jsonapi-vuex

A module to access JSONAPI data from an API, using a Vuex store, restructured to make life easier.

Features

Creates a Vuex module to store API data.
High-level methods to wrap common RESTful operations (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE). (See Actions)
Restructures/normalizes data, making record handling easier. (See Restructured Data)
Makes fetching related objects easy. (See getRelated)
Relationships can be followed and expanded into records automatically (recursively). (See Related Items)
Uses Axios (or your own axios-like module) as the HTTP client.
Uses jsonpath for filtering when getting objects from the store.
Records the status of actions (LOADING, SUCCESS, ERROR).
New data can overwrite, or be merged onto, existing records. (See mergeRecords)
Override endpoint names per-request (for plural names etc). Use links.self when available/applicable (See Endpoints)
Patches can be 'cleaned' to ensure they only contain new or modified data. (See cleanPatch)
Can query the API and receive restructured data, without modifying the store. (See the Search action)

Setup

Having created a Vue project, simply add the module to your store.js, passing it an axios-like instance:

import Vue from 'vue'
import Vuex from 'vuex'
import axios from 'axios'
import { jsonapiModule } from 'jsonapi-vuex'

Vue.use(Vuex)

const api = axios.create({
  baseURL: 'https://api.example.com/1/api/',
  headers: {
    'Content-Type': 'application/vnd.api+json',
  },
})

export default new Vuex.Store({
  modules: {
    jv: jsonapiModule(api),
  },
})

Usage

The most common way to access the API and update the store is through high-level actions - though getters (and mutations) can be used directly if required.

There are a number of features which are worth explaining in more detail. Many of these can be configured - see the Configuration section.

Follow relationships - If enabled then any relationships specified as data resources in the JSONAPI data will be expanded and stored alongside the attributes in the restructured data 'root'. Additionally, helper methods will be added to _jv to make dealing with these easier (see Helper functions)
Clear on update - If enabled, then each new set of records is considered to be definitive for that type, and any other records of that type in the store will be removed. This option is useful for cases where you expect the API response to contain the full set of records from the server, as it avoids the need for manual cache expiry. The code will first apply the new records to the store, and then for each type which has had new records added, remove old ones. This is designed to be more efficient in terms of updating computed properties and UI redraws than emptying then repopulating the store.
Included - If the JSONAPI record contains an includes section, the data in this will be added to the store alongisde the 'main' records. (If includes are not used, then you will need to use getRelated to fetch relationships).
Merging - By default, data returned from the API overwrites records already in the store. However, this may lead to inconsistencies if using Sparse fieldsets or otherwise obtaining only a subset of data from the API. If merging is enabled, then new data will be merged onto existing data. this does however mean that you are responsible for explicitly calling the deleteRecord mutation in cases where attributes ahve been removed in the API, as they will never be removed from the store, only added to.
Preserve JSON - The original JSONAPI record(s) can optionally be preserved in _jv if needed - for example if you need access to meta or other sections. To avoid duplication, the data section (attributes, relationships etc) is removed.
Endpoints - by default this module assumes that object types and API endpoints (item and collection) all share the same name. however, some APIs use plurals or other variations on the endpoint names. You can override the endpoint name via the axios url config option or the links.self attribute (see Endpoints)
Clean Patches - by default, data passed to the patch action is used as-is. If cleanPatch is enabled, then the patch object is compared to the record in the store (if it exists), and any attributes with identical values are removed. This means that the final patch will only contain new or modified attributes, which is safer and more efficient, as it avoids sending unnecessary or 'stale' data.

Actions

The usual way to use this module is to use actions wherever possible. All actions are asynchronous, and both query the API and update the store, then return data in a normalized form. Every action call's state is tracked as it progresses, and this status can be easily queried (see the status getter).

There are 4 actions (with aliases): get (fetch), post (create), patch (update), and delete which correspond to RESTful methods. There is also a getRelated action which fetches a record's related items.

RESTful actions

These actions take 2 arguments: the path/object to be acted on, and an (optional) axios config object. The first argument is an object containing restructured data.

Note - Since the dispatch method can only accept a single argument, if both arguments are used, the argument must be an array.

