ZfRest

⚠️ No longer maintained

ZfRest is a Zend Framework 1 extension. It is similar to Resauce but sufficiently different.

Todo

• Use Accept: header for versioning and format syntax
• Look at Rob Allen's ZfApiVersioning repo for more plugin ideas

Design Goals

• Treat Controllers as Resources
• Should not interfere with an existing application (Recommended to use ZF module layout, but other application layouts are supported)

Introduction

ZfRest is designed to make a REST API easier to implement. It started out as a way to generate a best practices for a REST API design that I noticed was missing from the Zend Framework landscape. I have used several sources along the way to help in the design portion of this extension.

Responses

Unless otherwise noted every response sent should include the following headers:

• Allow:
• Content-Type:

Resources

The controllers are responsible for one resource. This means that /users is different from /users/1 in terms of which controller will be called. Like Resauce this is different from how the REST components of ZF works.

In order to leave the most room for query parameters in the URL ZfRest defaults to prefixing internal parameters with an underscore.

Routes

Routing is accomplished by use of the ZfRest\Controller\Route. This extends the ZF Module route and allows for a mapping explicitly to the Resource Controllers.

The HTTP methods are used as the actions in the Resource Controllers:

• GET >> getAction()
• PUT >> putAction()
• POST >> postAction()
• DELETE >> deleteAction()
• HEAD >> headAction()
• OPTIONS >> optionsAction()

Like Resauce, ZfRest will return a 405 Method not allowed response for methods that are not defined.

Plugins

In addition to the above core extensions. I've also found that the following plugins have been useful for helping to develop REST APIs. Unless otherwise noted, all plugins interact with Zend_Registry to set data attributes for themselves (and access by the action helpers)

OAuth

The ZfRest\Controller\Plugin\Oauth should be extended for each version of the API that is to be access as it currently relies on being used on a per module basis.

Example Usage

Bootstrap

/**
 * Api version 1 bootstrap
 */
class Apiv1_Bootstrap extends \ZfRest\Application\Bootstrap
{
	public function _initRestRoutingPlugin()
	{
		$front = \Zend_Controller_Front::getInstance();
		$front->registerPlugin(new Apiv1_Plugin_Routing($front->getDispatcher(), $front->getRouter());
	}
}

/**
 * API version 1 Routing plugin
 */
class Apiv1_Plugin_Routing extends \Zend_Controller_Plugin_Abstract
{
	private $dispatcher;
	private $router;
	
	public function __construct(\Zend_Controller_Dispatcher_Interface $dispatcher, \Zend_Controller_Router_Rewrite $router)
	{
		$this->dispatcher = $dispatcher;
		$this->router     = $router;
	}
	
	public function routeStartup(\Zend_Controller_Request_Abstract $request)
	{
		$defaults = array(
			'routeHandler' => array($this, 'fetchRoutes'),
			'module'       => 'v1',
			'routePrefix'  => 'v1'
		);
		$route = new \ZfRest\Controller\Route($default, $this->dispatcher, $request);
		$route->setErrorRoute(array(
			'module'     => 'v1',
			'controller' => 'error',
			'action'     => 'error'
		));
		$this->router->addRoute('api-v1', $route); 
	}

	public function fetchRoutes()
	{
		return array(
			'users/:id/groups' => 'UserGroups'
			'users/:id'        => 'User',
			'users'            => 'Users',

			// alternate syntax
			'groups'           => array(
				':id/users' => 'GroupUsers',
				':id'       => 'Group'
				'*'         => 'Groups'
			)
		);
	}
}

Controller

Controllers are created like normal.

<?php
class Apiv1_Controller_UsersController extends \ZfRest\Controller\Resource
{
	/**
	 * Handle the GET request
	 */
	public function getAction()
	{
		// return a list of users
	}

	/**
	 * Handle the POST request
	 */
	public function postAction()
	{
		// create a user
	}
}

The other controllers from the Example bootstrap would be:

• UserController
• UserGroupsController
• GroupsController
• GroupController
• GroupUsersController

Inspiration

Thanks to the following projects that helped me design ZfRest

• "Resauce Framework":http://github.com/mikekelly/Resauce
• "ZfApiVersioning":http://github.com/zircote/ZfApiVersioning
• "ZF-REST-API":http://github.com/???/ZF-REST-API