5. Creating Resources
Introduction
In this chapter, we will learn how to create resources using the JSON:API specification. By the end of the chapter, you will be able to create a posts resource.
Create Requests
In JSON:API, requests to create a resource use the POST method. The request must have a Content-Type header of application/vnd.api+json - which is the JSON:API media type.
The request body must be a JSON:API document, with the new resource contained in the data member of the JSON body. The resource contained in the data member must have a type indicating the resource type it represents, and then can have attributes and relationships representing the resource's fields.
Putting this all together, our request to create a new post in our blog application will look like this:
POST http://localhost/api/v1/posts?include=author,tags HTTP/1.1
Accept: application/vnd.api+json
Content-Type: application/vnd.api+json
{
"data": {
"type": "posts",
"attributes": {
"content": "In our second blog post, you will learn how to create resources using the JSON:API specification.",
"publishedAt": null,
"slug": "creating-jsonapi-resources",
"title": "How to Create JSON:API Resources"
},
"relationships": {
"tags": {
"data": [
{
"type": "tags",
"id": "2"
}
]
}
}
}
}TIP
Notice that for the relationships, all we need to do is send the resource identifier of the related resource we want to associate to this new post. The resource identifier is the type and id of the related resource.
Before we attempt this request, there's a few things we need to setup for our posts resource so that it can handle the create request.
Validation
When receiving the request to create a resource, one thing our server will need to do is validate the JSON that the client has sent. In Laravel JSON:API, we do this using a request class - which will be PostRequest for our posts resource.
Generate the request class by running the following command:
vendor/bin/sail artisan jsonapi:request postsThis will generate the app/JsonApi/V1/Posts/PostRequest.php file, which looks like this:
namespace App\JsonApi\V1\Posts;
use Illuminate\Validation\Rule;
use LaravelJsonApi\Laravel\Http\Requests\ResourceRequest;
use LaravelJsonApi\Validation\Rule as JsonApiRule;
class PostRequest extends ResourceRequest
{
/**
* Get the validation rules for the resource.
*
* @return array
*/
public function rules(): array
{
return [
// @TODO
];
}
}All we need to do is add our validation rules to the rules() method. Update that in your PostRequest class to look like this:
public function rules(): array
{
return [
- // @TODO
+ 'content' => ['required', 'string'],
+ 'publishedAt' => ['nullable', JsonApiRule::dateTime()],
+ 'slug' => ['required', 'string', Rule::unique('posts', 'slug')],
+ 'tags' => JsonApiRule::toMany(),
+ 'title' => ['required', 'string'],
];
}Notice that the keys of our validation rules do not need to specify the full path of each field. E.g. instead of data.attributes.title we just use title. The same applies to relationships. Instead of data.relationships.tags.data we just use tags.
And that's all we need to do to setup our validator. It's worth mentioning that in Laravel JSON:API you must always create validation rules for any resource that can be created or modified. This is because only validated data will be filled into the model - which is standard good practice for any Laravel application.
The Author Relationship
You may remember that our Post model has an author relationship, that represents the user who wrote the blog post. However, in our create request (above) we have not specified the author relationship in the JSON body.
This is because it would make sense for the application to automatically assign the authenticated user as the author of a post when the model is created. This is easy to add in our application using the model creating event.
Open the app/JsonApi/V1/Server.php class, and update it as follows:
namespace App\JsonApi\V1;
+use App\Models\Post;
+use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Auth;
use LaravelJsonApi\Core\Server\Server as BaseServer;
class Server extends BaseServer
{
/**
* The base URI namespace for this server.
*
* @var string
*/
protected string $baseUri = '/api/v1';
/**
* Bootstrap the server when it is handling an HTTP request.
*
* @return void
*/
public function serving(): void
{
- // no-op
+ Post::creating(static function (Post $post): void {
+ $post->author()->associate(Auth::user());
+ });
}
/**
* Get the server's list of schemas.
