Build APIs You Won't Hate
Build APIs You Won't Hate
Everyone and their dog wants an API, so you should probably learn how to build them.
About the Book
API development is becoming increasingly common for server-side developers thanks to the rise of front-end JavaScript frameworks, iPhone applications, and API-centric architectures. It might seem like grabbing stuff from a data source and shoving it out as JSON would be easy, but surviving changes in business logic, database schema updates, new features, or deprecated endpoints can be a nightmare.
After finding many of the existing resources for API development to be lacking, Phil learned a lot of things the hard way through years of trial and error. This book aims to condense that experience, taking examples and explanations further than the trivial apples and pears nonsense tutorials often provide.
Phil worked primarily as an API developer for the last three years. One horror was managing an API built in FuelPHP by a freelancer at the million dollar startup he joined. It was utilizing a then deprecated ORM which had been hacked to death by the previous developer, so took the time to delete that mess and build the next version in Laravel, leveraging it's simple routing, database migrations, schema, seeding, etc. When the following major version of the API was built no rewrite was required, and both managed to live side-by-side on the same "API" servers.
By passing on some best practices and general good advice you can hit the ground running with API development, combined with some horror stories and how they were overcome/avoided/averted. This book will discuss the theory of designing and building APIs in any language or framework, with this theory applied in PHP-based examples.
Some of the more advanced topics covered here are endpoint testing, embedding data objects in a consistent and scalable manner, paginating responses (including embedded objects) and hypermedia "HATEOAS" controls.
Bundles that include this book
About the Contributors

Technical Review

Editor

Cameo Coder
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Sample Code
-
1. Useful Database Seeding
- 1.1 Introduction
- 1.2 Introduction to Database Seeding
- 1.3 Building Seeders
- 1.4 That is about it
- 1.5 Secondary Data
- 1.6 When to run this?
-
2. Planning and Creating Endpoints
- 2.1 Functional Requirements
- 2.2 Endpoint Theory
- 2.3 Planning Endpoints
-
3. Input and Output Theory
- 3.1 Introduction
- 3.2 Requests
- 3.3 Responses
- 3.4 Supporting Formats
- 3.5 Content Structure
-
4. Status Codes, Errors and Messages
- 4.1 Introduction
- 4.2 HTTP Status Codes
- 4.3 Error Codes and Error Messages
- 4.4 Error or Errors
- 4.5 Standards for Error Responses
- 4.6 Common Pitfalls
-
5. Endpoint Testing
- 5.1 Introduction
- 5.2 Concepts & Tools
- 5.3 Setup
- 5.4 Initialise
- 5.5 Features
- 5.6 Scenarios
- 5.7 Prepping Behat
- 5.8 Running Behat
-
6. Outputting Data
- 6.1 Introduction
- 6.2 The Direct Approach
- 6.3 Transformations with Fractal
- 6.4 Hiding Schema Updates
- 6.5 Outputting Errors
- 6.6 Testing this Output
- 6.7 Homework
-
7. Data Relationships
- 7.1 Introduction
- 7.2 Subresources
- 7.3 Foreign Key Arrays
- 7.4 Compound Documents (aka Sideloading)
- 7.5 Embedded Documents (aka Nesting)
- 7.6 Summary
-
8. Debugging
- 8.1 Introduction
- 8.2 Command-line Debugging
- 8.3 Browser Debugging
- 8.4 Network Debugging
-
9. Authentication
- 9.1 Introduction
- 9.2 When is Authentication Useful?
- 9.3 Different Approaches to Authentication
- 9.4 Implementing an OAuth 2.0 Server
- 9.5 Where the OAuth 2.0 Server Lives
- 9.6 Understanding OAuth 2.0 Grant Types
-
10. Pagination
- 10.1 Introduction
- 10.2 Paginators
- 10.3 Offsets and Cursors
-
11. Documentation
- 11.1 Introduction
- 11.2 Types of Documentation
- 11.3 Picking a Tool
- 11.4 Setting up API Blueprint and Aglio
- 11.5 Learning API Blueprint Syntax
- 11.6 Further Reading
-
12. HATEOAS
- 12.1 Introduction
- 12.2 Content Negotiation
- 12.3 Hypermedia Controls
-
13. API Versioning
- 13.1 Introduction
- 13.2 Different Approaches to API Versioning
- 13.3 Ask Your Users
-
14. Bonus Chapter: File Uploads & Downloads
- 14.1 Introduction
- 14.2 Downloads
- 14.3 Uploads
- 14.4 Why Multipart is Fairly Awful
- 14.5 Method A: Direct File Upload
- 14.6 Method B: Upload from URL
- 14.7 What about Meta Data?
- 14.8 Summary
- Conclusion
-
Further Reading
- API Web Resources
- Non-API Books
Causes Supported

