[aerogear-dev] [Aerogear Pipeline] Support for nested endpoints

Christos Vasilakis cvasilak at gmail.com
Tue Apr 2 08:51:59 EDT 2013


Hi

answers inline

On Apr 2, 2013, at 2:22 PM, Matthias Wessendorf <matzew at apache.org> wrote:

> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 1:03 PM, Christos Vasilakis <cvasilak at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi team,
> 
> on the last couple of days I have been playing with the idea on how  to support nested path in resources (a.k.a subresources). I am more keen in the idea to treat the nested resources as full-time citizens. That is, treat the nested resource as a Pipe.
> 
> 
> I agree w/ Luke - interesting proposal
>  
> 
> I came up with the following proposal (showing here in iOS)
> 
> For demonstration I use an imaginative Soccer API
> 
> e.g.
> soccer.org/leagues/{id}/teams/{id}/players
> 
> when expanded with sample {ids}:
> soccer.org/leagues/seattle/teams/trebuchet/players
> 
> During registration of the "parent pipe" (leagues) we specify the nested resources for this Pipe using  the "setNestedPipes"  config option. Internally the Pipeline during the setup of this pipe creates the corresponding nested pipes, initialising their URL accordingly.
> 
> e.g.
> -----
> AGPipeline* pipeline = [AGPipeline pipelineWithBaseURL:BASE_SOCCER_APP_URL];
> 
> id<AGPipe> leagues = [pipeline pipe:^(id<AGPipeConfig> config) {
>     [config setName:@"leagues"];
> 
>     [config setNestedPipes:[@"teams", @"players"];  // an array of nested resources for this pipe
> 
> 
> I would read the nested pipes here as:
> * soccer.org/leagues/{id}/teams
> * soccer.org/leagues/{id}/players
> 
> which does not match the above URL samples, you gave;
> 

Internally, using the order of the nested resource names in the array, I built two pipes in that order,  that is

 soccer.org/leagues/{id}/teams/  (1)
 soccer.org/leagues/{id}/teams/{id}/players  (2)

but as you said, it can be easily confused..


>  
> }];
> -----
> 
> A new "pipe" method is added in the pipeline with params the Parent ID's of this nested resource. Once returned you have a fill Pipe to invoke operations on.
> 
> -----
> soccer.org/leagues/seattle/teams/trebuchet - > 
> 	[[pipeline pipe:@"teams" pathParams:@[@"seattle"]] read:@"trebuchet"] ...
> 
> 
> Hrm..... I am confused...
> What is the name of the first argument? Also the path params, not sure about them…

agree. Basically you access the pipe "teams" filling the parent {id}'s with the values.
 

> 
> I think this proposal differs from how we currently read a specific entry:
> (soccer.org/leagues/seattle)
> 
> 
> [leaguesPipe read:@"seattle" success:callback failure:othercallback];
> 
> So i guess ... the above would return details about the "Seattle League", right? 

correct, no change to how the leaguesPipe works.


> 
> Now... I think... If I wanted a "sub"/"nested" pipe, from that leagues pipe (e.g. to work with teams in the "Seattle Leaguue" ... I think there are two ways...
> 
> a) use the Pipeline as it's factory (I guess that's what you proposed)
> b) use the actual pipe to create a nested pipe, by leveraging the available information
> 
> 
> Here is, I think, how the b) could look for this URL:
> 
> 
> 
> id<AGPipe> allTeamsInSeattlePipe = [leaguesPipe subPipe:@"teams" for:@"seattle"];
> 
> Now we have a subPipe that has this (inherited) URL: -> soccer.org/leagues/seattle/teams
> 
> 
> And, if I want to issue a a read against "soccer.org/leagues/seattle/teams/trebuchet" would look like:
> 
> [allTeamsInSeattlePipe  read:@"trebuchet" success:callback failure:othercallback];
> 
> 
> Now, imagine the API could also return the owners of a certain lagues - the "sub pipe creation" could be done like:
> 
> Here is, I think, how the b) could look for this URL:
> 
> id<AGPipe> allOwnersInNewYorkPipe = [leaguesPipe subPipe:@"owners" for:@"newyork"];
> 
> Reading details about Mr. Brown (some owner in the list, that has the ID 19) would be like:
> 
> [allOwnersInNewYorkPipe  read:@"19" success:callback failure:othercallback];
> So... this would match a read to: "soccer.org/leagues/newyork/owners/19"
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Does that make sense ? Any thoughts ?
> 

I really *LIKE* the idea!   +1000  

It's verbose enough and it's easy to set up the nested pipes.

two comments:

a)

For accessing a sub-nested pipe of a nested one I assume there will be something like the following e.g:

soccer.org/leagues/seatle/teams/ ->
id<AGPipe> allTeamsInSeattlePipe = [leaguesPipe subPipe:@"teams" for:@"seattle"];


soccer.org/leagues/seatle/teams/trebuchet/players ->
id<AGPipe> allPlayersInTrebuchetPipe = [allTeamsInSeattlePipe subPipe:@"players" for:@"trebuchet"];

right?

b)

I assume for passing the configuration for this pipe there can be another method [optional] passing the PipeConfig if the user wants to override any setting for this particular pipe e.g:

id<AGPipe> allTeamsInSeattlePipe = [leaguesPipe subPipe:@"teams" for:@"seattle" config:^(id<AGPipeConfig> config) {
 setRecordId:..
 setTimeout..
...
}];