*
* @return array
*/
protected function allSchemas(): array
{
return [
Comments\CommentSchema::class,
Posts\PostSchema::class,
Tags\TagSchema::class,
Users\UserSchema::class,
];
}
}Creating a Post Resource
Let's give the request a go:
POST http://localhost/api/v1/posts?include=author,tags HTTP/1.1
Accept: application/vnd.api+json
Content-Type: application/vnd.api+json
{
"data": {
"type": "posts",
"attributes": {
"content": "In our second blog post, you will learn how to create resources using the JSON:API specification.",
"publishedAt": null,
"slug": "creating-jsonapi-resources",
"title": "How to Create JSON:API Resources"
},
"relationships": {
"tags": {
"data": [
{
"type": "tags",
"id": "2"
}
]
}
}
}
}You'll see we get the following response:
HTTP/1.0 405 Method Not Allowed
Content-Type: application/vnd.api+json
{
"jsonapi": {
"version": "1.0"
},
"errors": [
{
"detail": "The POST method is not supported for this route. Supported methods: GET, HEAD.",
"status": "405",
"title": "Method Not Allowed"
}
]
}This tells us there is no POST route defined - so we need to add this to our routes.
Routing
Open the app/routes/api.php file and make the following changes:
JsonApiRoute::server('v1')->prefix('v1')->resources(function (ResourceRegistrar $server) {
$server->resource('posts', JsonApiController::class)
- ->readOnly()
+ ->only('index', 'show', 'store')
->relationships(function (Relationships $relations) {
$relations->hasOne('author')->readOnly();
$relations->hasMany('comments')->readOnly();
$relations->hasMany('tags')->readOnly();
});
});The readOnly() method we were previously using is a short-hand for only registering the index and show routes. (We haven't looked at the index route yet, but we will in a future chapter.) So we've removed this and instead used only() to allow the index, show and store actions - with store being the action to create a resource.
Retry your request, and you should now see the following response:
HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized
Content-Type: application/vnd.api+json
{
"jsonapi": {
"version": "1.0"
},
"errors": [
{
"detail": "Unauthenticated.",
"status": "401",
"title": "Unauthorized"
}
]
}This tells us we need to update our authentication logic. Let's do that now.
Authentication
Open the app/Policies/PostPolicy.php file, and make the following changes to the create() method:
/**
* Determine whether the user can create models.
*
* @param \App\Models\User $user
* @return \Illuminate\Auth\Access\Response|bool
*/
public function create(User $user)
{
- //
+ return true;
}This says that any user can create a blog. Notice the $user parameter is not type-hinted as nullable. This means that there must be an authenticated user. I.e. if a guest attempted to create a post, the request would be rejected.
That's sensible logic for our blog application, because we must have an authenticated user to set the author relationship on the Post model when it is created.
When reattempting our request to create the post, we will need to be authenticated. The Laravel application you created has Laravel's Sanctum package installed. You can read up on that package in the Laravel documentation - all we need to know here is it allows us to send a token with our request to authenticate a user.
Firstly, we need to tell our API to use the sanctum guard when authenticating requests. To do this, open the app/JsonApi/V1/Server.php class and modify the serving() method:
public function serving(): void
{
+ Auth::shouldUse('sanctum');
+
Post::creating(static function(Post $post): void {
$post->author()->associate(Auth::user());
});
}TIP
It's worth noting that we're not using Laravel's authenticate middleware because we still want to allow guests to access our API. However, as we're not using that middleware we need to tell Laravel to use sanctum as the default guard for our API requests - which is what the above change does.
To get a token, run the following command:
vendor/bin/sail artisan tinker
Psy Shell v0.10.8 (PHP 8.0.12 — cli) by Justin Hileman
>>> $user = User::find(1);
>>> $token = $user->createToken('Test');
>>> $token->plainTextToken
=> "1|dl21xEBuPevtoMzi0Yy1eQhrV91ENvoJypFDAHdt"
>>> exitYour plainTextToken will look different to the above, as it is a randomly generated string. Make sure you copy that value and paste it somewhere where you can reuse it.