The first argument is an object containing restructured data. Actions which take no data argument apart from the record (get and delete) can also accept a URL to fetch (relative to axios baseURL (if set) leading slash is optional). This means you don't need to create an 'empty' restructured data object to get or delete a record. Some examples:

// Restructured representation of a record
const newWidget = {
  name: 'sprocket',
  color: 'black',
  _jv: {
    type: 'widget',
    id: '1',
  },
}

// Request Query params (JSONAPI options, auth tokens etc)
const params = {
  token: 'abcdef123456',
}

// To get all items in a collection, using a sring path:
this.$store.dispatch('jv/get', 'widget').then((data) => {
  console.log(data)
})

// Get a specific record from the 'widget' endpoint, passing parameters to axios:
this.$store
  .dispatch('jv/get', ['widget/1', { params: params }])
  .then((data) => {
    console.log(data)
  })

// Create a new widget in the API, using a restructured object, and passing parameters to axios:
this.$store
  .dispatch('jv/post', [newWidget, { params: params }])
  .then((data) => {
    console.log(data)
  })

search

The search action is trhe same as the get action, except that it does not result in any updates to the store. This action exists for efficiency purposes - for example to do 'search-as-you-type' queries without continually updating the store with all the results.

const widgetSearch = (text) => {
  const params = { 'filter[text_contains]': text }

  this.$store
    .dispatch('jv/search', 'widget', { params: params })
    .then((data) => {
      return data
    })
}

getRelated

Note - in many cases you may prefer to use the jsonapi server-side include option to get data on relationships included in your original query. (See Related Items).

Like the RESTful actions, this takes 2 arguments - the URL/object to be acted on, and an axios config object. It returns a deeply nested restructured tree - relationship -> type -> id -> data.

Note - getRelated only works on specific items, not collections.

// Assuming the API holds the following data
jsonapi = {
  data: {
    type: 'widget',
    id: '1',
  },
  relationships: {
    widgets: {
      data: {
        type: 'widget',
        id: '2',
      },
    },
    doohickeys: {
      data: {
        type: 'doohickey',
        id: '10',
      },
    },
  },
}

// Get all of widget 1's related items (widgets and doohickeys)
this.$store.dispatch('jv/getRelated', 'widget/1').then((data) => {
  console.log(data)
})

// Get only the items in the 'widgets' relationship
this.$store.dispatch('jv/getRelated', 'widget/1/widgets').then((data) => {
  console.log(data)
})

Getters

There are 2 getters available. get and status.

get

Get returns information directly from the store for previously cached records. This is useful for performance reasons, or for use in computed properties.

computed: {
  ...mapGetters({
    // Map 'jv/get' as a computed property 'get'
    get: 'jv/get',
  }),
  // Create a computed property that calls the getter with normalized data
  getWidget: function() {
    return this.$store.getters['jv/get']({ _jv: { type: 'Widget' } })
  },
},

Like actions, get takes an object or string indicating the desired resources. This can be an empty string, type, or type and id, to return the whole store, a collection, or an item.

get takes an optional 2nd argument - a jsonpath string to filter the record(s) which are being retrieved. See the project page for JSONPath Syntax

// Assuming the store is as follows:
store = {
  widget: {
    '1': {
      name: 'sprocket',
      color: 'black',
    },
    '2': {
      name: 'cog',
      color: 'red',
    },
  },
}

// Get all records (of any type) with id = 10 (useful if your API has globally unique UUIDs)
this.$store.getters['jv/get']('', '$.*.10')

// Get all widgets that are red:
this.$store.getters['jv/get']('widget', '[?(@.color=="red")]')

// Note that filters can create impossible conditions
// The following will return empty, as widget 1 is not red
this.$store.getters['jv/get']('widget/1', '[?(@.color=="red")]')

status

Every action is given a unique id, and this is both returned as a property of the promise, and preserved in state under the jvtag (as defined in config).

The status getter accepts either an id, or a promise returned by an action, and returns the stored state of the action. This can be one of:

LOADING
SUCCESS
ERROR

For example, to determine the state of an action:

// Get a promise from calling an action
let action = this.$store.dispatch('jv/get', 'widget')

// Check the status of the action (and assuming it hasn't yet completed)
let status = this.$store.getters['jv/status'](action)

console.log(status) // LOADING

// Continue to handle the action results in the usual way
action.then((data) => {
  // The action has returned
  console.log(status) // SUCCESS

  // Continue as usual
  console.log(data)
})

The status getter is primarily designed to use useful for handling UI changes based on actions.

