Full Stack Build Part 1 - Building and Deploying an API

What you will learn

• Creating an API
• Setting Cors Headers
• Testing an API
• Deploying an API

Setup

• Create a New Laravel Project composer create-project laravel/laravel todoapi
• cd into todoapi folder
• test dev server php artisan serve
• go into psql psql
• create a new database CREATE DATABASE todolaravel;
• fill out database info in .env file

DB_HOST=localhost
DB_PORT=5432
DB_DATABASE=todolaravel
DB_USERNAME=test5
DB_PASSWORD=test5

Creating the API

Creating Our todo table

• php artisan make:migration Create_Todos_Table
• add the following fields to the table

    public function up()
    {
        Schema::create('_todos_', function (Blueprint $table) {
            $table->id();
            $table->string("subject");
            $table->string("details");
            $table->timestamps();
        });
    }

• php artisan migrate

Creating Our Model

• php artisan make:model Todo
• edit /app/Models/Todo.php to connect table and enable fields

class Todo extends Model
{
    use HasFactory;

    // Explicit Linking to table
    protected $table = '_todos_';
    // Allow fields to be used in create for controller functions
    protected $fillable = ['subject', 'details'];
}

Seeding The Todos Table

• edit /database/seeders/DatabaseSeeder.php

<?php

namespace Database\Seeders;

use Illuminate\Database\Seeder;
use App\Models\Todo;

class DatabaseSeeder extends Seeder
{
    /**
     * Seed the application's database.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function run()
    {
        Todo::create(["subject" => "Breakfast", "details" => "Eat Breakfast"]);
        Todo::create(["subject" => "Lunch", "details" => "Eat Lunch"]);
        Todo::create(["subject" => "Dinner", "details" => "Eat Dinner"]);
        echo("Todos Created!");
    }
}

• run php artisan db:seed
• confirm the todos exist by going to psql php artisan db and running the following query, SELECT * FROM _todos_;.

Create our Routes and Controller

• generate our controller php artisan make:controller TodoController --api
• import the controller in /routes/api.php

use App\Http\Controllers\TodoController;

• add apiResources routes... Route::apiResource("todos", TodoController::class);

Index Action

• import model in /app/Http/Controllers/TodoController.php

use App\Models\Todo;

The Index Action

    public function index()
    {
        $todos = Todo::all();
        return response()->json($todos);
    }

Show Action

    public function show($id)
    {
        $todo = Todo::find($id);
        return response()->json($todo);
    }

Store/Create action

    public function store(Request $request)
    {
        $input = $request->all(); // Get Request Items
        $newtodo = ["subject" => $input["subject"], "details" => $input["details"]]; // Extract Properties
        $todo = Todo::create($newtodo); // Create Todo
        response()->json(Todo::all()); // Response
    }

Update Action

    public function update(Request $request, $id)
    {
        $input = $request->all(); // Get Request Items
        $newtodo = ["subject" => $input["subject"], "details" => $input["details"]]; // Extract Properties
        $todo = Todo::find($id)->update($newtodo); // Update Todo
        response()->json(Todo::all()); // Response
    }

Destroy Action

    public function destroy($id)
    {
        Todo::find($id)->delete(); // DeleteTodo
        response()->json(Todo::all()); // Response
    }

Testing the API

• Head into postman and test all the routes
• get request to /api/todos/
• get request to /api/todos/1
• post request to /api/todos/ (get request after to confirm creation)
• update request to /api/todos/4 (get request after to confirm update)
• delete request to /api/todos/4 (get request after to confirm deletion)

Deploying the API

Preparing Heroku

• login to heroku
• generate a new project
• under the resources tab provision a new postgres database
• from the resources tab open up the database dashboard
• in settings you'll find the database credentials
• Under your project settings add config vars to match the database settings in your local .env except the values match your heroku postgres credentials
• Add the APP_KEY from your .env to your heroku config vars (this and the database variables are the minimum env variables needed to run your project)

Preparing Your Project

• In the root of your project (where the composer.json is) create a file called Procfile and in it put the following:

web: vendor/bin/heroku-php-apache2 public/

Connecting to Heroku

• commit and push your project up to github
• in your heroku project under deployment select github
• connect your projects github repository
• enable automatic deploys
• trigger and manual deploy
• should build successfully, if not read the errors and address
• once successful in the upper right corner you'll see a "more" button, it should open up a menu with "run console"
• In the heroku console (or cli) run the following commands for your project
• php artisan migrate
• php artisan db:seed
• Your API should now be up and running!

Resources to Learn More