ZF2 AbstractRestfulController Custom Methods - zend-framework2

Question

How do I create custom methods? I understand when doing different HTTP calls such as POST, PUT, GET, DELETE, etc... but how do I create or use some custom methods aside from the main ones?
For example
get user by email?
Currently I can only get($id).. but what if I want both options? get by id, get by email?

Answer 1

There are several solutions for this.
You can send a http request with GET/query parameter for the user email to the collection path ('www.example.com/users'). This request should be handled inside the AbstractRestfulController its getList method and and then return a collection/array with the users that correspond to that email.
So your request for user with email some_email#example.com would look like this:
http://www.example.com/users?email=some_email%40example.com
You need to customize the getList action in a way that you can handle the query params.
Something in the controller like this:
$email = $this->params()->fromQuery('email');
Then you need to search in your database for users with that $email and then return them in an array or collection.
Another way would be to add a custom action to your controller:
public function myCustomAction(){
-- SOME CUSTOM CODE --
}
and then in router you introduce a custom route and map it to that controller action like normally in ZF2:
'my_custom_route' => array(
'type' => 'literal',
'options' => array(
'route' => '/my_custom_route',
'defaults' => array(
'controller' => 'MyControllerWithCustomAction',
'action' => 'myCustomAction',
),
),
),
This means you add a custom route for finding users by email. Even though ZF2 allows you to do this it is not according to proper Restful practice.