Drupal 7 - Implementing RESTFul Web Services

Published: 11/17/2016

Implementing REST was a recent requirement in order to expose our Drupal website's data to external consumers. It felt like an enormous task - and it was! - but doable with a little help.

I found an extensive number of articles and tutorials online, but this video series by Mateu@e0ipso (opens in new tab) was, for me, the best and most comprehensive.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZOQ_ZMpYrZv8_c7jd_CkO_93-DnyVFY5 (opens in new tab)

I followed this series step-by-step, often pausing to recreate the code the Mateu used, which included creating a custom module and then tweaking that module for my own purposes.

My RESTFul API includes a resource for Nodes of a particular content type and a separate resource for a Taxonomy Term that is used in those nodes. As simple as it sounds, using the referenced Taxonomy Term - and displaying the name, rather than the ID - was one of the more challenging steps in my process. In the end, these are the resources that worked for me to generate the JSON I wanted.

NODE RESOURCE:

class Summit_Providers__1_0 extends ResourceNode {

/**

*{@inheritdoc}

*/

protected function publicFields(){

$public_fields = parent::publicFields();

//Rename label

$public_fields['name'] = $public_fields['label'];

unset($public_fields['label']);

//Hide fields

$public_fields['self']['methods'] = array();

$public_fields['links']['methods'] = array();

//Add more fields

$public_fields['standard_specialties'] = array(

'property' => 'field_standard_specialties',

'referencedIdProperty' => 'name'

);

$public_fields['school'] = array('property' => 'field_provider_school');

$public_fields['internship'] = array('property' => 'field_provider_internship');

$public_fields['residency'] = array('property' => 'field_provider_residency');

$public_fields['fellowship'] = array('property' => 'field_provider_fellowship');

$public_fields['language'] = array('property' => 'field_provider_language');

return $public_fields;

}

}

TAXONOMY TERM RESOURCE:

class Standard_Specialties__1_0 extends ResourceNode {

/*

*{@inheritdoc}

*/

protected function publicFields(){

$public_fields = parent::publicFields();

$public_fields['description'] = array('property' => 'description');

return $public_fields;

}

}