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Building RESTful APIs with Laravel API Resources

August 21, 2024   Laravel

In today’s development landscape, APIs play a crucial role in enabling communication between different software systems. Laravel, a powerful PHP framework, provides a robust way to build APIs using API Resources. In this guide, we’ll explore how to create clean, reusable RESTful APIs in Laravel using API Resources, complete with practical examples to help you get started.

1. What Are Laravel API Resources?

Laravel API Resources provide a simple and flexible way to transform your Eloquent models into JSON responses. They help in structuring your API responses by converting models and their collections into well-defined, readable formats. This ensures that your API responses are consistent and maintainable.

2. Setting Up Laravel API Resources

To start using API Resources in Laravel, you’ll first need to create a resource class. Laravel makes this easy with an Artisan command:

php artisan make:resource UserResource

This command creates a new resource class in the app/Http/Resources directory.

3. Transforming Data with API Resources

Let’s say you have a User model and you want to structure its API response. Open the newly created UserResource class:

namespace App\Http\Resources;

use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use Illuminate\Http\Resources\Json\JsonResource;

class UserResource extends JsonResource
{
    /**
     * Transform the resource into an array.
     *
     * @return array
     */
    public function toArray(Request $request)
    {
        return [
            'id' => $this->id,
            'name' => $this->name,
            'email' => $this->email,
            'created_at' => $this->created_at->toDateString(),
        ];
    }
}

Here, we define how the User model’s data will be transformed when sent in the API response. You can include only the fields you want to expose and even format them as needed.

4. Returning API Resources from Controllers

Once the resource class is defined, you can return it from your controller:

use App\Http\Resources\UserResource;
use App\Models\User;

class UserController extends Controller
{
    public function show($id)
    {
        $user = User::findOrFail($id);
        return new UserResource($user);
    }
}

This will ensure that the API response is formatted according to the UserResource class.

5. Using API Resource Collections

For endpoints that return multiple records, such as a list of users, you can use a resource collection. Laravel provides an easy way to handle this:

php artisan make:resource UserCollection

In the UserCollection class:

namespace App\Http\Resources;

use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use Illuminate\Http\Resources\Json\ResourceCollection;

class UserCollection extends ResourceCollection
{
    /**
     * Transform the resource collection into an array.
     *
     * @return array
     */
    public function toArray(Request $request)
    {
        return [
            'data' => $this->collection,
            'meta' => [
                'total_users' => $this->collection->count(),
            ],
        ];
    }
}

use App\Http\Resources\UserCollection;

class UserController extends Controller
{
    public function index()
    {
        $users = User::all();
        return new UserCollection($users);
    }
}

public function with(Request $request)
{
    return [
        'links' => [
            'self' => route('users.show', $this->id),
        ],
    ];
}

public function toArray(Request $request)
{
    return [
        'id' => $this->id,
        'name' => $this->name,
        'email' => $this->when($this->email_verified_at, $this->email),
        'created_at' => $this->created_at->toDateString(),
    ];
}

$users = User::with('posts')->get();
return UserResource::collection($users);