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Build a REST API with PHP

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Setting up Our Application

5:49 with Alena Holligan

We're going to use the Slim Skeleton to set up our application. Slim is a PHP micro framework that helps you quickly write simple yet powerful web applications and APIs.

In the lifecycle of an application, there are multiple environments such as Development, Testing and Production. Each environment may have its own unique sources and credentials that need to be managed and secured. Environment variables are accessible to any programming language, and allow applications to adapt to their environment while keeping credentials secure.

Database

PDO Connection

$container['db'] = function($c) {
    $db = $c->get('settings')['db'];
    $pdo = new PDO($db['dsn'].':'.$db['database']);
    $pdo->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE, PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION);
    $pdo->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_DEFAULT_FETCH_MODE, PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
    return $pdo;
};

You can download the database here. Or if you prefer, you can set up the database yourself. If you want to create the tables, you can use the following SQL commands:

CREATE TABLE "courses" ( 
`id` INTEGER NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT, 
`title` TEXT NOT NULL, 
`url` TEXT NOT NULL )

CREATE TABLE "reviews" ( 
`id` INTEGER NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT, 
`course_id` INTEGER NOT NULL, 
`rating` INTEGER NOT NULL, 
`comment` BLOB NOT NULL )

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    We're going to use the Slim skeleton to set up our application. 0:00
    Let's run, composer create-project 0:04
    slim/slim-skeleton php_rest_api, 0:09
    as the name of our project. 0:15
    Now we can cd into php_rest_api. 0:23
    Now I can open these files in an editor. 0:30
    In our public folder, we have an .htaccess file and our index.php file. 0:33
    So let's try running our application. 0:40
    In MAMP, I'll go to Preferences > Web Server, 0:43
    and select Documents > php_rest_api, and our public directory. 0:48
    We can then start the servers. 0:57
    Great, our application is running. 1:00
    Let's start setting things up. 1:04
    Let's start in the settings file. 1:06
    We're going to be working in our src directory. 1:09
    In this settings file, I'm going to be adding API and database settings. 1:12
    These could be set using environment variables, 1:18
    so check the notes for more information. 1:21
    First, I'll add the API. 1:23
    Api is going to equal 1:28
    version, v1, 1:34
    and the base URL, This is going to be our localhost. 1:39
    Now I can add the SQLite database, db, 1:51
    And for a SQLite database, I need the dsn, 2:02
    Which will be sqlite, And the database. 2:09
    I'm gonna put this database in the current src directory. 2:16
    And it's named course_reviews.db. 2:20
    You can download the database that I've supplied that has some test data in it 2:28
    already. 2:32
    I'm gonna move mine to this src directory. 2:33
    As you can see, I have the course_reviews.db. 2:45
    Now I'm ready to add the API and database dependencies to my dependency container so 2:49
    that I can access these dependencies throughout my application. 2:54
    Let's give us some space, and this will be our API. 3:04
    We'll say $container, ['api']. 3:10
    I'm going to set $api = $c->get('settings'), 3:24
    And the api settings. 3:32
    For right now, I'm just going to return the api. 3:35
    Remember that we need to add the semicolon after each of these containers. 3:41
    Now I need a container for PDO to connect to my SQLite database. 3:50
    We'll call this db. 3:57
    And we'll set our $db = $c->get('settings'), 4:04
    And our database settings. 4:13
    Then we'll create a new PDO. 4:16
    And we'll use $db['dsn'], 4:22
    And then a colon, and then our $db['database']. 4:29
    I'm also going to add some PDO attributes. 4:35
    These are things like error mode and default modes. 4:41
    Check the notes for more information. 4:46
    Then we'll return the $pdo. 4:48
    The last thing that I need to set up is autoloading for our own classes. 4:52
    Open composer.json, if you scroll down, you'll see the autoload-dev. 4:57
    This is for tests. 5:05
    We'll copy this section, and we'll change it to autoload. 5:07
    And instead of Tests, we're going to say App, and 5:12
    our app lives in our src directory. 5:16
    Before these changes will take effect, we need to run composer update. 5:20
    From within the php_rest_api directory, we run, composer update. 5:26
    Now that we've added our settings, dependencies, and autoloader, 5:34
    we're ready to build our API. 5:39
    Since an API is all about sharing data, 5:41
    the first thing we need to do is access that data 5:45

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