A generic Laravel Resource and ResourceCollection

Basic use

  use Alcidesrh\Generic\GenericResource;

  $user = User::find(1);

  // It will only return the id and name fields.
  return new GenericResource( $user, ['id', 'name']);

This package can help you to return data as a traditional Laravel Resource without making a Resource or ResourceCollection for every single Model.

Table of Contents

1. Requirements
2. Installation
3. Usage
   • GenericResource
   • GenericResourceCollection
   • GenericController
     • Route namespace and pagination configuration

Requirements

-Laravel >= 5
-php >= 7.0

Installation

composer require alcidesrh/laravel-generic-resource

Working with nested or related models

Supose the User class has a parent property of type User class as well, a belongsTo relation with itself. And also has a belongsToMany relation with Product class. So $user->parent returns an intance of User class and $user->products a collection of intances of Product class.

Let say we want a list of users with just these fields: id, name, parent (only the id and name fields of the parent) and products list (only the id, name and price fields of the product). This is how we can get only those data:

  use Alcidesrh\Generic\GenericResource;

  $user = User::find(1);
  return new GenericResource( $user, [
      'id',
      'name',
      'parent' => ['id', 'name'],
      'products' => ['id', 'name', 'price']
  ]);

You can add many nested level as the relations allow:

    ...
    'products' => [
      'id',
      'name',
      'price',
      'order' => [
        'id',
        'created_at',
        'company' => [
          'id',
          'name'
        ]
      ]
    ]

Important: In order to return nested relations data it is required make the query through the model's Facade.

    // this will work
    new GenericResource( User::find(1), ['id', 'name'] );

    // this will work
    new GenericResource( User::find(1), ['id', 'name', 'parent' => ['id', 'name']] );

    // this will work
    new GenericResource( DB::table('users')->where('id', 1)->first(), ['id', 'name'] )

    // this won't
    new GenericResource( DB::table('users')->where('id', 1)->first(), [
        'id',
        'name',
        'parent' => ['id', 'name']
        // it can not be access the parent property since the object retrieved is an stdClass type
    ] );

Note:

• If the second argument (the array of fields to get) is not supplied, all fields of the model will be returned.
• If one of the fields to return doesn't exist in the model, will be omitted in the result array.

GenericResourceCollection

   use Alcidesrh\Generic\GenericResourceCollection;

   $users = User::where('active', 1);
   // it will return a collection of user with only the id and name fields.
   return new GenericResourceCollection( $users->paginate( $perPage ), ['id', 'name']);

   //you can pass nested property as well as in the GenericResource
   return new GenericResourceCollection( $users->paginate( $perPage ), [
       'id',
       'name',
       'parent' => ['id', 'name'],
       'products' => ['id', 'name', 'price']
   ]);

Note: Both GenericResource and GenericResourceCollection classes were made following the guide line from the official Laravel's Api Resources documentation with some extra code to make it generic. So you can expect the same structure and behavior.

GenericController

The main goal of this package is to provide GenericResource and GenericResourceCollection. However this package also provides a GenericController which can be used to fetch data that doesn't require a complex query or transformation, and it will return a GenericResource or GenericResourceCollection only with the fields that were requested or all fields if none was requested.

It can help to prevent overloading the app with routes and controller functions for every small and simple data portion required dynamically in the front-end via ajax.

The GenericController has five routes:

Method: POST /generic/list
Method: POST /generic/create
Method: POST /generic/update
Method: POST /generic/item
Method: POST /generic/delete

/generic/list get a list. It return a GenericResourceCollection

axios.post("/generic/list", {
  // table to query
  table: "users",
  // page to return
  page: 1,
  // item per page
  itemsPerPage: 10,
  // fileds to return
  fields: ["id", "name", "created_at", "role_id", "email", "company_id"],
  // where clause: rule is column: value or column: {operator: someoperator, value: somevalue}
  // operator value should be some of these: '=', '!=', '<', '<=', '>', '>=', '<>', 'like', 'contain'
  where: {
    // will generate ( created_at > '2021-03-11 20:26:00.0' )
    created_at: { operator: ">", value: "2020-09-11 20:26:00.0" },
    // will generate ( email_verified_at IS NOT NULL )
    email_verified_at: { operator: "!=", value: null },
    // when the operator's parameter is omitted the default operator will be '=', will generate ( role_id = 2 )
    role_id: 2,
    // the non-existent 'contain' will generate ( email LIKE %legendary% AND email LIKE %zangetsu% )
    // this example zangetsu.ins@company.com and jhon.legendary.dc@company.com will match
    email: { operator: "contain", value: ["legendary", "zangetsu"] },
  },
  //orWhere clause accept same rules as simple where with one more
  orWhere: {
    // you can pass an array as a value, it will generate (role_id = 1 OR role_id = 2)
    role_id: [1, 2],
    // will generate (role_id != 1 OR role_id != 2)
    role_id: { operator: "!=", value: [1, 2] },
  },
  whereIn: {
    // return items with those ids
    id: [1, 23, 35],
  },
  whereNotIn: {
    // return items with neither of these ids
    id: [1, 23, 35],
  },
  whereBetween: {
    // return items with price between 25 and 35
    price: [25, 35],
  },
  // return items with price less than 25 and greater than 35
  whereNotBetween: {
    id: [25, 35],
  },
  // order by id ascendingly of course the value can be DESC
  orderBy: {
    id: "ASC",
  },
});

