HaveAPI

Server-side implementation of the HaveAPI protocol in Ruby in the form of a framework that can be used to create self-descriptive RESTful web APIs. The framework features a DSL aimed at creating API resources, actions and specifying input/output parameters. HaveAPI handles everything from HTTP communication, authentication, parsing of input parameters and formatting output, so that users can focus on their bussiness logic.

Server framework features

• Handles network communication, authentication, authorization, input/output formats and parameters, you need only to define resources and actions
• By writing the code you get the documentation for free
• Auto-generated online HTML documentation
• ORM integration
  • ActiveRecord
    • integrated with controller
    • loads and documents validators from models
    • eager loading
  • easy to support other ORM frameworks

Usage

This text might not be complete or up-to-date, as things still often change. Full use of HaveAPI may be seen in vpsadmin-api (online doc), which may serve as an example of how are things meant to be used.

All resources and actions are represented by classes. They all must be stored in a module, whose name is later given to HaveAPI. HaveAPI then searches all classes in this module and builds your API.

For the purposes of this document, all resources will be in module MyAPI.

Example

This is a basic example, it does not show all options and functions.

Let's assume a model:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :login, :full_name, :role, presence: true
  validates :login, format: {
      with: /[a-zA-Z\.\-]{3,30}/,
      message: 'not a valid login'
  }, uniqueness: true
  validates :role, inclusion: {
    in: %w(admin user),
    message '%{value} is not a valid role'
  }

  # An example authentication with plain text password
  def self.authenticate(username, password)
    u = User.find_by(login: username)

    if u
      u if u.password == password
    end
  end
end

Resource user might look like this:

module MyAPI
  class User < HaveAPI::Resource
    # This resource belongs to version 1.
    # It is also possible to put resource to multiple versions, e.g. [1, 2]
    version 1

    # Provide description for this resource
    desc 'Manage users'

    # ActiveRecord model to load validators from
    model ::User

    # Require authentication, this is the default
    auth true

    # Create a named group of shared params, that may be later included
    # by actions.
    params(:id) do
      id :id, label: 'User ID'
    end

    params(:common) do
      string :login, label: 'Login', desc: 'Used for authentication'
      string :full_name, label: 'Full name'
      string :role, label: 'User role', desc: 'admin or user'
    end

    # Actions
    # Module HaveAPI::Actions::Default contains helper classes that define
    # HTTP methods and routes for generic actions.
    class Index < HaveAPI::Actions::Default::Index
      desc 'List all users'

      # There are no input parameters

      # Output parameters
      output(:object_list) do
        use :id
        use :common
      end

      # Determine if current user can use this action.
      # allow/deny immediately returns from this block.
      # Default rule is deny.
      authorize do |u|
        allow if u.role == 'admin'
        deny  # deny is implicit, so it may be omitted
      end

      # Provide example usage
      example do
        request({})
        response({
          users: [
            {
              id: 1,
              login: 'myuser',
              full_name: 'My Very Name'
            }
          ]
        })
        comment 'Get a list of all users like this'
      end

      # Helper method returning a query for all users
      def query
        ::User.all
      end

      # This method is called if the request has meta[:count] = true
      def count
        query.count
      end

      # Execute action, return the list
      def exec
        with_pagination(query)
      end
    end

    class Create < HaveAPI::Actions::Default::Create
      desc 'Create new user'

      input do
        use :common
      end

      output do
        use :id
        use :common
      end

      authorize do |u|
        allow if u.role == 'admin'
        deny
      end

      example do
        request({
          user: {
            login: 'anotherlogin',
            full_name: 'My Very New Name'
          }
        })
        response({
          user: {
            id: 2
          }
        })
        comment 'Create new user like this'
      end

      def exec
        user = ::User.new(input)

        if user.save
          ok!(user)
        else
          error!('save failed', user.errors.to_hash)
        end
      end
    end
  end
end

What you get

From this piece of code, HaveAPI will generate a self-describing API. It will contain resource User with actions Index and Create, using which you can list existing users and create new ones.

You can use any of the available clients to work with the API.

Run the example

api = HaveAPI::Server.new(MyAPI)

# Use HTTP basic auth
class BasicAuth < HaveAPI::Authentication::Basic::Provider
  def find_user(request, username, password)
      User.authenticate(username, password)
  end
end

api.use_version(:all)
api.auth_chain << BasicAuth
api.mount('/')

api.start!

This should start the application using WEBrick. Check http://localhost:4567.

• GET / - a list of API versions
• GET /doc - HaveAPI documentation
• GET /v1/ - documentation for version 1
• OPTIONS / - description for the whole API
• OPTIONS /v1/ - description for API version 1

and more.

Run with rackup

Use the same code as above, only the last line would be

run api.app

Authentication

HaveAPI defines an interface for creating authentication providers. HTTP basic auth and token providers are built-in.

Authentication options are self-described. A client can choose what authentication method it understands and wants to use.

Authorization

HaveAPI provides means for authorizing user access to actions. This process is not self-described.

If the user is authenticated when requesting self-description, only allowed resources, actions and parameters will be returned.

Validation of input data

Because validators are a part of the API's documentation, the clients can perform client-side validation before the data is sent to the API server.

Blocking actions

Blocking mode is for actions whose execution is not immediate but takes an unspecified amount of time. HaveAPI protocol allows clients to monitor progress of such actions or cancel their execution.

Contributing

1. Fork it ( https://github.com/vpsfreecz/haveapi/fork )
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
5. Create a new Pull Request