I am using NancyFX to host our REST APIs for Web site. We have user table in database, which I would like to update for:
1) Full user update - updates all fields
2) Partial user update - updates only single field
We are using Nancy 0.7 - so currently it does not have PATCH support - I can only use PUT
I have defined my API like
PUT ["/user/{username}"] - for complete update using passed-in user object value
PUT ["/user/{username}/id/{newid}"] - for updating user id only
However, when I call the second API (to update id only) - it never gets trapped by Nancy - and Nancy always call the method to fully update user i.e. PUT ["/user/{username}"]
No matter, what order I declare the APIs, Nancy always call the full user update endpoint only.
Need help, so that I can use both APIs using PUT from our client applications properly.
In general, it is a good idea to UrlEncode any dynamic data components of your URI.
So, in your case:
PUT - /user/xyz#yahoo.com/id/123
would become
PUT - /user/xyz%40yahoo.com/id/123
Nancy will take care of decoding the value for you, so when you extract it from your parameters dynamic object it will be back to xyz#yahoo.com
Found the problem -
It is to do with '#' character in user name - special character.
if username contains '#' character then Nancy never matches the route for
PUT - /user/xyz#yahoo.com/id/123 to
PUT ["/user/{username}/id/{newid}"]
it always matches route for
PUT - /user/xyz#yahoo.com/id/123 to
PUT ["/user/{username}"]
Related
I have done everything needed to setup webservices on my moodle 3.11 instance, including roles/capabilities/user. However sending a test request always gives {
"exception": "dml_missing_record_exception",
"errorcode": "invalidrecord",
"message": "Can't find data record in database table external_functions."
}
The URL to access it is of the format https:///moodle/webservice/rest/server.php?wsfunction=core_user_create_user&service=mymoodleusermanage&moodlewsrestformat=json&users[0][username]=ABC&users[0][firstname]=VPTest&users[0][lastname]=None&users[0][email]=mail#xxx.com&users[0][password]=xxxxx&users[0][auth]=manual&wstoken=xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The service parameter is correctly set to the shortname of the service. Does the service have to be defined anywhere additionally apart from Site Administration->Server->Web Services->External Services->Custom Services
Thanks for any help that can be given
The answer is very simple - you are trying to call a non-existent webservice function (hence the error message about being unable to find the database record for the function in the external_functions database table).
If you look in the Moodle code: https://github.com/moodle/moodle/blob/master/lib/db/services.php#L1717 you will see that the function is called core_user_create_users - with an "s" at the end of it.
If you add that extra "s" into the URL parameters you are using, then it should work.
https:///moodle/webservice/rest/server.php?wsfunction=core_user_create_user&service=mymoodleusermanage&moodlewsrestformat=json&users[0][username]=ABC&users[0][firstname]=VPTest&users[0][lastname]=None&users[0][email]=mail#xxx.com&users[0][password]=xxxxx&users[0][auth]=manual&wstoken=xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
you must change username all character small letter [username]=ABC like this [username]=abc and add s wsfunction=core_user_create_users
I went to \simple_salesforce and changed a line in api.py by hand from
DEFAULT_API_VERSION = '42.0'
to
DEFAULT_API_VERSION = '51.0'
But it feels incorrect to do it like this. Is there some other way?
There's bit of text in readme in "additional features".
SalesforceLogin, which takes in a username, password, security token,
optional version and optional domain
(...)
SFType class, which is
used internally by the getattr() method in the Salesforce() class
and represents a specific SObject type. SFType requires object_name
(i.e. Contact), session_id (an authentication ID), sf_instance
(hostname of your Salesforce instance), and an optional sf_version
So looks like you can pass sf_version to SalesforceLogin() call and it'll be respected. Or version to Salesforce(). Check the files and experiment? Maybe even make a pull request in simple's Git repo so they update the default. 42 was over 3 years ago. It's perfectly fine to use newer API to see more tables, get some performance boost, bugfixes.
I am currently programming a REST service and a website that mostly uses this REST service.
Model:
public class User {
private String realname;
private String username;
private String emailAddress;
private String password;
private Role role;
..
}
View:
One form to update
realname
email address
username
Another form to update the role
And a third form to change the password
.
