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So I have part of an API up and running, but am stuck on a few things. I am working with Laravel's REST controllers and am loving the ability to use methods such as Response::eloquent($query); But, in using this:

  1. How should I handle query parameters (e.g id=27&order_by=timestamp), if the resource that I am getting is joining several tables?
  2. Should I get the values from the database, and then construct an array with only the certain fields that I want to display for API access? And how would this then work with query parameters?
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First off I would recommend that you watch Teach a Dog to REST[Link broken] for more information about formatting your REST routes.

As for your questions:

  1. You can handle input fields through the Input::get() and Input::all() methods as mentioned in laravel input & cookies docs. You might also have to validate incoming data with laravel's Validator class.

  2. Say you acquired the id and order_by fields from the input as mentioned in your example:

    $id = Input::get('id'); $order_criteria = Input::get('order_by');

using Fluent Query Builder

DB::table('dbtable')->where('id', '=', $id)->order_by($order_criteria, 'desc')->first();

// Using first() since we are pretty sure that we are getting only one result out, for a different criteria where more than a result could be returned you might want to use ->get() instead.

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Hey mate! I have followed Apigee's blog closely and have already learned a lot from their awesome videos. I am already doing some of what you mentioned. I guess my question really is, how do I include the query parameters in a way that is flexible for different resources? Should I extend the base controller and write some sort of function that handles query params? How would you recommend I do this?
Oh well i suppose i am not getting what you really need help with, whether how to handle the request or the formatting of the params in your URLs ? maybe you can provide some sort of examples to begin with.
Should I be constructing an array myself with only the values that I want returned in the response?
@Sneaksta you ever figure this out, or find a good resource to learn from?
@kmmathis Yep! What I ended up doing is writing a function in the base controller class that is called something like 'queryParams' and then run it in my controllers, wrapping my eloquent queries. E.g: $this->queryParams(User::where('user', '=', 'me'))->first(); This enabled me to handle the query object in the queryParams class and tag on any extra queries, according to what is in the Input::get() object.
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I released a package for this.

You can check this out https://github.com/selahattinunlu/laravel-api-query-builder

For wiki page: https://github.com/selahattinunlu/laravel-api-query-builder/wiki

This package creates query with url parameters.

Example:

/api/users?name=se*&age!=18&order_by=age,asc&limit=2&columns=name,age,city_id&includes=city

And resulting query

Users::with(['city'])->select(['name', 'age', 'city_id'])
                     ->where('age', '!=', 18)
                     ->where('name', 'like', 'se%')
                     ->orderBy('age', 'asc')
                     ->take(2)

Usage:

$queryBuilder = new QueryBuilder(new User, $request);

return response->json([
  'data' => $queryBuilder->build()->paginate(),
  .
  .
]);

That's all.

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@OliverBayes-Shelton Yes I'm not maintaining it anymore. I can give push permission if anyone wants to maintain it

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