Code Club
https://www.codeclub.org.ukA nationwide network of volunteer-led after school coding clubs for children aged 9-11.
The Leanpub 60-day 100% Happiness Guarantee
Within 60 days of purchase you can get a 100% refund on any Leanpub purchase, in two clicks.
See full terms
Do Well. Do Good.
Authors have earned$11,712,765writing, publishing and selling on Leanpub, earning 80% royalties while saving up to 25 million pounds of CO2 and up to 46,000 trees.
Learn more about writing on Leanpub
Free Updates. DRM Free.
If you buy a Leanpub book, you get free updates for as long as the author updates the book! Many authors use Leanpub to publish their books in-progress, while they are writing them. All readers get free updates, regardless of when they bought the book or how much they paid (including free).
Most Leanpub books are available in PDF (for computers), EPUB (for phones and tablets) and MOBI (for Kindle). The formats that a book includes are shown at the top right corner of this page.
Finally, Leanpub books don't have any DRM copy-protection nonsense, so you can easily read them on any supported device.
Learn more about Leanpub's ebook formats and where to read them
Top Books
Recipes for Decoupling
Matthias NobackWrite software that survives
OpenIntro Statistics
David Diez, Christopher Barr, Mine Cetinkaya-Rundel, and OpenIntroA complete foundation for Statistics, also serving as a foundation for Data Science.
Leanpub revenue supports OpenIntro (US-based nonprofit) so we can provide free desk copies to teachers interested in using OpenIntro Statistics in the classroom and expand the project to support free textbooks in other subjects.
More resources: openintro.org.
CQRS by Example
Carlos Buenosvinos, Christian Soronellas, and Keyvan Akbary- Leverage your Software Architecture skills by learning everything about CQRS in detail with lots of examples
- Develop faster applications by applying CQRS and fostering Read Models and Projections
- Learn how to apply CQRS into a brownfield project from a pragmatic approach
Maîtriser Apache JMeter
Philippe Mouawad, Bruno Demion (Milamber), and Antonio Gomes RodriguesToute la puissance d'Apache JMeter expliquée par ses commiteurs et utilisateurs experts. De l'intégration continue en passant par le Cloud, vous découvrirez comment intégrer JMeter à vos processus "Agile" et Devops.
If you're looking for the newer english version of this book, go to Master JMeter : From load testing to DevOps
Ansible for DevOps
Jeff GeerlingAnsible is a simple, but powerful, server and configuration management tool. Learn to use Ansible effectively, whether you manage one server—or thousands.
C++20 - The Complete Guide
Nicolai M. JosuttisAll new language and library features of C++20 (for those who know previous C++ versions).
The book presents all new language and library features of C++20. Learn how this impacts day-to-day programming, to benefit in practice, to combine new features, and to avoid all new traps.
Buy early, pay less, free updates.
Other books:
Jetpack Compose internals
Jorge CastilloJetpack Compose is the future of Android UI. Master how it works internally and become a more efficient developer with it. You'll also find it valuable if you are not an Android dev. This book provides all the details to understand how the Compose compiler & runtime work, and how to create a client library using them.
The PowerShell Scripting and Toolmaking Book
Don Jones and Jeff HicksLearn the patterns, practices, and details of PowerShell Scripting and Toolmaking from the industry's two most recognized experts on the subject.
The C4 model for visualising software architecture
Simon BrownA guide to visualising your software architecture with the C4 model.
Mastering STM32 - Second Edition
Carmine NovielloWith more than 1200 microcontrollers, STM32 is probably the most complete ARM Cortex-M platform on the market. This book aims to be the most complete guide around introducing the reader to this exciting MCU portfolio from ST Microelectronics and its official CubeHAL and STM32CubeIDE development environment.
Top Bundles
- #1
Software Architecture
2 Books
"Software Architecture for Developers" is a practical and pragmatic guide to modern, lightweight software architecture, specifically aimed at developers. You'll learn:The essence of software architecture.Why the software architecture role should include coding, coaching and collaboration.The things that you really need to think about before... - #2
CCIE Service Provider Ultimate Study Bundle
2 Books
Piotr Jablonski, Lukasz Bromirski, and Nick Russo have joined forces to deliver the only CCIE Service Provider training resource you'll ever need. This bundle contains a detailed and challenging collection of workbook labs, plus an extensively detailed technical reference guide. All of us have earned the CCIE Service Provider certification... - #4
Pattern-Oriented Memory Forensics and Malware Detection
2 Books
This training bundle for security engineers and researchers, malware and memory forensics analysts includes two accelerated training courses for Windows memory dump analysis using WinDbg. It is also useful for technical support and escalation engineers who analyze memory dumps from complex software environments and need to check for possible... - #6
All the Books of The Medical Futurist
6 Books
We put together the most popular books from The Medical Futurist to provide a clear picture about the major trends shaping the future of medicine and healthcare. Digital health technologies, artificial intelligence, the future of 20 medical specialties, big pharma, data privacy, digital health investments and how technology giants such as Amazon... - #8
The Python Craftsman
3 Books
The Python Craftsman series comprises The Python Apprentice, The Python Journeyman, and The Python Master. The first book is primarily suitable for programmers with some experience of programming in another language. If you don't have any experience with programming this book may be a bit daunting. You'll be learning not just a programming...