Fractal API call does not return content - php

Question

I worte some API methods with the fractal package to output content. When I call the specific resources, everything returns empty.
To check if everything is working I performed some prints of the content variables inbetween. For example, if I take the $incidents variable in the index function I get returned all entries in the database as expected.
The same is true, when I call the $collection variable in the respondWithCollection method in the API controller. The data is available here as well. But the browser output is only this:
{
"data": {
"headers": {}
}
}
To keep it simple, this is the method to show all results of a database:
class ApiIncidentsController extends ApiController {
protected $incidentTransformer;
protected $fractal;
function __construct(IncidentTransformer $incidentTransformer){
$this->incidentTransformer = $incidentTransformer;
$this->beforeFilter('auth.basic', ['on' => 'post']);
$this->fractal = new Manager();
parent::__construct($this->fractal);
}
public function index()
{
$incidents = Incident::all();
if( ! $incidents) {
return Response::json([
'error' => [
'message' => 'There are no incidents in the database.',
'code' => 100
]
], 404);
} else {
return $this->respond([
'data' => $this->respondWithCollection($incidents, new IncidentTransformer),
]);
}
}
The API controller managing these calls is this:
class ApiController extends Controller {
protected $statusCode = 200;
protected $fractal;
public function __construct(Manager $fractal) {
$this->fractal = $fractal;
}
public function getStatusCode() {
return $this->statusCode;
}
public function setStatusCode($statusCode) {
$this->statusCode = $statusCode;
return $this;
}
public function respond($data, $headers = []) {
return Response::json($data, $this->getStatusCode(), $headers);
}
protected function respondWithItem($item, $callback) {
$resource = new Item($item, $callback);
$rootScope = $this->fractal->createData($resource);
return $this->respondWithArray($rootScope->toArray());
}
protected function respondWithArray(array $array, array $headers = []) {
return Response::json($array, $this->statusCode, $headers);
}
protected function respondWithCollection($collection, $callback) {
$resource = new Collection($collection, $callback);
$rootScope = $this->fractal->createData($resource);
return $this->respondWithArray($rootScope->toArray());
}
Update 1
This is the IncidentTransformer:
use League\Fractal\TransformerAbstract;
class IncidentTransformer extends TransformerAbstract {
public function transform(Incident $incident) {
return [
'incidentReference' => $incident['incidentReference'],
'latitude' => $incident['latitude'],
'longitude' => $incident['longitude'],
'archived' => (boolean) $incident['incidentArchived']
];
}
}
Update 2
I tried something else, by removing the respond wrapper. Then everything is fine. But I want to use the respond function I wrote to abstract the code. This seems to be the issue. When I pass in the data into the function, nothing is being returned. When I dump the variable data, There is a JSON Response returned. But the respondWithCollection Method within returns an array. I don't see why this is happening. Could this be the issue?
I adapted the method like this:
public function index()
{
$incidents = Incident::all();
if( ! $incidents) {
return Response::json([
'error' => [
'message' => 'There are no incidents in the database.',
'code' => 100
]
], 404);
} else {
$data = $this->respondWithCollection($incidents, new IncidentTransformer);
return $this->respond([
'data' => $data
]);
}
}
But still the output is empty. So it must be something with the response function.

Answer 1

You are returning Response::json() twice.
$this->respond returns Response::json, but also $this->respondWithCollection() returns respondWithArray() which also does.
Try something like:
public function index()
{
$incidents = Incident::all();
if( ! $incidents) {
return Response::json([
'error' => [
'message' => 'There are no incidents in the database.',
'code' => 100
]
], 404);
} else {
// getCollection instead of respondWithCollection
$data = $this->getCollection($incidents, new IncidentTransformer);
return $this->respond([
'data' => $data
]);
}
}
-
// getCollection instead of respondWithCollection
protected function getCollection($collection, $callback) {
$resource = new Collection($collection, $callback);
$rootScope = $this->fractal->createData($resource);
// don't respond again
//return $this->respondWithArray($rootScope->toArray());
return $rootScope->toArray();
}