Bookstore Rails API

Based on this tutorial.

Connected Ember.js client: https://github.com/szines/bookstore-client

Demo application: http://zoltan.nz/bookstore-client/

Implementation log

Setup rails-api

Install latest (0.4.0) rails-api, rails (4.2.3) and generate the project.

gem install rails-api
rails-api new bookstore-api
bundle update

Add active_model_serializers to Gemfile.

gem 'active_model_serializers', '~> 0.10.0.rc3'

The following needs only if rails should listen for requests from outside localhost

(config/boot.rb)

ENV['BUNDLE_GEMFILE'] ||= File.expand_path('../../Gemfile', __FILE__)

require 'bundler/setup' # Set up gems listed in the Gemfile.
require 'rubygems'
require 'rails/commands/server'

module Rails
  class Server
    alias :default_options_bk :default_options
    def default_options
      default_options_bk.merge!(Host: '0.0.0.0')
    end
  end
end

Scaffolding

Scaffold models and controllers.

bin/rails generate scaffold book title 'price:decimal{5,2}' author:references publisher:references{polymorphic}
bin/rails g scaffold author name
bin/rails g scaffold publishing_house name 'discount:decimal{2,2}'

bin/rake db:migrate

Add sample data to db/seeds.rb. Link.

Update config/routes.rb with dashes.

resources :publishing_houses, path: '/publishing-houses', except: [:new, :edit]

Update config/application.rb and comment out action_mailer configuration lines.

require File.expand_path('../boot', __FILE__)

# require 'rails/all'
require "active_record/railtie"
require "action_controller/railtie"
# require "action_mailer/railtie"
# require "sprockets/railtie"
require "rails/test_unit/railtie"

Bundler.require(*Rails.groups)

module BookstoreApi
  class Application < Rails::Application
    config.active_record.raise_in_transactional_callbacks = true
  end
end

Add config/initializers/json_api.rb.

ActiveModel::Serializer.config.adapter = ActiveModel::Serializer::Adapter::JsonApi

Update app/controllers/application_controller.rb.

class ApplicationController < ActionController::API
  include ActionController::Serialization
end

Update models and relations

BookSerializer (app/serializers/book_serializer.rb)

class BookSerializer < ActiveModel::Serializer
  attributes :id, :title, :price
  belongs_to :author
  belongs_to :publisher
end

Author (app/models/author.rb)

class Author < ActiveRecord::Base
    def discount() 10 end
    has_many :books
    has_many :published, foreign_key: :publisher_id, class_name: 'Book', as: :publisher
end

AuthorSerializer (app/serializers/author_serializer.rb)

class AuthorSerializer < ActiveModel::Serializer
  attributes :id, :name, :discount
  has_many :books
  has_many :published
end

PublishingHouse (app/models/publishing_house.rb)

class PublishingHouse < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :published, as: :publisher, foreign_key: :publisher_id, class_name: 'Book'
end

PublishingHouseSerializer (app/serializers/publishing_house_serializer.rb)

class PublishingHouseSerializer < ActiveModel::Serializer
  attributes :id, :name, :discount
  has_many :published
end

Add books as extra payload to Authors

app/controllers/authors_controller.rb

def show
  render json: @author, include: ['books']
end

Add include to BooksController#index

Attach author and publisher data to generated json.

Add oj gem to the project

oj is the fastest json generator gem in ruby world.

Test requests with Postman

Postman: link

GET http://localhost:3000/publishing_houses
GET http://localhost:3000/authors
GET http://localhost:3000/books
GET http://localhost:3000/authors/1

Using curl

curl http://localhost:3000/publishing-houses | python -m json.tool

Add pagination feature with kaminari

• Add kaminari gem to Gemfile
• Add limit param to BooksController