RESTful API response in Laravel 5 - php

Question

I'm building RESTful API with Laravel. My API always returns JSON. What I would like to do, is keeping response logic at one place. Here's how I do it right now in API controller, which is pointed to by Route::controller(). Funny and ultra-useful example coming:
public function getDouble($number) {
try {
if (!is_numeric($number)) {
throw new HttpException(400, 'Invalid number.');
}
$response = $number * 2;
$status = 200;
}
catch (HttpException $exception) {
$response = $exception->getMessage();
$status = $exception->getStatusCode();
}
return response()->json($response, $status);
}
In this example, my API route would be for example /double/13 accessed by GET method. The problem is that I repeat this try ... catch block in each method. I would like my API methods to be like:
public function getDouble($number) {
if (!is_numeric($number)) {
throw new HttpException(400, 'Invalid number.');
}
return $number;
}
And then, catch those exceptions and form JSON in another place. What is the best approach here in terms of good application architecture?

Answer 1

Response on Exception
You could do this by handling the exception in App\Exceptions\Handler.
You could do it in the render method, likeso :
/**
* Render an exception into an HTTP response.
*
* #param \Illuminate\Http\Request $request
* #param \Exception $e
* #return \Illuminate\Http\Response
*/
public function render($request, Exception $e)
{
if($e instanceof HttpException) {
return response()->json($e->getMessage(), $e->getStatusCode());
}
return parent::render($request, $e);
}
Success Response
There are several ways to do this but I guess Middleware would be the best suited one right.
Create a middleware (say, ApiResponseFormatterMiddleware)
In your 'App\Http\Kernel', add it to $routeMiddleware array.
Apply it to the api routes, response to which you want to parse.
You could do something in the lines of :
/**
* Handle an incoming request.
*
* #param \Illuminate\Http\Request $request
* #param \Closure $next
* #return mixed
*/
public function handle($request, Closure $next)
{
$response = $next($request);
return response()->json($response->getOriginalContent());
}
Ofcourse, you need to change a bit of logic to parse the content the way you want it, but skeleton remains the same.