For both a client and my work we are working on creating a RESTful API. The problem is that all of the current solutions for Zend Framework are either one off (Resauce, ZfApiVersioning) or otherwise do not play well with a pre-built Zend Framework 1 application. The solution I was looking needed the following
- handle API versions in the route (I know this isn’t in the spirit of RESTful)
- handle OAuth
- Plays well with ZF1 Module architecture (using a Module Bootstrap)
REST modules
In the end most of the solutions out there handle one thing or another but do not address the playing well with ZF1. Resauce deletes the default routes and sets it’s own root url (‘/’), this is not acceptable when you are trying to integrate it with an existing application. ZfApiVersioning suffered the same thing. The only available solution that I found was to write my own REST library for ZF1, so I am introducing ZfRest. It handles the requirements above, and more. The OAuth part is actually loaded as a plugin, requires PECL Oauth, and provides a basic way to handle using Oauth.
OAuth
I also needed an OAuth provider or server. Out of the few solutions I found for ZF1 (link: Zend_Oauth_Provider [incorrect naming], link: Oauth_Server [too complex]), I opted to just use the PECL OAuth module. I quickly ran into a problem where the Exceptions from an internal function were not being passed to my script when you pass in a path such as “/api/users”. Once I figured this out, everything was just working.
$oauthProvider = new OauthProvider();
$oauthProvider->consumerHandler('lookupConsumer');
$oauthProvider->timestampNonceHandler('lookupTimestampNonce');
try {
$oauthProvider->checkOAuthRequest($uri, $method);
}
catch (Exception $e) {
// Set HTTP response code to 403
echo json_encode(array('statusCode' => 403, 'message' => 'Access denied to this resource'));
}
I’ve had several updates to problems I’ve found while using it, but overall I’ve found it works rather well.