Creating the Resource
We're now ready to create our resource. Add the token to the request as a Bearer token in the Authorization header. Using the above randomly generated string, our request will look like this:
POST http://localhost/api/v1/posts?include=author,tags HTTP/1.1
Authorization: Bearer 1|dl21xEBuPevtoMzi0Yy1eQhrV91ENvoJypFDAHdt
Accept: application/vnd.api+json
Content-Type: application/vnd.api+json
{
"data": {
"type": "posts",
"attributes": {
"content": "In our second blog post, you will learn how to create resources using the JSON:API specification.",
"publishedAt": null,
"slug": "creating-jsonapi-resources",
"title": "How to Create JSON:API Resources"
},
"relationships": {
"tags": {
"data": [
{
"type": "tags",
"id": "2"
}
]
}
}
}
}Try that request - making sure you use your token in the Authorization header. You should see the following response:
HTTP/1.1 201 Created
Content-Type: application/vnd.api+json
Location: http://localhost/api/v1/posts/2
{
"jsonapi": {
"version": "1.0"
},
"links": {
"self": "http:\/\/localhost\/api\/v1\/posts\/2"
},
"data": {
"type": "posts",
"id": "2",
"attributes": {
"content": "In our second blog post, you will learn how to create resources using the JSON:API specification.",
"createdAt": "2021-10-23T08:47:57.000000Z",
"publishedAt": null,
"slug": "creating-jsonapi-resources",
"title": "How to Create JSON:API Resources",
"updatedAt": "2021-10-23T08:47:57.000000Z"
},
"relationships": {
"author": {
"links": {
"related": "http:\/\/localhost\/api\/v1\/posts\/2\/author",
"self": "http:\/\/localhost\/api\/v1\/posts\/2\/relationships\/author"
},
"data": {
"type": "users",
"id": "1"
}
},
"comments": {
"links": {
"related": "http:\/\/localhost\/api\/v1\/posts\/2\/comments",
"self": "http:\/\/localhost\/api\/v1\/posts\/2\/relationships\/comments"
}
},
"tags": {
"links": {
"related": "http:\/\/localhost\/api\/v1\/posts\/2\/tags",
"self": "http:\/\/localhost\/api\/v1\/posts\/2\/relationships\/tags"
},
"data": [
{
"type": "tags",
"id": "2"
}
]
}
},
"links": {
"self": "http:\/\/localhost\/api\/v1\/posts\/2"
}
},
"included": [
{
"type": "users",
"id": "1",
"attributes": {
"createdAt": "2021-10-23T08:45:26.000000Z",
"name": "Artie Shaw",
"updatedAt": "2021-10-23T08:45:26.000000Z"
},
"links": {
"self": "http:\/\/localhost\/api\/v1\/users\/1"
}
},
{
"type": "tags",
"id": "2",
"attributes": {
"createdAt": "2021-10-23T08:45:26.000000Z",
"name": "JSON:API",
"updatedAt": "2021-10-23T08:45:26.000000Z"
},
"links": {
"self": "http:\/\/localhost\/api\/v1\/tags\/2"
}
}
]
}TIP
Notice that because we used include=author,tags in the request URL, the response has an included member that contains the user and the tags that are associated to our new post.
We've used the include path here so that you can see the relationships were populated. However, using an include path in a create request is optional - i.e. the above request would have worked without it. If it wasn't used, then the response wouldn't have included the related author and tags - but the relationships would have been created correctly on the model.
Invalid Responses
Earlier in this chapter, we added the validation rules for our post resource in the PostRequest class. One of those rules ensured that the slug field on the resource was unique - i.e. so we cannot create multiple post resources with the same slug.
When a validation rule fails, a client will receive a 422 Unprocessable Entity response - with JSON:API errors indicating what the problem is. We can see that if you reattempt the same request that you used to create the post resource. You'll see this response:
HTTP/1.1 422 Unprocessable Entity
Content-Type: application/vnd.api+json
{
"jsonapi": {
"version": "1.0"
},
"errors": [
{
"detail": "The slug has already been taken.",
"source": {
"pointer": "\/data\/attributes\/slug"
},
"status": "422",
"title": "Unprocessable Entity"
}
]
}As we're reattempting exactly the same request with the same slug field, this second request is rejected. Notice the error detail tells us the slug is already taken, and a JSON pointer in the source.pointer member tells us the error was caused by the /data/attributes/slug value.
In Summary
In this chapter we learnt how to create a resource using JSON:API. We ensured the client JSON was validated correctly, and we used Sanctum's token authentication to create the post as an authenticated user.
In the next chapter, we'll learn how to modify existing resources.