Note: It is not posible to ask for nested relations data in the fields parameter above due the generic nature of the query. DB Facade is used to make the query, which returns stdClass type.

/generic/create create an item. It will return a GenericResource

axios.post("/generic/create", {
  table: "roles",
  // fields to return in the GenericResource once created
  fields: ["id", "name"],
  // values: pair column: value
  values: {
    name: "Admin",
    slug: "admin",
  },
  // can insert many in one request
  many: [
    {
      name: "User editor",
      slug: "user-editor",
    },
    {
      name: "Forum admin",
      slug: "forum-admin",
    },
  ],
});

/generic/update update an item. It will return a GenericResource

axios
.post("/generic/update", {
  table: "roles",
  // id of the item to update
  id: 3,
  // many ids to update many items with the same values in one request.
  many: [35, 36, 37]
  // fields to return in the GenericResource once updated
  fields: ["id", "name"],
  // values: pair column: value
  values: {
    name: "Room Admin",
    slug: "room-admin",
  },
});

/generic/item to get an item. It will return a GenericResource

axios.post("/generic/delete", {
  table: "user",
  // id of the item to delete
  id: 3,
  //fields to return in the GenericResource
  fields: ["id", "name", "slug"],
});

/generic/delete delete an item

axios
.post("/generic/delete", {
  table: "user",
  // id of the item to delete
  id: 3,
});

Route namespace and pagination configuration

Once installed runing console command php artisan vendor:publish will publish the package's configuration. It can also be done manually copy /vendor/alcidesrh/generic-resource.php to /config

/config/generic-resource.php

return [

    /*
    |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    | Laravel generic Resource package configuration
    |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    |
     */
    // configure route and prefix
    // e.g. to have this route https://yourdomain/products/items for items list
    // change 'prefix' key value to 'products' and 'list_route_name' key value to 'items'
    'route' => [

        //Route's prefix for generic CRUD(create, read, update and delete) operations
        //Deafault 'generic' e.g.: axios.post( 'https://yourdomain/generic' )
        'prefix' => 'generic',

        //Route for list of generic items.
        //Deafault 'list' e.g. axios.post( 'https://yourdomain/generic/list' )
        'list_route_name' => 'list',

        //Route to create an item.
        //Deafault 'create' e.g. axios.post( 'https://yourdomain/generic/create', {table: 'users', values: [ {username: 'whatever', role_id: 1}], field: [id, username] } )
        'create_route_name' => 'create',

        //Route to update an item.
        //Deafault 'update'  e.g. axios.post( 'https://yourdomain/generic/update', {table: 'users', id: 1, values: [ {username: 'whatever', role_id: 1}], field: [id, username] } )
        'update_route_name' => 'update',

        //Route to get an item.
        //Deafault 'item' e.g. axios.post( 'https://yourdomain/generic/item', {table: 'users', fields: [ {username: 'whatever', role_id: 1}] } )
        'show_route_name' => 'item',

        //Route to delete a generic item.
        //Deafault 'delete' e.g. axios.post( 'https://yourdomain/generic/delete', {table: 'users', id: 1} )
        'delete_route_name' => 'delete',
    ],
    // configure pagination items per page and parameters names.
    'pagination' => [

        //Items per page. Default 20.
        'itemsPerPage' => 20,

        //Name of the param of the current page e.g. axios.post( 'https://yourdomain/generic/delete', {table: 'users', page: 1} )
        'name_param_page' => 'page',

        //Name of the param of the number of items per page e.g. axios.post( 'https://yourdomain/generic/list', {table: 'users', page: 1, itemsPerPage: 30} )
        'name_param_item_per_page' => 'itemsPerPage',
    ],
];

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License

This Generic Resource package for Laravel is open-sourced software licensed under the MIT license