Focussing on the first view, which pattern would be a good practice?
PUT /user/{userId}
imho not because the form contains only partial data (not role, not password). So it cannot send a whole user object.
PATCH /user/{userId}
may be ok. Is a good way to implement it like:
1) read current user entity
2)
if(source.getRealname() != null) // Check if field was set (partial update)
dest.setRealname(source.getRealname());
.. for all available fields
3) save dest
POST /user/{userId}/generalInformation
as summary for realname, email, username
.
Thank you!
One problem with this approach is that user cannot nullify optional fields since code is not applying the value if (input is empty and value) is null.
This might be ok for password or other required entity field but for example if you have an optional Note field then the user cannot "clean" the field.
Also, if you are using a plain FORM you cannot use PATCH method, only GET or POST.
If you are using Ajax you might be interested in JSON Merge Patch (easier) and/or JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) Patch (most complete); for an overview of the problems that one can find in partial updates and in using PATCH see also this page.
A point is that a form can only send empty or filled value, while a JSON object property can have three states: value (update), null (set null) and no-property (ignore).
An implementation I used with success is ZJSONPATCH
Focussing on the first view, which pattern would be a good practice?
My suggestion starts from a simple idea: how would you do this as web pages in HTML?
You probably start from a page that offers a view of the user, with hyperlinks like "Update profile", "Update role", "Change password". Clicking on update profile would load an html form, maybe with a bunch of default values already filled in. The operator would make changes, then submit the form, which would send a message to an endpoint that knows how to decode the message body and update the model.
The first two steps are "safe" -- the operator isn't proposing any changes. In the last step, the operator is proposing a change, so safe methods would not be appropriate.
HTML, as a hypermedia format, is limited to two methods (GET, POST), so we might see the browser do something like
GET /user/:id
GET /forms/updateGeneralInformation?:id
POST /updates/generalInformation/:id
There are lots of different spellings you can use, depending on how to prefer to organize your resources. The browser doesn't care, because it's just following links.
You have that same flexibility in your API. The first trick in the kit should always be "can I solve this with a new resource?".
Ian S Robinson observed: specialization and innovation depend on an open set. If you restrict yourself to a closed vocabulary of HTTP methods, then the open set you need to innovate needs to lie elsewhere: the RESTful approach is to use an open set of resources.
Update of a profile really does sound like an operation that should be idempotent, so you'd like to use PUT if you can. Is there anything wrong with:
GET /user/:id/generalInformation
PUT /user/:id/generalInformation
It's a write, it's idempotent, it's a complete replacement of the generalInformation resource, so the HTTP spec is happy.
Yes, changing the current representation of multiple resources with a single request is valid HTTP. In fact, this is one of the approaches described by RFC 7231
Partial content updates are possible by targeting a separately identified resource with state that overlaps a portion of the larger resource
If you don't like supporting multiple views of a resource and supporting PUT on each, you can apply the same heuristic ("add more resources") by introducing a command queue to handle changes to the underlying model.
GET /user/:id/generalInformation
PUT /changeRequests/:uuid
Up to you whether you want to represent all change requests as entries in the same collection, or having specialized collections of change requests for subsets of operations. Tomato, tomahto.
I'm currently working on ng-admin.
I'm having a problem retrieving user data from my REST API (connected to a MongoDB) and displaying it.
I have identified the problem as the following:
When I enter http://localhost:3000/users into my browser, I get a list of all users in my database.
When I enter http://localhost:3000/users?_page=1&_perPage=30&_sortDir=DESC&_sortField=id,
I get [] as a result.
I am quite new to this, I used both my browser and the POSTMAN Chrome extension to test this and get the same result.
http://localhost:3000/users_end=30&_order=DESC&_sort=id&_start=0
This (/users_end) is a different request than /users.
It should be:
http://localhost:3000/users?end=30&_order=DESC&_sort=id&_start=0
Or, by looking at the other parameters:
http://localhost:3000/users?_end=30&_order=DESC&_sort=id&_start=0
with end or _end being the first parameter (mark the ?).
Update (it is ? and before the _, I have edited.):
If adding parameters to the request returns an empty list, try adding only one at a time to narrow down the problem (there's probably an error in the usage of those parameters - are you sure you need those underscores?).
