Reusing models from api in webapp - php

Question

I've being building an API and I find myself in a situation where I want to reuse the models from the API in my webapp.
[query]<>[webapp]<>[models]<>[api]<>[models]<>[db]
In the webapp I'm creating models based on the output of the API.
In the API I'm creating models based on the output of the database.
Both models are identical to each other.
Is there a way I can do this properly without copy/pasting the models?
Or is there a way to avoid having the same models?
EDIT:
What I mean is that I'm using a PHP-API and a PHP-Frontend.
Both models in PHP-API and PHP-Frontend are equal to each other.

Answer 1

You could make a service within the API that returns the model data as its response. That way you can build a simple converter to change the models from PHP into some kind of JSON or other data structure format in the backend and transmit them.
You'll only have one copy of the actual models and will auto-generate the ones used by the frontend.
A very simple example to elaborate:
class Backend_Book {
public $title;
public $author;
}
class Backend_Recipe {
public $name;
public $ingredients;
public $steps;
}
Add to your api:
class Api_Get_Domain {
$domain = load_domain();
$json = [];
foreach( $domain as $domain_model ) {
$json[] = convert_model($domain_model);
}
return json_encode($json);
}
Call from your frontend:
$http.get('your/api/domain').then( function( response ) {
domain = response;
});
And then the idea is that "response" will be something like this:
response = [
{
model: "Book",
properties: [
"title", "author"
]
},
{
model: "Recipe",
properties: [
"name", "ingredients", "steps"
]
}
];
And now you have, in your frontend, a copy of the domain as used by the backend, that you won't need to update. Obviously this is a very basic example, you could add as much information to the domain models as you need, but the basic idea is to make the API provide its own domain to the users of the API.