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Creating Custom Handlers

Handlers represent the mechanism that backs a resource. Each handler is an object expected to provide:

  • a constructor with an option parameter that can be used to inject any required handler specific configuration.
  • a ready property indicating the handler is ready to process requests.
  • some of the following methods:
  • initialise - when jsonapi-server loads, this is invoked once for every resource using this handler. Its an opportunity to allocate memory, connect to databases, etc.
  • close - for cleaning up upon jsonApi.close() (optional)
  • search - for searching for resources that match some vague parameters.
  • find - for finding a specific resource by id.
  • create - for creating a new instance of a resource.
  • delete - for deleting an existing resource.
  • update - for updating an existing resource.

Failure to provide the above handler functions will result in EFORBIDDEN HTTP errors if the corresponding REST routes are requested.

The rawResource Format

All data stored behind handlers should be stored in a developer-friendly format with both attributes and relations mingled together:

{
  id: "aab14844-97e7-401c-98c8-0bd5ec922d93",
  type: "photos",
  title: "Matrix Code",
  url: "http://www.example.com/foobar",
  photographer: { type: "people", id: "ad3aa89e-9c5b-4ac9-a652-6670f9f27587" }
}

In the above example the photographer attribute is defined as relation to a resource of type people. jsonapi-server will deal with shuffling around and separating those attributes and relations when it needs to. Keep It Simple.

The request Format

All requests are presented to handlers in the following format:

{
  params: {
    // All request parameters get combined into this object. Query params, body params, etc.
    foo: "bar"
  },
  headers: {
    // All HTTP request headers
    host: "localhost:16006",
    connection: "keep-alive"
  },
  route: {
    // Routing information
    host: "localhost:16006",
    path: "/v1/swagger.json",
    query: "foo=bar&baz=1",
    combined: "https://localhost:16006/v1/swagger.json"
  }
}

The error Format

All errors should be provided in the following format:

{
  // The desired HTTP code
  status: "404",
  // A very short identifier for this error
  code: "ENOTFOUND",
  // A short human readable description
  title: "Requested resource does not exist",
  // Some detail to assist debugging
  detail: "There is no "+request.params.type+" with id "+request.params.id
}

constructor

The handler object constructor can, depending on the handler's requirements, expect a object parameter which will contain any properties required for configuring the handler. For example if the handler uses a database for persistence the configuration object will contain the properties required to connect to the database.

ready

The ready property should be set to a truthy value once the handler is ready to process requests (which will usually happen at the end of initialise). If the handler is temporarily unable to process requests this property should be set to a falsy value during the down period.

initialise

initialise is invoked with the resourceConfig of each resource using this handler.

function(resourceConfig) { };

resourceConfig is the complete configuration object passed in to jsonApi.define().

close

close is invoked without any parameters, when jsonApi.close() is called. It should close database connections, file handles, timers, event listeners, etc, as though initialise were never called.

search

search is invoked with a request object (see above).

function(request, callback) { };

the callback should be invoked with with an error or null, [ rawResource ].

search needs to watch for any request.params.relationships parameters, they represent foreign key lookups. An example of this:

request.params.relationships = {
  user: "ad3aa89e-9c5b-4ac9-a652-6670f9f27587"
}

translates to "Find me all of the resources whose user attribute is a link to a resource with id == ad3aa89e-9c5b-4ac9-a652-6670f9f27587".

find

find is invoked with a request object (see above).

function(request, callback) { };

the callback should be invoked with with an error or null, rawResource.

create

create is invoked with a request object (see above) AND a newResource object which is an instance of rawResource representing a validated instance of type request.params.type. The newResource will already have an id and is ready to be stored as per the resource definition.

function(request, newResource, callback) { };

the callback should be invoked with with an error or newResource.

delete

delete is invoked with a request object (see above). It should delete the resource of type request.params.type and id request.params.id.

function(request, callback) { };

the callback should be invoked with with an error or null.

update

update is invoked with a request object (see above) and a partialResource which represents a partial instance of rawResource - the properties of rawResource need to be merged over the original resource and saved.

function(request, partialResource, callback) { };

the callback should be invoked with with an error or null, newUpdatedResource.