breeze-rest-adapter

A dataservice adapter for BreezeJS to connect to a generic REST API.

Usage

npm i breeze-rest-adapter --save

Just use ES6 import

import 'breeze-rest-adapter';

Experimental ES6 support

import 'breeze-rest-adapter/es6';

You can also include the classes directly in order to customize for your needs:

`import { ServiceAdapter, ResultsAdapter, default as register } from 'breeze-rest-adapter/es6';`

Then register the ServiceAdapter with breeze: register(breeze);

This will call breeze.config.registerAdapter('dataService', ServiceAdapter);

The ServiceAdapter class has a property name = 'REST' which identifies it.

Now configure breeze to use the registered REST data service as follows:

breeze.config.initializeAdapterInstances({dataService: 'REST'});

The ES6 code should be much easier to understand and customize if you need to. This conversion has not yet been tested so consider it a WIP.

Suggestion: Ideally you would somehow swap out the use of old school XHR with the new Fetch API.

Creating your own ServiceAdapter

Simply extend the provided ServiceAdapter and replace the serviceConfig with your own. Then register the adapter.

import { ServiceAdapter } from 'breeze-rest-adapter/es6';
import myServiceConfig from './myServiceConfig';

class MyServiceAdapter extends ServiceAdapter {
	constructor() {
		super();
		this.serviceConfig = myServiceConfig;
	}
}

breeze.config.registerAdapter('dataService', MyServiceAdapter);

Please see the docs for Breeze DataServiceAdapter

Note: You can also create/use a custom ajax adapter

breeze.config.registerAdapter('ajax', myAjaxAdapter);

Alternatively configure this on the serviceConfig object f.ex by merging on top of the base serviceConfig we provide.

const myServiceConfig = Object.assign(serviceConfig, {
	// ...
  ajax: null,
  promiseFactory: null,
})

The default promiseFactory is Q

Sample customization

Install node inflection for pluralize functionality.

npm install inflection --save

import { serviceConfig } from 'breeze-rest-adapter/es6/data-service/';
import inflection from 'inflection';

class MyChangeSaver extends serviceConfig.ChangeSaver {
	constructor() {
		super();
		this.serviceConfig = serviceConfig;		
	}

	// we pluralize the resource name
	// this will make the url for a Person entityType
	// something like `persons/id` 
	// instead of the default `person/id`
  get remoteApiResourceName() {
    return inflection.pluralize( this.resourceName() ); 
  }	
}

// use our custom ChangeSaver
serviceConfig.ChangeSaver = MyChangeSaver;

// ...

Overview

This adapter was implemented to allow integration between BreezeJS entities in the browser to a REST-ful service. There are many examples that the BreezeJS team has provided on data service adapters for various backends like:

• Breeze on the MEAN stack
• Edmunds service example - generic read only service
• Breeze with Ruby backend

This example differs in that it makes the assumption that your resources can actually be object graphs of multiple entity types. For example:

{
    "orderHeader" : {
	    "creator": "Bob",
		"createdDate": "20140101 00:00:00",
		"entityAspect": {
		    "entityType": "OrderHeader",
			"entityState": "Modified"
		}
	},
	"orderLineItems": [
	    {
		    productId: 3,
			amount: 1,
			"entityAspect": {
		        "entityType": "OrderLineItem",
			    "entityState": "Added"
		    }
		},
		{
		    productId: 10,
			amount: 5,
			"entityAspect": {
		        "entityType": "OrderLineItem",
			    "entityState": "Added"
		    }
		}
	],
	"entityAspect": {
		"entityType": "Order",
		"entityState": "Modified"
	}
}

Here we have an Order entity, with child properties that also entities, an OrderHeader entity, and a collection of OrderLineItem entities. The data service adapter will look at all the changed entities in the local cache and build an object graph (based on the defined relationships in the metadata).

Additionally this adapter makes the assumption that the backend service provides an entityAspect object that is a property of every entity. This is a helper property that allows the adapter to know which type of entity is being provided.

The adapter will also craft REST-like URLs for its requests. E.g.:

/service/order/3
/service/order/4/orderItem/6

Note: The entity names are not pluralised by default, but if you can assign a plural resourceName to entityType it might just work ;)

function saveChanges(...) {
	// ...
	var resourceName = entityType.resourceName || entityType.defaultResourceName;

	url = baseUrl + resourceName
	// ...
	url = url + "/" + rootEntity.id();
	// ...
}

This can be further customized as described in the saveChanges documentation.

You call EntityManager.saveChanges and pass in a SaveOptions object that specifies the resourceName to handle the request. The server should route the request to a suitable controller action method. You’d also set the SaveOptions.dataService if you need also to target a different controller.

Assuming that you want to save all pending changes to a custom endpoint, you could write:

let so = new SaveOptions({ resourceName: 'myCustomSave' });
// null = 'all-pending-changes'; saveOptions is the 2nd parameter
myEntityManager.SaveChanges(null, so ); 

You are more likely to assemble a list of entities to save to that endpoint, a list consistent with the semantics of MyCustomSave in which case you’d probably pass that list in the saveChanges call:

myEntityManager.SaveChanges(selectedEntities, so );

The Breeze client still sends a JSON change-set bundle to MyCustomSave as it would with a normal saveChanges call. The POST method on the server that handles the MyCustomSave endpoint should have the same as signature as the SaveChanges method.

REST Adapters

The adapters works in concert with a JsonResultsAdapter that parses the results from the service, looks at the entityAspect property and returns to Breeze all the entities it finds in the result.

Installation

Include the following code when setting up your Breeze Data Service:

breeze.config.initializeAdapterInstances({dataService: "REST"});

More

From the RubyOnRails sample app, we find the following function. Notice how the url is constructed based on entityType.shortName in var entityTypeShortName = entity.entityType.shortName; and then pluralised: `var url = saveContext.dataService.makeUrl(this.pluralize(entityTypeShortName));

function getRequestInfo(saveContext, saveBundle){

		var em = saveContext.entityManager;
		var helper = em.helper;
		var metadataStore = em.metadataStore;
		var entityInfos = [];
		saveContext.entityInfos = entityInfos;

		// TODO: handle multiple entities in single saveChanges() request
		if (saveBundle.entities.length > 1) {
				throw new Error("Can only save one entity at a time; multi-entity save is not yet implemented.")
		}

		var entity = saveBundle.entities[0]
		var aspect = entity.entityAspect;
		var key =  aspect.getKey();
		var id =  key.values.join(',');
		var entityTypeShortName =  entity.entityType.shortName;
		var serverTypeName = entityTypeShortName.toLowerCase();

		var entityInfo = {
				entityState: aspect.entityState,
				key: key,
				serverTypeName: serverTypeName
		};
		entityInfos.push(entityInfo);

		var url = saveContext.dataService.makeUrl(this.pluralize(entityTypeShortName));
		var data = {};
		var entityStateName =  aspect.entityState.name;
		switch (entityStateName){
				case 'Added':
						var raw =  helper.unwrapInstance(entity, true, true);
						delete raw.id; // hack until we augment unwrapInstance in Breeze
						data[serverTypeName] = raw;
						return {
								method: 'POST',
								url: url,
								data: JSON.stringify(data)
						}
				case 'Modified':
						data[serverTypeName] = helper.unwrapChangedValues(entity, metadataStore, true);
						return {
								method: 'PUT',
								url: url+'/'+id,
								data: JSON.stringify(data)
						}

				case 'Deleted':
						return {
								method: 'DELETE',
								url: url+'/'+id
						}
				default:
						throw new Error('Cannot save an entity with state = '+entityStateName);
		}
}