Thanks,
Christos



> 
> 
> 
> 
>  
> 
> soccer.org/leagues/seattle/teams/trebuchet/players/foo - >
> 	 [[pipeline pipe:@"players" pathParams:@[@"seattle", @"trebuchet"]] read:@"foo"] ..
> -----
> 
> 
> Wdyt?
> 
> Thanks
> Christos
> 
> On Mar 18, 2013, at 1:12 PM, Sebastien Blanc <scm.blanc at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Well, that would not be possible, for that you will have to create a "child" pipe. But I agree, that is maybe no optimal ...
>> 
>> 
>> On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 6:44 PM, Summers Pittman <supittma at redhat.com> wrote:
>> On 03/15/2013 01:34 PM, Sebastien Blanc wrote:
>>> I like the idea but I will more see that has a method/function for the pipelineManager (and will be easier to implement in JS, I think) :
>>> 
>>> var myParentPipe = Aerogear.Pipeline({name:"parentPipe"}).pipes.parentPipe
>>> 
>>> var myChildPipe = Aerogear.Pipeline.fromParent(myParentPipe, {options} )
>> What would it look like to get a child record from a parent?
>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 5:37 PM, Douglas Campos <qmx at qmx.me> wrote:
>>> What about this?
>>> 
>>> Pipeline<Post> postPipeline = …
>>> Post post = // get from the pipeline
>>> Pipeline<Comment> postPipeline.childPipelineForOrOtherWeirdName(Comment.class, post)
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 15/03/2013, at 12:26, Summers Pittman <supittma at redhat.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> > On 03/14/2013 04:48 AM, Matthias Wessendorf wrote:
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >> On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 9:32 AM, Sebastien Blanc <scm.blanc at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> >> Hi,
>>> >> While I was playing with scaffolding and tried to build a simple Blog Application with Aerogear I faced the current situation :
>>> >> I have a Post object which contains many Comment objects. Now I want to call my Post pipe to retrieve the related  comments, I have currently 2 options :
>>> >>
>>> >> /posts/1 -> assuming comments will be implicitly retrieved (eager loading)
>>> >> /comments/?postid=1
>>> >>
>>> >> But regarding our model the correct form should be :
>>> >>
>>> >> /posts/1/comments
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >> +1
>>> >> that is the ideal way to model URIs for "nested" resources.
>>> >>
>>> >> See [1], extracted from [2]
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >> But, AFAIK,  with the current API, it is not possible to define this last pattern  (at least for JS and iOs, confirmed by Matzew). When doing a read we can pass an id option but as mentioned in the doc, this id will always be append to the endpoint.
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >> Well, it is possible - but in a very (IMO) ugly way:
>>> >>
>>> >> https://gist.github.com/matzew/6ab432e437b9a017a21d
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >> IMO, we should be able to support this pattern but for now I'm not really sure how to specify this in our API, so if you have any ideas feedback this thread has been made for you !
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >> Suggestion: Enhance the read function - example:
>>> >>
>>> >> https://gist.github.com/matzew/04f069dfbed2cc77a8b4
>>> > I'm thinking of the inverse myself.  Add a "ParentPath" property which can be used to extract information from parent objects.
>>> >
>>> > https://gist.github.com/secondsun/17ce96082eda37dbd10e
>>> >
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >> -Matthias
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >> [1] http://www.infoq.com/resource/articles/rest-introduction/en/resources/figure2.jpg
>>> >> [2] http://www.infoq.com/articles/rest-introduction
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >> Seb
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >> _______________________________________________
>>> >> aerogear-dev mailing list
>>> >> aerogear-dev at lists.jboss.org
>>> >> https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >> --
>>> >> Matthias Wessendorf
>>> >>
>>> >> blog: http://matthiaswessendorf.wordpress.com/
>>> >> sessions: http://www.slideshare.net/mwessendorf
>>> >> twitter: http://twitter.com/mwessendorf
>>> >>
>>> >> _______________________________________________
>>> >> aerogear-dev mailing list
>>> >>
>>> >> aerogear-dev at lists.jboss.org
>>> >> https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev
>>> >
>>> > _______________________________________________
>>> > aerogear-dev mailing list
>>> > aerogear-dev at lists.jboss.org
>>> > https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev
>>> 
>>> -- qmx
>>> 
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> aerogear-dev mailing list
>>> aerogear-dev at lists.jboss.org
>>> https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> aerogear-dev mailing list
>>> aerogear-dev at lists.jboss.org
>>> https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> aerogear-dev mailing list
>> aerogear-dev at lists.jboss.org
>> https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> aerogear-dev mailing list
>> aerogear-dev at lists.jboss.org
>> https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> aerogear-dev mailing list
> aerogear-dev at lists.jboss.org
> https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Matthias Wessendorf 
> 
> blog: http://matthiaswessendorf.wordpress.com/
> sessions: http://www.slideshare.net/mwessendorf
> twitter: http://twitter.com/mwessendorf
> _______________________________________________
> aerogear-dev mailing list
> aerogear-dev at lists.jboss.org
> https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.jboss.org/pipermail/aerogear-dev/attachments/20130402/66828a91/attachment-0001.html 


More information about the aerogear-dev mailing list