For example, you might want to disable an attribute while an action is happening by 'watching' status:

<input type="text" :disabled="status === 'LOADING'">

Mutations

There are several mutations which can be used to directly modify the store.

Note - in most cases mutations are called from actions as a result of querying the API, and it is not necessary to call mutations directly.

Mutations take normalised data as an argument.

deleteRecord

Deletes a single record from the store.

store.commit('deleteRecord', { _jv: { type: 'widget', id: '1' } })

addRecords

Updates records in the store. Replaces or merges with existing records, depending on the value of mergeRecords

replaceRecords

As addRecords, but explicitly replaces existing records.

mergeRecords

As addRecords, but explicitly merges onto existing records.

clearRecords

Will remove all records from the store (of a given type) which aren't contained in given response. (See clearOnUpdate).

setStatus

Sets the session status information in the store.

deleteStatus

Deletes a session status record from the store.

Related Items

By default the get action and getter are both configured to follow and expand out relationships recursively, if they are provided as data entries (i.e. {type: 'widget', id: '1'}). This behaviour is controlled with the followRelationshipsData config option.

Note - If using the action you may wish to also set the include parameter on the server query to include the relationships you are interested in. Any records returned in the included section of the jsonapi data will be automatically added to the store.

For any relationships where the related item is already in the store, this is added to the returned object(s) in the 'root', alongside the attributes. For items with a single relationship, the object is placed directly under the relName - for mutiple items, they are indexed by id:

// Assuming the store is as follows:
store = {
  widget: {
    '1': {
      name: 'sprocket',
      _jv: {
        relationships: {
          parts: {
            data: {
              type: 'widget',
              id: '2',
            },
          },
        },
      },
    },
    '2': {
      name: 'cog',
    },
  },
}

// Get widget/1, with related items

// Either:

// (Note the use of include to ensure `parts` is in the store)
let item1 = await this.$store.dispatch('jv/get', 'widget/1', [{ include: 'parts' }])


// OR...

let item1 = this.$store.getters['jv/get']('widget/1')

// This will return:
{
  name: 'sprocket',
  parts: {
    name: 'cog'
    _jv: { /* ... */ }
  },
  _jv: {
    id: '1',
    type: 'widget',
  },
}

Helper Functions

Distinguishing between the attributes and relationships in the 'root' is simplified by a number of 'helper' functions which are provided in the _jv (jvtag) object:

attrs - a getter property which returns an object containing all attributes.
rels - a getter property which returns an object containing all relationships.
isAttr - a function which returns True/False for a given name.
isRel - a function which returns True/False for a given name.

These are particularly useful in Vue templates. For example to iterate over an item, picking out just the attributes:

<li v-for="(val, key) in widget._jv.attrs">{{ key }} {{ val }}</li>

<!-- Or -->

<li v-for="(val, key) in widget" v-if="widget._jv.isAttr(key)">{{ key }} {{ val }}</li>

Configuration

A config object can be passed to jsonapiModule when instantiating. It will override the default options:

const config = { jvtag: '_splat' }
jm = jsonapiModule(api, config)

Config Options

For many of these options, more information is provided in the Usage section.

jvtag - The tag in restructured objects to hold object metadata (defaults to _jv)
followRelationshipsData - Whether to follow and expand relationships and store them alongside attributes in the item 'root' (defaults to true).
preserveJson - Whether actions should return the API response json (minus data) in _jv/json (for access to meta etc) (defaults to false)
actionStatusCleanAge - What age must action status records be before they are removed (defaults to 600 seconds). Set to 0 to disable.
mergeRecords- Whether new records should be merged onto existing records in the store, or just replace them (defaults to false).
clearOnUpdate - Whether the store should clear old records and only keep new records when updating. Applies to the type(s) associated with the new records. (defaults to false).
cleanPatch - If enabled, patch object is compared to the record in the store, and only unique or modified attributes are kept in the patch. (defaults to false).

