How to create API in rails 5? - ruby-on-rails

Question

I am new to web service and Rails too. I have a doubt in creating API using rails 5. How do I create an API for a rails 5 application? I can find some tutorials for API only applications using rails 5. But I need both API and views in a single rails 5 application. How should I do that?

Answer 1

You can create a new rails project as usual:
$ rails new my_project
$ cd my_project
$ bundle
And then you can use scaffold to generate some code:
$ rails g scaffold Product name:string price:float
And migrate your database:
$ rails db:migrate # => update the database
You can now have a look at app/controllers/products_controller.rb
class ProductsController < ApplicationController
before_action :set_product, only: [:show, :edit, :update, :destroy]
# GET /products
# GET /products.json
def index
#products = Product.all
end
# GET /products/1
# GET /products/1.json
def show
end
# GET /products/new
def new
#product = Product.new
end
# GET /products/1/edit
def edit
end
# POST /products
# POST /products.json
def create
#product = Product.new(product_params)
respond_to do |format|
if #product.save
format.html { redirect_to #product, notice: 'Product was successfully created.' }
format.json { render :show, status: :created, location: #product }
else
format.html { render :new }
format.json { render json: #product.errors, status: :unprocessable_entity }
end
end
end
# PATCH/PUT /products/1
# PATCH/PUT /products/1.json
def update
respond_to do |format|
if #product.update(product_params)
format.html { redirect_to #product, notice: 'Product was successfully updated.' }
format.json { render :show, status: :ok, location: #product }
else
format.html { render :edit }
format.json { render json: #product.errors, status: :unprocessable_entity }
end
end
end
# DELETE /products/1
# DELETE /products/1.json
def destroy
#product.destroy
respond_to do |format|
format.html { redirect_to products_url, notice: 'Product was successfully destroyed.' }
format.json { head :no_content }
end
end
private
# Use callbacks to share common setup or constraints between actions.
def set_product
#product = Product.find(params[:id])
end
# Never trust parameters from the scary internet, only allow the white list through.
def product_params
params.require(:product).permit(:name, :price)
end
end
As you can see there's respond_to in the create action. This is how you can respond to different request types.
Read more about it: http://edgeapi.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionController/MimeResponds.html#method-i-respond_to

Answer 2

I've my own solution to build API very quickly https://github.com/igorkasyanchuk/fake_api at least on the stage of prototyping.
Using this gem I was able to provide a skeleton of the API for Frontend team, later it was changed to regular rails controllers.

Answer 3

While create a RESTful API, According to Rails 5 release notes, generating an API only application will:
Start the application with a limited set of middleware
Make the ApplicationController inherit from ActionController::API instead of ActionController::Base
Skip generation of view files,
I am listing down article/ Blog post's link read those:
Best Pratices for API only rails app
Rails Api only Web app
Rails Token based authentication: API only rails web app
Must read, Api only rails web app
Read this also, rails api only web app
Restful API with rails
Create a REST Api with Rails
Create a REST Api with Rails 5
Read any one of the above blog and just go through others for getting additional details or for the knowledge purpose
Have a Great Coding! 😀👨‍💻👩‍💻

Answer 4

Just build you regular rails app and when you need a API behavior on that method just respond with a json like this
def index
#cards = Card.all
render json: { status: 'Success', message: 'Loaded all cards', data: #cards }, status: :ok
end
If you really need the additional behavior from the controller to you can just take a regular controller and change the inheritance to something like this
class CardsController < ActionController::API
#your code
end
For more information on this specifically checkout Rails API Applications