Resource

A BEAR.Sunday application is RESTful and is made up of a collection of resources connected by links.

Object as a service

An HTTP method is mapped to a PHP method in the ResourceObject class. It transfers its resource state as a resource representation from stateless request. (Representational State Transfer)

Here are some examples of a resource object:

class Index extends ResourceObject
{
    public $code = 200;
    public $headers = [];

    public function onGet(int $a, int $b) : ResourceObject
    {
        $this->body = [
            'sum' => $a + $b // $_GET['a'] + $_GET['b']
        ] ;

        return $this;
    }
}

class Todo extends ResourceObject
{
    public function onPost(string $id, string $todo) : ResourceObject
    {
        $this->code = 201; // status code
        $this->headers = [ // header
            'Location' => '/todo/new_id'
        ];

        return $this;
    }
}

The PHP resource class has URIs such as page://self/index similar to the URI of the web, and conforms to the HTTP method onGet, onPost, onPut, onPatch, onDelete interface.

$_GET for onGet and $_POST for onPost are passed to the arguments of the method depending on the variable name, and the methods of onPut, onPatch, onDelete are content. The value that can be handled according to content-type(x-www-form-urlencoded or application/json) is an argument.

The resource state (code,headers orbody) is handled by these method using the given parameters. Then the resource class returns itself($this).

URI

URIs are mapped to PHP classes. Applications use the URI instead of the class name to access resources.

Scheme

The equivalent to a MVC model is an app resource. A resource functions as an internal API, but as it is designed using REST it also works as an external API transport. The page resource carries out a similar role as a page controller which is also a resource. Unlike app resources, it receives external requests and generates representations for output.

Method

Resources have 6 interfaces conforming to HTTP methods.¹

GET

Reads resources. This method does not provide any changing of the resource state. A safe method with no possible side affects.

POST

The POST method requests processing of the representation contained in the request. For example, adding a new resource to a target URI or adding a representation to an existing resource. Unlike PUT, requests do not have idempotence, and multiple consecutive executions will not produce the same result.

PUT

Replaces the resource with the payload of the request at the requested URI. If the target resource does not exist, it is created. Unlike POST, there is not idempotent.

PATCH

Performs resource updates, but unlike PUT, it applies a delta rather than replacing the entire resource.

DELETE

Resource deletion. Has idempotence just like PUT.

OPTIONS

Get information on parameters and responses required for resource request. It is as secure as GET method.

List of method properties

Parameters

The response method argument is passed the request value corresponding to the variable name.

class Index extends ResourceObject
{
    // $_GET['id'] to $id
    public function onGet(int $id): static
    {
    }

    // $_POST['name'] to $name
    public function onPost(string $name): static
    {
    }

See Resource Parameters for other methods and how to pass external variables such as cookies as parameters.

Rendering and transfer

The request method of a ResourceObject is not concerned with the representation of the resource. The injected renderer generates the representation of the resource and the responder outputs it. See Rendering and Transferring for details.

Client

Use the resource client to request other resources. This request executes a request to the app://self/blog/posts resource with the query ?id=1.

use BEAR\Sunday\Inject\ResourceInject;

class Index extends ResourceObject
{
    use ResourceInject;

    public function onGet() : ResourceObject
    {
        $this->body = [
            'posts' => $this->resource->get('app://self/blog/posts', ['id' => 1])
        ];
    }
}

Other historical notations include the following

// PHP 5.x and up
$posts = $this->resource->get->uri('app://self/posts')->withQuery(['id' => 1])->eager->request();
// PHP 7.x and up
$posts = $this->resource->get->uri('app://self/posts')(['id' => 1]);
// you can omit `get`
$posts = $this->resource->uri('app://self/posts')(['id' => 1]);
// bear/resource 1.11 and up
$posts = $this->resource->get('app://self/posts', ['id' => 1]);

Lazy evaluation

The above is an eager request that makes the request immediately, but it is also possible to generate a request and delay execution instead of the request result.

$request = $this->resource->get('app://self/posts'); // callable
$posts = $request(['id' => 1]);

When this request is embedded in a template or resource, it is evaluated lazily. That is, when it is not evaluated, the request is not made and has no execution cost.

$this->body = [
    'lazy' => $this->resource->get('app://self/posts')->withQuery(['id' => 3])->requrest();
];

Cache

Along with regular TTL caching, we support REST client caching and advanced partial caching (doughnut caching), including CDN. See cache for details. Also see the previous resource(v1) document for the previous @Cacheable annotation.

Link

One important REST constraint is resource linking; ResourceObject supports both internal and external linking. See Resource Linking for details.

BEAR.Resource

The functionality of the BEAR.Sunday resource object is also available in a stand-alone package for stand-alone use: BEAR.Resource README.