fmrest-ruby
A Ruby client for FileMaker's Data API with ActiveRecord-ish ORM features.
While pretty feature-rich, fmrest-ruby doesn't yet support 100% of FileMaker 19's Data API features. See the implementation completeness table to check if a feature you need is natively supported by the gem.
Need Ruby or FileMaker consulting? Contact us at Beezwax.net
Gems
The fmrest
gem is a wrapper for these gems:
-
fmrest-spyke
, providing an ActiveRecord-like ORM library built on top offmrest-core
and Spyke. -
fmrest-core
, providing the core Faraday connection builder, session management, and other core utilities. -
fmrest-rails
, providing Rails integration.
In addition, the optional fmrest-cloud
gem adds support for FileMaker Cloud.
See the main document on connecting to FileMaker
Cloud.
Installation
In your Gemfile:
gem 'fmrest'
# Optional: if your files are hosted on FileMaker Cloud
gem 'fmrest-cloud'
If you're using Rails you can now run:
rails generate fmrest:config
Simple example
# A Layout model connecting to the "Honeybees Web" FileMaker layout
class Honeybee < FmRest::Layout("Honeybees Web")
# Connection settings
self.fmrest_config = {
host: "…",
database: "…",
username: "…",
password: "…"
}
# Mapped attributes
attributes name: "Bee Name", age: "Bee Age", created_on: "Created On"
# Portal associations
has_portal :tasks
# File containers
container :photo, field_name: "Bee Photo"
# Scopes
scope :can_legally_fly, -> { query(age: ">18") }
# Client-side validations
validates :name, presence: true
# Callbacks
before_save :set_created_on
private
def set_created_on
self.created_on = Date.today
end
end
# Find a record by id
bee = Honeybee.find(9)
bee.name = "Hutch"
# Add a new record to portal
bee.tasks.build(urgency: "Today")
bee.save
In case you don't want the ORM features (i.e. you only need authentication and
JSON parsing, and are comfortable writing the API requests manually without the
ORM overhead) you can use the Faraday connection provided by fmrest-core
.
See the main document on using the base
connection for more.
Connection settings
The minimum required connection settings are :host
, :database
, :username
and :password
, but fmrest-ruby has many other options you can pass when
setting up a connection (see full list below).
:ssl
and :proxy
are forwarded to the underlying
Faraday connection. You can use this
to, for instance, disable SSL verification:
{
host: "…",
…
ssl: { verify: false },
proxy: "http://user:password@proxy.host:4321"
}
You can also pass a :log
option for basic request logging, see the section on
Logging below.
Full list of available options
Option | Description | Format | Default |
---|---|---|---|
:host |
Hostname with optional port, e.g. example.com:9000
|
String | None |
:database |
The name of the database to connect to | String | None |
:username |
A Data API-ready account | String | None |
:password |
Your password | String | None |
:account_name |
Alias of :username
|
String | None |
:ssl |
SSL options to be forwarded to Faraday | Faraday SSL options hash | None |
:proxy |
Proxy URI, e.g. http://user:password@proxy.host:4321
|
String | None |
:log |
Log JSON responses to STDOUT | Boolean | false |
:log_level |
Which log level to log into | Values accepted by Logger#level=
|
:debug |
:coerce_dates |
See section on date fields | Boolean | :hybrid | :full
|
false |
:date_format |
Date parsing format | String (FM date format) | "MM/dd/yyyy" |
:timestamp_format |
Timestmap parsing format | String (FM date format) | "MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss" |
:time_format |
Time parsing format | String (FM date format) | "HH:mm:ss" |
:timezone |
The timezone for the FM server |
:local | :utc | nil
|
nil |
:autologin |
Whether to automatically start Data API sessions | Boolean | true |
:token |
Used to manually provide a session token (e.g. if :autologin is false ) |
String | None |
:fmid_token |
Claris ID token (only needed if manually obtaining the token) | String | None |
:cloud |
Specifies whether the host is using FileMaker Cloud |
:auto | Boolean |
:auto |
:cognito_client_id |
Overwrites the hardcoded FileMaker Cloud Cognito Client ID | String | None |
:cognito_pool_id |
Overwrites the hardcoded FileMaker Cloud Cognito Pool ID | String | None |
:aws_region |
Overwrites the hardcoded FileMaker Cloud AWS Region | String | None |
Default connection settings
If you're only connecting to a single FM database you can configure it globally
through FmRest.default_connection_settings=
. E.g.:
FmRest.default_connection_settings = {
host: "…",
database: "…",
username: "…",
password: "…"
}
These settings will be used by default by FmRest::Layout
models whenever you
don't set fmrest_config=
explicitly, as well as by
FmRest::V1.build_connection
in case you're setting up your Faraday connection
manually.
