Signaling

Signaling is a Ruby library that provides a simple API to work with remote objects exposed through HTTP services.

Main goals for this project are:

1. expose a simple API that will feel native in rails controllers (read ActiveRecord like)
2. have as least lines of code as possible
3. To NEVER implement auto-loading associations

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'signaling'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install signaling

1. Define a namespace and remote API:

   # app/models/example_com.rb
   module ExampleCom
     Api = Signaling::Api.new(url: "http://example.com/api")
   
     def self.use_relative_model_naming?
       true
     end
   end

   The use_relative_model_naming? tells ActiveModel::Naming to build the names of classes without the namespace. read more

2. Define a model:

   # app/models/example_com/item_list.rb
   class ExampleCom::ItemList < Signaling::Base
     use_api ExampleCom::Api
   
     attribute :name, String
   end

Attribute definition is implemented by virtus.

To change the key used to send the attribute to the remote server use the :param_name option.

attribute :name, String, param_name: :title

This will send the attribute to the server as :title. this will not parse it as :title from the remote response.

Virtus provides an API for typed arrays, these can contain other Signaling models.

# app/models/example_com/item.rb
module ExampleCom
  class Item < Signaling::Base
    attribtue :name, String
  end
end

# app/models/example_com/item_list.rb
module ExampleCom
  class ItemList < Signaling::Base
    use_api ExampleCom::Api

    attribute :name
    attribute :items, Array[ExampleCom::Item]
  end
end

Tip!™ Use this in combination with :param_name when using rails's accepts_nested_attributes_for.

module ExampleCom
  class ItemList < Signaling::Base
    use_api ExampleCom::Api

    attribute :items, Array[ExampleCom::Item], param_name: :items_attributes
  end
end

Signaling::Api.new accepts the following options:

• :url - The base URL for the remote API
• :logger - A Logger-compatible object to use for logging

It also accepts a block that yields with the faraday connection to allow adding custom middleware.

Api = Signaling::Api.new(url: api_base_url) do |faraday|
  faraday.use SomeCustomFaradayMiddleware
end

Signaling handles errors returned from the remote service in the errors json field. It uses ActiveModel::Errors for this so all the rails tricks should work here.

> list = ExampleCom::ItemList.new(name: 'My list')
> list.save

If the remote service will respond with HTTP status code 422 (Unprocessable Entity) and the following json body:

{
  "name": "My list",
  "errors": {
    "items": ["can not be empty"]
  }
}

Then signaling will load these errors to the ItemList models

> list.errors.full_messages
=> ["Items can not be empty"]

Here's a typical rails controller for a Signaling model

This file serves as a reference implementation for a controller and as a guide to make sure Signaling follows it's main goal.

To change the URL of a specific action:

module ExampleCom
  class ItemList < Signaling::Base
    use_api ExampleCom::Api

    define_action :index, method: :get, path: 'accounts/:account_id/item_lists.json'
  end
end

Then you can use:

> lists = ExampleCom::ItemList.all(account_id: '123')
# GET /accounts/123/item_lists.json

signaling allows sending parameters to remote service:

> ItemList.all(account_id: '123')
# GET /item_lists.json?account_id=123

1. Fork it
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
5. Create new Pull Request