Zend Framework And RESTful Web Service

Sat, 03/20/2010 - 15:14 — dolly

REST web api is not a new toy today. One of public service that user RESTful Architecture is twitter. On Zend Framework, we can implement RESTful easily. Just make action that related with HTTP method used.

getAction()  => handle request with HTTP GET
postAction() => handle request with HTTP POST
putAction()  => handle request with HTTP PUT
deleteAction()  => handle request with HTTP DELETE

For more details, please see these steps

Add Zend_Rest_Route Router on Front Controller
To add Zend_Rest_Route, you can add these code on bootstrap (application/Bootstrap.php)

<?php
protected function _initRestRoute()
{
    $this->bootstrap('frontController');
    $frontController = Zend_Controller_Front::getInstance();
    $restRoute = new Zend_Rest_Route($frontController);
    $frontController->getRouter()->addRoute('default', $restRoute);
}
?>

Those code above will make the controller on application/ can be used for RESTful. To make RESTful on specific modules, just check Zend_Controller_Router documentation

Extends Controller From Zend_Rest_Controller
Make controller application/controllers/SampleController.php with extends from Zend_Rest_Controller. This controller will have 5 controller (indexAction(), getA ction(), postAction(), putAction(), deleteAction()). Those all are inheritance from Zend_Rest_Controller.

<?php
class SampleController extends Zend_Rest_Controller
{
    public function init()
    {
        /* Initialize action controller here */
    }

    public function indexAction()
    {
        echo "Get all data", PHP_EOL;
        $this->_helper->viewRenderer->setNoRender(true);
    }

    public function getAction()
    {
        echo "Get data with ID " . $this->_request->get('id'), PHP_EOL;
        $this->_helper->viewRenderer->setNoRender(true);
    }

    public function postAction()
    {
        echo "Add new data ", PHP_EOL;
        print_r($_POST);
        $this->_helper->viewRenderer->setNoRender(true);
    }

    public function putAction()
    {
        echo "Update data with ID " . $this->_request->get('id'), PHP_EOL;
        $this->_helper->viewRenderer->setNoRender(true);
    }

    public function deleteAction()
    {
        echo "Delete data with ID " . $this->_request->get('id'), PHP_EOL;
        $this->_helper->viewRenderer->setNoRender(true);
    }
}
?>

Let us test our code with curl or if you want to use GUI application can use rest-client

$ curl -X GET http://localhost/rest/sample/
Get all data
 
$ curl -X GET http://localhost/rest/sample/id/1
Get data with ID 1
 
$ curl -X DELETE http://localhost/rest/sample/id/1
Delete data with ID 1
 
$ curl -X POST -d "var=value" http://localhost/rest/sample
Add new data
Array
(
     [var] => value
)
 
$ curl -X PUT -d "var=value"  http://localhost/rest/sample/id/1
Update data with ID 1

We have see RESTful usage on Zend Framework. Basically, to receive data that sent use HTTP PUT is a litle difficult. To receive them easily, just add this code in _initRestRoute() method on application/Bootsrap.php

<?php
  $frontController->registerPlugin(new Zend_Controller_Plugin_PutHandler());
?>

With add code above, data that be sent with HTTP PUT can be acessed as parameter on controller with use getParam() method. Add this code on putAction() in application/controllers/SampleController.php

<?php
  echo $this->_request->getParam('var'), PHP_EOL;
?>

Let us test again with use HTTP PUT

$ curl -X PUT -d "var=value" UPDATE http://localhost/rest/sample/id/1
Update data with ID 1
value

From test above, we can see that putAction() display value from var variable that we sent.

Comments

Tue, 02/22/2011 - 01:05 — David (not verified)

Thank you for the tutorial.

Thank you for the tutorial. It is very helpful to understand RESTfull Service.
Could you explain why I got the following curl: (6) message?
>curl -X POST -d "var=value" POST http://rest.local/sample
curl: (6) Could not resolve hot: POST; Host not found
Add new data
Array
(
[var] => value
)

Mon, 02/28/2011 - 01:13 — dolly

Sorry, that is typo. The

Sorry, that is typo.
The second POST shouldn't exist.
And here the correct command

curl -X POST -d "var=value" http://rest.local/sample

Thanks

Mon, 03/21/2011 - 17:06 — doremifasolati (not verified)

This is exactly what I was

This is exactly what I was thinking and i'm looking for more at google

Sat, 03/26/2011 - 15:45 — SandyHJbgft (not verified)

HelloGuys! Nice to be here.

HelloGuys!
Nice to be here. Check this out for PHP Developers.
Providing some special features in php web development.

Tue, 10/04/2011 - 21:12 — mahefa (not verified)

Hi guys I try to made a REST

Hi guys

I try to made a REST client/server application and I have some problems when I try to set up PUT method

here is the server side code
public function putAction() { $server = new Zend_Rest_Server(); $server->setClass('Application_Model_WsServer'); $server->handle(); }

and the client
$client = new Zend_Rest_Client('http://ws.example.com/article/id/2'); $result = $client->put(); print_r($result);

I get the following error message
"No Method Specified"

So I put the method name and param in the url as GET param like 'http://ws.example.com/article/id/2?method=method&param=param1'
and it works

My questions are: is it correct to do that ? if not, what is the other way ?

thx