Session token store
fmrest-ruby includes a number of options for storing session tokens:
- Memory
- ActiveRecord
- Redis
- Moneta
See the main document on token stores for detailed info on how to set up each store.
Date fields and timezones
fmrest-ruby has automatic detection and coercion of date fields to and from Ruby date/time objects. Basic timezone support is also provided.
See the main document on date fields for more info.
ActiveRecord-like ORM (fmrest-spyke)
Spyke is an ActiveRecord-like gem for
building REST ORM models. fmrest-ruby uses it to build its ORM features,
bundled in the fmrest-spyke
gem (already included if you're using the
fmrest
gem).
To create a model you can inherit directly from FmRest::Layout
(itself a
subclass of Spyke::Base
).
class Honeybee < FmRest::Layout
end
All of Spyke's basic ORM operations work as expected:
bee = Honeybee.new
bee.name = "Hutch"
bee.save # POST request (creates new record)
bee.name = "ハッチ"
bee.save # PATCH request (updates existing record)
bee.reload # GET request
bee.destroy # DELETE request
bee = Honeybee.find(9) # GET request
It's recommended that you read Spyke's documentation for more information on these basic features. If you've used ActiveRecord or similar ORM libraries you'll find it quite familiar.
Notice that FmRest::Layout
is aliased as FmRest::Spyke::Base
. Previous
versions of fmrest-ruby only provided the latter version, so if you're already
using FmRest::Spyke::Base
there's no need to rename your classes to
FmRest::Layout
, both will continue to work interchangeably.
In addition, FmRest::Layout
extends Spyke::Base
with the following
features:
FmRest::Layout.fmrest_config=
This allows you to set Data API connection settings specific to your model class:
class Honeybee < FmRest::Layout
self.fmrest_config = {
host: "…",
database: "…",
username: "…",
password: "…"
}
end
These settings are class-inheritable, so you could create a base class that does the initial connection setup and then inherit from it in models using that same connection. E.g.:
class ApplicationFmLayout < FmRest::Layout
self.fmrest_config = { host: "…", database: "…", … }
end
class Honeybee < ApplicationFmLayout
# This model will use the same connection as ApplicationFmLayout
end
If fmrest_config
is not set, your model will try to use
FmRest.default_connection_settings
instead.
Connection settings overlays
There may be cases where you want to use a different set of connection settings
depending on context. For example, if you want to use username and password
provided by the user in a web application. Since .fmrest_config
is set at the
class level, changing the username/password for the model in one context would
also change it in all other contexts, leading to security issues.
To solve this scenario, fmrest-ruby provides a way of defining thread-local,
reversible connection settings overlays through .fmrest_config_overlay=
.
See the main document on connection setting overlays for details on how it works.
FmRest::Layout.layout
Use layout
to set the layout name for your model.
class Honeybee < FmRest::Layout
layout "Honeybees Web"
end
Alternatively, if you're inheriting from FmRest::Layout
directly you can set
the layout name in the class definition line:
class Honeybee < FmRest::Layout("Honeybees Web")
Note that you only need to manually set the layout name if the name of the class and the name of the layout differ, otherwise fmrest-ruby will just use the name of the class.
