JSON:API Resource for Laravel

A lightweight JSON Resource for Laravel that helps you adhere to the JSON:API standard and also implements features such as sparse fieldsets and compound documents.

These docs are not designed to introduce you to the JSON:API spec and the associated concepts, instead you should head over and read the spec if you are not familiar with it. The documentation that follows only contains information on how to implement the specification via the package.

Version support

• PHP: 7.4, 8.0, 8.1
• Laravel: 8.0

Installation

You can install using composer from Packagist.

composer require timacdonald/json-api

Basic usage

This package is an specialisation of Laravel's JsonResource class. All the underlying API's are still there, thus in your controller you can still interact with JsonApiResource classes as you would with the base JsonResource class, e.g.

<?php

class UserController
{
    public function index()
    {
        return UserResource::collection(User::paginate());
    }

    public function show(User $user)
    {
        return UserResource::make($user);
    }
}

The internal developer facing API however has changed in that you no longer interact with the toArray($request) method, instead this package exposes some new methods to interact with. More on those shortly.

Resource Identification

JSON:API docs: Identification

We have defined a sensible default for you so you can hit the ground running without having to fiddle with the small stuff.

The "id" and "type" of a resource is automatically resolved for you under-the-hood if you are using resources solely with Eloquent models.

"id" is resolved by calling the $model->getKey() method and the "type" is resolved by using a camel case of the model's table name, e.g. blog_posts becomes blogPosts.

You can customise how this works to support other types of objects and behaviours, but that will follow in the advanced usage section.

Nice. Well that was easy, so let's move onto...

Resource Attributes

JSON:API docs: Attributes

To provide a set of attributes for a resource, you can implement the toAttributes(Request $request) method...

<?php

class UserResource extends JsonApiResource
{
    protected function toAttributes(Request $request): array
    {
        return [
            'name' => $this->name,
            'email' => $this->email,
        ];
    }
}

The advanced usage section covers sparse fieldsets and handling expensive attribute calculation and minimal attribute payloads, but you can ignore those advanced features for now and continue on with...

Resource Relationships

JSON:API docs: Relationships

Just like we saw with attributes above, we can specify relationships that should be available on the resource by using the toRelationships(Request $request) method, however with relationships you should always wrap the values in a Closure.

<?php

class UserResource extends JsonApiResource
{
    protected function toRelationships(Request $request): array
    {
        return [
            'posts' => fn () => PostResource::collection($this->posts),
            'subscription' => fn () => SubscriptionResource::make($this->subscription),
            'profileImage' => fn () => optional($this->profileImage, fn (ProfileImage $profileImage) => ProfileImageResource::make($profileImage)),
            // if the relationship has been loaded and is null, can we not just return the resource still and have a nice default? That way you never have to handle any of this 
            // optional noise?
            // also is there a usecase for returning a resource linkage right from here and not a full resource?
        ];
    }
}

Note: "links" and "meta" are not yet supported for relationships, but they are WIP. Resource linkage "meta" is not yet implemented. Let me know if you have a use-case you'd like to use it for!

Each Closure is only resolved when the relationship has been included by the client...

Including relationships

JSON:API docs: Inclusion of Related Resources

As previously mentioned, relationships are not included in the response unless the calling client requests them. To do this, the calling client needs to "include" them by utilising the include query parameter.

# Include the posts...
/api/users/8?include=posts

# Include the subscription...
/api/users/8?include=subscription

# Include both...
/api/users/8?include=posts,subscription

Resource Links

JSON:API docs: Links

To provide links for a resource, you can implement the toLinks(Request $request) method...

<?php

use TiMacDonald\JsonApi\Link;

class UserResource extends JsonApiResource
{
    protected function toLinks(Request $request): array
    {
        return [
            Link::self(route('users.show', $this->resource)),
            'related' => 'https://example.com/related'
        ];
    }
}

Resource Meta

JSON:API docs: Meta

To provide meta information for a resource, you can implement the toMeta(Request $request) method...

<?php

class UserResource extends JsonApiResource
{
    protected function toMeta(Request $request): array
    {
        return [
            'resourceDeprecated' => true,
        ];
    }
}

Refactoring to the JSON:API standard

If you have an existing API that utilises Laravel's JsonApiResource or other values that you would like to migrate over to the JSON:API standard via this package, it might be a big job. For this reason, we've enabled you to migrate piece by piece so you can slowly refactor your API.

From a relationship Closure you can return anything. If what you return is not a JsonApiResource or JsonApiResourceCollection, then the value will be "inlined" in the relationships object.

