S3XRC | S3 RESTful API | S3Resource

S3Resource Class

Introduction

Resources are dynamic, document-alike representations of data objects on the Eden server. As such, they can represent both single instances as well as structured sets of data objects.

Note: in the database context, a single instance of a data object is typically called a record (or row), with fields (or columns) as its atomic elements. However, even though S3Resources are typically bound to a relational database and therefore the record/field terminology is often used in this regard, they are not intended to provide any object-relational mapping (ORM).

S3Resources implement an extensible, multi-format ​RESTful API to retrieve and manipulate data on the Eden server by ​HTTP requests, where every resource can be addressed by an individual ​URL.

In the context of the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture, S3Resources are controller-generated objects. Typically, the controller generates a resource in response to an incoming HTTP request and returns a view of it (output) to the client:

Terminology

A S3Resource consists of elements which can be either resources themselves (container type) or data (atomic types).

Container type elements within a resource can be:

• primary resources (independent data objects)
• component resources (objects which are part of a primary object)
• referenced resources (objects which are referenced by primary or component resources)

RESTful API

Flow Diagram

Description

The s3_rest_controller function is a helper function which easily apply the RESTful API over your controller. Every time user request for a resource the s3_rest_controller function is called and return an output which then is passed to the view. The above diagram explains how a s3_rest_controller responds to request and gives the generate the desired output.

• So first s3_rest_controller function parse the request object to S3Request class to generate S3Request object (r) having following attributes S3Request
• During this process S3Resource or r.resource is also generated

• Then different method handlers are configured using set_handler function.

• After that S3Request is executed, During execution first thing that occur is a check for any hook to prep function, prep is defined to get s3rest functionality, prep hook would allow you to change the handler configuration in certain situations.

• Then method handler is determined , i.e the GET,POST,PUT,DELETE or other custom method
• Then the handler are executed to get the desired output,If the no handlers are present , then the S3CRUD method is called which fills the output with create, update , list or delete form.

• And then a check for any hook to postprocessor occurs.

• Then some action buttons are added and the output is send to the view.

In case of interactive views output would be a dictionary with components that are then passed to the view, this could also contain a form.

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