FmRest::Layout.request_auth_token
Requests a Data API session token using the connection settings in
fmrest_config
and returns it if successful, otherwise returns false
.
You normally don't need to use this method as fmrest-ruby will automatically
request and store session tokens for you (provided that :autologin
is
true
in the connection settings, which it is by default).
FmRest::Layout.logout
Use .logout
to log out from the database session (you may call it on any
model that uses the database session you want to log out from).
Honeybee.logout
Mapped FmRest::Layout.attributes
Spyke allows you to define your model's attributes using attributes
, however
sometimes FileMaker's field names aren't very Ruby-ORM-friendly, especially
since they may sometimes contain spaces and other special characters, so
fmrest-ruby extends attributes
' functionality to allow you to map
Ruby-friendly attribute names to FileMaker field names. E.g.:
class Honeybee < FmRest::Layout
attributes first_name: "First Name", last_name: "Last Name"
end
You can then simply use the pretty attribute names whenever working with your model and they will get mapped to their FileMaker fields:
bee = Honeybee.find(1)
bee.first_name # => "Princess"
bee.last_name # => "Buzz"
bee.first_name = "Queen"
bee.attributes # => { "First Name": "Queen", "Last Name": "Buzz" }
FmRest::Layout.has_portal
You can define portal associations on your model wth has_portal
, as such:
class Honeybee < FmRest::Layout
has_portal :flowers
end
class Flower < FmRest::Layout
attributes :color, :species
end
See the main document on portal associations for details.
Dirty attributes
fmrest-ruby includes support for ActiveModel's Dirty mixin out of the box, providing methods like:
bee = Honeybee.new
bee.changed? # => false
bee.name = "Maya"
bee.changed? # => true
bee.name_changed? # => true
fmrest-ruby uses the Dirty functionality to only send changed attributes back to the server on save.
You can read more about ActiveModel's Dirty in Rails Guides.
Query API
Since Spyke is API-agnostic it only provides a wide-purpose .where
method for
passing arbitrary parameters to the REST backend. fmrest-ruby however is well
aware of its backend API, so it extends Spkye models with a bunch of useful
querying methods: .query
, .match
, .omit
, .limit
, .offset
, .sort
,
.portal
, .script
, etc.
See the main document on querying for detailed information on the query API methods.
Finding records in batches
Sometimes you want to iterate over a very large number of records to do some processing, but requesting them all at once would result in one huge request to the Data API, and loading too many records in memory all at once.
To mitigate this problem you can use .find_in_batches
and .find_each
.
See the main document on finding in batches for detailed information on how those work.
Container fields
You can define container fields on your model class with container
:
class Honeybee < FmRest::Layout
container :photo, field_name: "Beehive Photo ID"
end
See the main document on container fields for details on how to use it.
Script execution
The FM Data API allows running scripts as part of many types of requests, and
fmrest-spyke
provides mechanisms for all of them.
See the main document on script execution for details.
Setting global field values
You can call .set_globals
on any FmRest::Layout
model to set global
field values on the database that model is configured for.
See the main document on setting global field values for details.
Rescuable mixin
Sometimes you may want to handle Data API errors at the model level. For such
cases fmrest-ruby provides an off-by-default mixin called Rescuable
that
provides convenience macros for that. If you've used Ruby on Rails you may be
familiar with its syntax from controllers. E.g.
class BeeBase < FmRest::Layout
include FmRest::Spyke::Model::Rescuable
rescue_from FmRest::APIError::SystemError, with: :notify_admin_of_system_error
def self.notify_admin_of_system_error(e)
# Shoot an email to the FM admin...
end
end
Since Rescuable
uses ActiveSupport::Rescuable
internally, you may want to
check Rails'
documentation
too for details on how it works.
One caveat of using rescue_from
is that it always catches exceptions at the
class level, so if you pass a method name to with:
that method has to be a
class method. Also note that this will only catch exceptions raised during an
API call to the Data API server (in other words, only on actions that perform
an HTTP request).
