Rick And Morty

Using the API: https://rickandmortyapi.com/ we show specific information regarding the characters, locations and more.

Deployment

This app has been deployed to Heroku. You can view the demo here.

Requirements

There are a few things needed in order to setup this project.

• PHP
• Apache / Nginx
• Composer
• Laravel

Installation

First, clone this repository and navigate to the directory where it has been downloaded. Follow the instructions below:

• Run the Composer installation

$ composer install

• Create a .env file

$ cp .env.example .env 

• Update the .env file with all needed information. A OMDBAPI key is required in order to access an api. Make sure to visit here to get a key.

Implementation

Summary

Laravel, which is a MVC (Model View Controller) framework is used in this implementation, alongside a Service and Repository design pattern.

Communication through the API happens over a simple JSON based protocol over HTTP.

The implementation is comunicating with two external API's:

• RickAndMortyApi for information related to characters, episodes and locations.
• OMDBAPI For information about the series, episode ratings, etc.

Models

Custom Models were created that map to resources being called on the rick and morty API. These models use the api's in order to get their information.

Controllers

Controllers are responsible for controlling the flow of the application over the HTTP requests. A request will link to a function within a specified controller, which will then be passed along to a Service.

Services

Incoming requests input and responses are all handled by a Service. The services are written in such a way that the Eloquent ORM is never used, making it available for other resources to work with, such as API's. Thus, we use a Repository to retrieve the information.

Repositories

A Repository is an abstraction of the data layer and a centralised way of handling our models. The idea with this pattern is to have a generic abstract way for the app to work with the data layer without being bothered with if the implementation is towards a local database or towards an online API. In this case we have no local database using Eloquent models, but external API's.

API

These are the current API routes that are available. You can view them in the api.php file in the routes folder.

To access these routes, simply use the /api/ prefix on the url. Some examples:

https://rhaarhoff-rickandmorty.herokuapp.com/api/locations
https://rhaarhoff-rickandmorty.herokuapp.com/api/locations?page=2
https://rhaarhoff-rickandmorty.herokuapp.com/api/locations?dimension=C-137
https://rhaarhoff-rickandmorty.herokuapp.com/api/characters
https://rhaarhoff-rickandmorty.herokuapp.com/api/episodes

 +--------+----------+---------------------+------+-----------------------------------------------+------------+
 | Domain | Method   | URI                 | Name | Action                                        | Middleware |
 +--------+----------+---------------------+------+-----------------------------------------------+------------+
 |        | GET|HEAD | /                   |      | Closure                                       | web        |
 |        | GET|HEAD | api/characters      |      | App\Http\Controllers\CharacterController@all  | api        |
 |        | GET|HEAD | api/characters/{id} |      | App\Http\Controllers\CharacterController@show | api        |
 |        | GET|HEAD | api/episodes        |      | App\Http\Controllers\EpisodeController@all    | api        |
 |        | GET|HEAD | api/episodes/{id}   |      | App\Http\Controllers\EpisodeController@show   | api        |
 |        | GET|HEAD | api/locations       |      | App\Http\Controllers\LocationController@all   | api        |
 |        | GET|HEAD | api/locations/{id}  |      | App\Http\Controllers\LocationController@show  | api        |
 +--------+----------+---------------------+------+-----------------------------------------------+------------+