = [
        'title',
        'description',
    ];

    public function enrollments(): HasMany
    {
        return $this->hasMany(Enrollment::class);
    }
}

// CourseResource.php

/**
 * @property Course $resource
 */
class CourseResource extends JsonApiResource
{
    protected string $type = 'courses';

    protected function toAttributes(Request $request): array
    {
        return [
            'title' => $this->resource->title,
            'description' => $this->resource->description,
            'created_at' => $this->resource->created_at->format('c'),
        ];
    }

    protected function toRelationships(Request $request): array
    {
        return [
            'enrollments' => ['enrollments', EnrollmentResourceCollection::class],
        ];
    }

    protected function toLinks(Request $request): array
    {
        return [
            'view' => ['href' => $this->resource->getShowUrl()],
        ];
    }

    protected function toMeta(Request $request): array
    {
        return [
            'enrollments' => $this->resource->enrollments->count(),
        ];
    }
}


// CoursesController.php

class CoursesController
{
    public function index(IndexCoursesRequest $request)
    {
        $query = (new CoursesQueryBuilder)->jsonPaginate();
        return new CourseResourceCollection($query);
    }

    public function show(ShowCourseRequest $request, Course $course)
    {
        $query = (new CoursesQueryBuilder)->find($course->id);
        return new CourseResource($query);
    }
}

Defining resources via the register method

In the previous version of the package, you would have to define the resource structure via a register method. This is still possible, but it is deprecated and will be removed in a later version.

To use this way of defining a resource, simply define a register method in your resource:

protected function register(): array
{
    return [
        'id' => $this->resource->identifier,
        'type' => 'object_type',
        'attributes' => [
            'field' => $this->resource->field,
            'other_field' => $this->resource->other_field,
        ],
        'relationships' => [
            'items' => ['items', ItemsResourceCollection::class],
            'item' => ['item', ItemResource::class],
        ],
        'meta' => [
            'some_data' => 'some value',
        ],
        'links' => [
            'some_key' => 'some link',
        ],
    ];
}

Tweak response

The register method doesn't have access to $request like toArray of JsonResource has. If you want to manipulate the response based on the request this can be done by overriding the addToResponse method.

protected function addToResponse($request, $response): array
{
    if ($this->requestWantsMeta($request, 'data')
        && ($data = $this->getData())
    ) {
        $response['meta']['data'] = $data;
    }

    return $response;
}

License

JsonApi is open-sourced software licensed under the MIT Licence