Optional modId
The Data API provides an optional modId
value that gets set on a record every
time you fetch or update it. This value then gets included in the API request
when you save the record, and FileMaker compares it against the current value,
preventing the update in case of a mismatch.
This safety feature is enabled by default in fmrest-spyke
models, but you can
disable it using the inheritable ignore_mod_id
flag on your model classes or
instances. E.g.
class Bee < FmRest::Layout
# This disables modId for all instances and subclasses
self.ignore_mod_id = true
end
# Or set it on instances:
bee = Bee.new
bee.ignore_mod_id # => true (set in class)
bee.ignore_mod_id = false # (affects only this instance)
You can also set it directly on FmRest::Layout
if you want to disable it for
your entire app:
FmRest::Layout.ignore_mod_id = true
Logging
If using fmrest-spyke
with Rails then pretty log output will be set up for
you automatically by Spyke (see their
README).
You can also enable simple Faraday logging of raw requests (useful for
debugging) by passing log: true
in the options hash for either
FmRest.default_connection_settings=
or your models' fmrest_config=
, e.g.:
FmRest.default_connection_settings = {
host: "…",
…
log: true
}
# Or in your model
class LoggyBee < FmRest::Layout
self.fmrest_config = {
host: "…",
…
log: true
}
end
You can also pass log_level
to connection settings to change the severity of
log output (defaults to :debug
).
By default fmrest-ruby logs to STDOUT or to Rails' logger object if available.
You can change this by providing your own logger object to FmRest.logger=
:
FmRest.logger = Logger.new("fmrest.log")
If you need to set up more complex logging for your models you can use the
faraday
block inside your class to inject your own logger middleware into the
Faraday connection, e.g.:
class LoggyBee < FmRest::Layout
faraday do |conn|
conn.response :logger, MyApp.logger, bodies: true
end
end
Gotchas
Read about unexpected scenarios in the gotchas doc.
API implementation completeness table
FM Data API reference: https://help.claris.com/en/data-api-guide/
FM 19 Data API feature | Supported by basic connection | Supported by FmRest::Layout |
---|---|---|
Log in using HTTP Basic Auth | Yes | Yes |
Log in using OAuth | No | No |
Log in to an external data source | No | No |
Log in using Claris ID account (FileMaker Cloud) | Yes | Yes |
Log out | Yes | Yes |
Get product information | Manual* | No |
Get database names | Manual* | No |
Get script names | Manual* | No |
Get layout names | Manual* | No |
Get layout metadata | Manual* | No |
Create a record | Manual* | Yes |
Edit a record | Manual* | Yes |
Duplicate a record | Manual* | No |
Delete a record | Manual* | Yes |
Edit portal records | Manual* | Yes |
Get a single record | Manual* | Yes |
Get a range of records | Manual* | Yes |
Get container data | Manual* | Yes |
Upload container data | Manual* | Yes |
Perform a find request | Manual* | Yes |
Set global field values | Manual* | Yes |
Run a script | Manual* | Yes |
Run a script with another request | Manual* | Yes |
* You can manually supply the URL and JSON to a FmRest
connection.
Supported Ruby and Rails versions
The latest fmrest-ruby is tested against Ruby 3.0 through 3.3, and Rails (ActiveSupport) 6.1 through 7.1.
Gem development
After checking out the repo, run bin/setup
to install dependencies. Then, run
bundle exec rspec
to run the specs. You can also run bin/console
for an
interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment (it will auto-load all
fixtures in spec/fixtures).
To install all gems onto your local machine, run
bundle exec rake all:install
. To release a new version, update the version
number in lib/fmrest/version.rb
, and then run bundle exec rake all:release
,
which will create a git tag for the version, push git commits and tags, and
push the .gem
files to rubygems.org.
Disclaimer
This project is not sponsored by or otherwise affiliated with Claris International Inc., an Apple Inc. subsidiary. FileMaker is a trademark of Claris International Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.