Question

99% of what REST API’s do is serve as a controlled interface between client and DB, and yet I can’t for the life of me find any libraries that do just that.

All libraries focus on providing a REST interface to the developer, who then sets up the communication with the database. It seems like a no-brainer to me to create a library that already interfaces with the database, and all the developer needs to do is define some ACL rules and plug in some logic here or there.

So, before I continue and put my thoughts into actions by actually creating this sort of library, may I just ask anyone with knowledge on the subject; has anyone implemented anything like this yet? Will I be re-inventing the wheel?

I’m talking strictly about a PHP based solutions by the way, I have nothing against other languages, PHP is simply my cup of tea. But for that matter, I haven’t found any implementations in other languages either.

And in case my explanation doesn’t make it very clear, this is essentially what I’d want:

<?php

class post_controller extends controller {

    protected static $config = array(
        'select'        => true,
        'insert'        => true,
        'update'        => true,
        'delete'        => false,

        'fields'            => array(
            'id'        => array(
                'select'    => true,
                'update'    => false
            ),
            'name'      => array(
                'select'    => true,
                'update'    => true
            ),
            'content'   => array(
                'select'    => true,
                'update'    => true
            )
        )
    );

    /**
     * GET, POST, DELETE are implemented already by the parent controller
     * Just overriding PUT to modify the content entry
     */
    function put($data) {
        $data->content = htmlentities($data);
        return parent::put($data);
    }

}

?>

Thanks in advance for anyone giving their input and apologies if this is not a proper Stackoverflow question.

Edit:

To clarify, this type of service would be for specific use-cases, I don’t imagine it to be a type of thing that anyone can use for any type of web service.

Answer 1

I have built a similar system for SOAP and must say it’s very easy to do so. I haven’t seen any prebuilt libraries that would help you do it (and I doubt they exist – see next paragraph), but it shouldn’t take you more than a few hours to build your own solution (a day max – with testing and documentation writing included).

It is however a whole another question if you really want to do that. REST can be (mis)used for this purpose, but it is meant for manipulating resources. Records in a database only rarely have a one-to-one mapping with resources. If they do in your case (as they did in mine) then feel free to do it, otherwise it would be nicer to provide a proper REST API. Why expose your internal DB structure to the world? YMMV, of course.