Your REST API must have a way to handle pagination, sorting, and filtering. But ng-admin cannot determine exactly how, because REST is a style and not a standard. So ng-admin makes assumptions about how your API does that by default, that's why it adds these _end and _sort query parameters.
In order to transform these parameters into those that your API understands, you'll have to add an interceptor. This is all thoroughly explained in the ng-admin documentation: http://ng-admin-book.marmelab.com/doc/API-mapping.html
I am trying to write 2 Rest GET methods.
Get user by Id
Get user by userName.
I need to know if there is any resource naming convention for this. Both my id and username are strings.
I came up with:
/api/{v}/users/{userid}
/api/{v}/users/username/{username}
However, 2) doesn't seem correct and if I change 2) to /api/{v}/users/{username}, I am mapping to 1) as both id and username are strings. Or is it considered acceptable to use /api/{v}/userbyName/{username}?
How should I name my resource route in case 2) ?
First of all: https://vimeo.com/17785736 (15 minutes which will solve all your questions)
And what is unique? Is the username unique or only the id or both are unique?
There is a simple rule for all that:
/collection/item
However, 2) doesn't seem correct and if I change 2) to /api/{v}/users/{username}, I am mapping to 1) as both id and username are strings.
If your item can be identified with an id and also with an unique username - it doesn't matter if it's the username or the id - simply look for both (of course your backend needs to handle that) and retrieve it.
According to your needs this would be correct:
/api/{v}/users/{userid}
/api/{v}/users/{username}
but I would choose only to use: /api/{v}/users/{userid} and filter by username only with a query parameter (description for that down there below)
Also will I break any rules if I come up with
/api/{v}/userbyName/{username}
Yes - /api/{v}/userbyName/{username} will break the rule about /collection/item because userByName is clearly not a collection it would be a function - but with a real restful thinking api there is no function in the path.
Another way to get the user by name would be using a filter/query paramter - so the ID will be available for the PathParameter and the username only as filter. which than would look like this:
/api/{v}/users/?username={username}
This also don't break any rules - because the query parameter simply filters the whole collection and retrieves only the one where username = username.
How should I name my resource route in case 2) ?
Your 2) will break a rule - so I can't/won't suggest you a way to do it like this.
Have a look at this: https://vimeo.com/17785736 this simple presentation will help you a lot about understanding rest.
Why would you go this way?
Ever had a look at a javascript framework like - let's say ember. (Ember Rest-Adapter). If you follow the idea described up there and maybe also have a look at the json format used by ember and their rest adapter - you can make your frontend developer speed up their process and save a lot of money + time.
By REST you send back links, which can contain URI templates. For example: /api/{v}/users/{userid} in your case, where v and userid are template variables. Since the URI structure does not matter from a client perspective you can use whatever structure you want. Ofc. it is more convenient to use nice and short URIs, because it is easier to write the routing with them.
According to the URI standard the path contains the hierarchical while the query contains the non-hierarchical part of the URI, but this is just a loose constraint, in practice ppl use both one.
/api/{v}/users/name/{username}
/api/{v}/users/name:{username}
/api/{v}/users?name="{username}"
Ofc. you can use a custom convention, for example I use the following:
I don't use plural resource name by collections
I end collection path with slash
I use slash by reducing a collection to sub-collections or individual items
I don't use slash to give the value of a variable in the path, I use colon instead
I use as few variables and as short URI as I can
I use query by reducing a collection to sub-collections especially by defining complex filters with logical operators
So in you case my solution would be
/api/{v}/user/
/api/{v}/user/name:{username}
/api/{v}/user/{userid}
and
/api/{v}/user/?firstName="John"
/api/{v}/user/?firstName="John|Susan"&birthYear="1980-2005"
or
/api/{v}/user/firstName:John/
/api/{v}/user/firstName:John|Susan/birthYear:1980-2005/
etc...
But that's just my own set of constraints.
Each resource should have a unique URI.
GET /users/7
{
"id": 7,
"username": "jsmith",
"country": "USA"
}
Finding the user(s) that satisfy a certain predicate should be done with query parameters.
GET /users?username=jsmith
[
"/users/7"
]