Endpoints

By default jsonapi-vuex assumes that object type and API endpoint are the same. For example, type: person would have endpoint URLs of /person and /person/1 for collections and single items.

When performing request on an already known single item (like an update), jsonapi-vuex will use the links.self attribute of an item to determine the API endpoint, if it is present.

However many APIs vary how endpoints are named - for example plurals (e.g. type:person, /person/1 and /people), or cases where the endpoint doesn't match the type (e.g. type: person /author and /author/1) or even a combination (e.g. type: person /author/1 and /authors)

To solve this it is possible to override the endpoint for a request by explicitly setting the axios url configuration option:

data = { _jv: { type: 'person' } }

// Default behaviour - will always treat type = itemEP = collectionEP
this.$store.dispatch('jv/get', data)
// GETs /person

// Explicitly override the endpoint url
this.$store.dispatch('jv/get', [data, { url: '/people' }])

this.$store.dispatch('jv/get', [data, { url: '/author/1' }])

// Override using a dynamic function
const customUrl = (data) => {
  if (data.hasOwnProperty('id')) {
    // single item (singular)
    return `person/${data.id}`
  } else {
    // collection (plural)
    return '/people'
  }
}

this.$store.dispatch('jv/get', [{ _jv: { type: 'widget' } }, { url: customUrl(data) }])

Note - If provided the url option is used as-is - you are responsible for setting a valid collection or item url (with id) as appropriate.

Restructured Data

JSONAPI is an extremely useful format for clearly interacting with an API - however it is less useful for the end developer, who is generally more interested in the data contained in a record than the structure surrounding it.

In this module we 'reverse' the JSONAPI data into a form where data attributes become top-level keys, and JSONAPI-specific data is moved down under another key: _jv.

For example, the JSONAPI record:

{
  "id": "1",
  "type": "widget",
  "attributes": {
    "name": "sprocket",
    "color": "black"
  },
  "meta": {}
}

has to be accessed as record.attributes.color

This module would restructure this record to be:

{
  "name": "sprocket",
  "color": "black",
  "_jv": {
    "id": "1",
    "type": "widget",
    "meta": {}
  }
}

Which is easier to work with, as lookups are now top-level, e.g. record.name

In cases where there are multiple records being returned in an object, the id is used as the key (though this is ignored in the code, and the 'real' id is always read from _jv):

{
  "1": {
    "name": "sprocket",
    "color": "black"
  },
  "2": {
    "name": "cog",
    "color": "red"
  }
}

These are accessed as record.1.name or record.2.color, or if a list is needed, via Object.values(record).

The above structure is actually how records are maintained in the store, nested below the endpoint:

{
  "widget": {
    "1": {},
    "2": {}
  },
  "doohickey": {
    "20": {}
  }
}

Development

Any bugs, enhancements or questions welcome as Issues (or even PRs!)

Development is currently being done with yarn - npm should work, but if you hit unexpected issues, please try yarn before filing a bug.

Setup

Having cloned this repository, simply run:

yarn

This should pull in all dependencies and development dependencies.

Testing

There are several scripts set up in package.json:

yarn unit - Run the unit tests (uses karma, mocha, chai, sinon)

yarn e2e - Run the e2e tests (uses nightwatch)

yarn testapp - Runs the example testapp used in e2e testing for interactive testing/debugging.

yarn fakeapiserver - Runs a fake JSONAPI server used by the testapp for interactive testing/debugging.

yarn test - Runs both unit and e2e tests. (Used by travis).

Note - All code is pre-processed with babel and eslint when testing for backwards compatability and linting.

Coding Standards

Please follow these guidelines when writing and submitting code:

eslint - This is run over both the main code and the test suite during tests. See .eslint.rc.js for changes to the default rules.
>= ES6 - Please try to use ES6 and newer methods (matching the policy that Vue has).
Tests - This project aspires to test-driven development. Please submit unit tests (and ideally e2e tests) with all PRs (unless there's a good reason not to).
Versioning - Semantic versioning should be used, see https://semver.org for details.
Continuous Integration - The project uses [travis(https://travis-ci.com) to run tests against all submissions - PRs that are not passing will not be accepted (without good reason).
Specific Commits - Please make all commits/PRs as atomic and specific as possible.

License

ipumpkin/jsonapi-vuex

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