<?php

class UserResource extends JsonApiResource
{
    protected function toRelationships(Request $request): array
    {
        return [
            'nonJsonApiResource' => fn (): JsonResource => LicenseResource::make($this->license),
        ];
    }
}

Here is what that response might look like. Notice that the resource is "inlined" and is not moved out to the "included" section of the payload.

{
    "data": {
        "id": "1",
        "type": "users",
        "attributes": {},
        "relationships": {
            "nonJsonApiResource": {
                "id": "5", 
                "key": "4h29kaKlWja)99ja72kafj&&jalkfh",
                "created_at": "2020-01-04 12:44:12"
            }
        },
        "meta": {},
        "links": {}
    },
    "included": []
}

Rationale behind inclusion of all top level object keys

// TODO

Advanced usage

Resource Identification

Customising the resource "id"

You can customise the resolution of the id by specifying an id resolver in your service provider.

<?php

class AppServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
{
    public function boot()
    {
        JsonApiResource::resolveIdUsing(function (mixed $resource, Request $request): string {
            // your custom resolution logic...
        });
    }
}

Although it is not recommended, you can also override the toId(Request $request): string method on a resource by resource basis.

Customising the resource "type"

You can customise the resolution of the type by specifying a type resolver in your service provider.

<?php

class AppServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
{
    public function boot()
    {
        JsonApiResource::resolveTypeUsing(function (mixed $resource, Request $request): string {
            // your custom resolution logic...
        });
    }
}

Although it is not recommended, you can also override the toType(Request $request): string method on a resource by resource basis.

Resource Attributes

Sparse fieldsets

JSON:API docs: Sparse fieldsets

Without any work, your response supports sparse fieldsets. If you are utilising sparse fieldsets and have some attributes that are expensive to create, it is a good idea to wrap them in a Closure. Under the hood, we only resolve the Closure if the attribute is to be included in the response.

<?php

class UserResource extends JsonResource
{
    protected function toAttributes(Request $request): array
    {
        return [
            'name' => $this->name,
            'email' => $this->email,
            'profile_image' => fn () => base64_encode(
                // don't really download a file like this. It's just an example of a slow operation...
                file_get_contents('https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/'.md5($this->email)),
            ),
        ];
    }
}

The Closure is only resolved when the attribute is going to be included in the response, which can improve performance of requests that don't require the returned value.

# The Closure is not resolved...
/api/users/8?fields[users]=name,email

# The Closure is resolved...
/api/users/8?fields[users]=name,profile_image

Minimal Resource Attributes

Out of the box the resource provides a maximal attribute payload when sparse fieldsets are not used i.e. all declared attributes in the resource are returned. If you prefer to instead make it that spare fieldsets are required in order to retrieve any attributes, you can specify the use of minimal attributes in your applications service provider.

<?php

class AppServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
{
    public function boot()
    {
        JsonApiResource::minimalAttributes();

        // ...
    }
}

Resource Relationships

JSON:API docs: Inclusion of Related Resources

Relationships can be resolved deeply and also multiple relationship paths can be included. Of course you should be careful about n+1 issues, which is why we recommend using this package in conjunction with Spatie's Query Builder.

# Including deeply nested relationships
/api/posts/8?include=author.comments

# Including multiple relationship paths
/api/posts/8?include=comments,author.comments

Support

• We do not promise named parameter support.
• If a method is not documented in these docs, you should assume it is an internal API that can change at any time.

Credits

• Tim MacDonald
• Jess Archer for co-creating our initial in-house version and the brainstorming
• All Contributors

And a special (vegi) thanks to Caneco for the logo ✨

Coming soon...

• [ ] Handle loading relations on a already in memory object with Spatie Query builder (PR)
• [ ] Investigate collection count support
• [ ] a contract that other classes can implement to support the JSON:API spec as relationships? Can we have it work at a top level as well? Would that even make sense? Maybe be providing a toResponse implementation?

To document

• [ ] Document loading things via Spatie Query Builder
• [ ] ->when() stuff for attributes and relationships
• [ ] document how you could handle type mapping in config file class > type
• [ ] caching
• [ ] flushing the cache
• [ ] caching id and type
• [ ] caching includes and fields
• [ ] how it clears itself on toResponse
• [ ] that the goal is to have a consistent output at all levels, hence the maximal dataset for empty values
• [ ] Link object and meta

Not yet supported

• [ ] Top level links & meta - how would you modify this for a collection? Top level links need to merge with pagination links
  • [ ] decide how to handle top level keys for single and collections (static? should collections have to be extended to specify the values? or can there be static methods on the single resource for the collection?)
• [ ] returning a resource as null as the Laravel resource does not support this. Is possible to support locally, but it might be unexpected. Perhaps a PR to Laravel is best?
• [ ] Responses that contain only resource identifiers (related)
• [ ] 400 when requesting relationships that are not present.