I want to build an app using ExtJS 4 and PHP.
I will follow the MVC pattern with ExtJS 4.
However, I want to use RESTful webservices with PHP.
Yet I am not sure how to proceed.
How can I call for Web Services that are PHP functions?
How am I going to give the directory like structure to my links?
You can obviously use Ext.Ajax.request() to craft any RESTful URls that you want. However, be sure to check out the REST proxy that's built into Ext JS's data package. By connecting this to your store/model, you can dynamically generate RESTful URLs which can be used for the vast majority of your generic CRUD operations.
RE: the PHP side, that's a big question. Fortunately, there are literally a billion turtorials on creating RESTful services in PHP, so I'd dust off your Google-fu and start there. Here's a very simple introduction that just happens to use PHP: http://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/a-beginners-guide-to-http-and-rest--net-16340
You are most likely looking for Ext.Ajax.request.
There are some examples of Ext.Ajax.request from this stack overflow article.
According to the Google's documentation, the AuthSub method is officially deprecated in place of OAuth 2.0. The problem is, their PHP library v2 is built using Zend Gdata, which from what I can tell, doesn't work well with OAuth. On the other hand, v3 of their API is not only still in development, but it looks like it doesn't support YouTube calls quite yet.
So my question is, what's the best way to make API calls using v2 of the library after authenticating using OAuth2? Am I best just using AuthSub until a new library comes out?
You can actually call the Youtube api with the the v3 php library. You can find code samples here.
I'm writing an iPhone app as a hobby project and it will need a web service to provide it with data. It's not very different from what I do at work, but at work I only write views and controllers. Someone else is responsible for writing the model and usually the clients provide the web service.
I have done some web programming before, back when everyone were using MySQL and PHP, so my skills are a bit outdated, but I'm confident that I would be able to pull it of using the techniques I already know. However, I don't want to waste my time using obsolete tools. I've figured out that the state of the art would be to write a REST API. I was thinking that there should be some pretty good frameworks out there that pretty much just gives you a REST API with CRUD functionality as soon as you've defined a model.
I guess my question is: What would be the fastest way to get a REST API up and running? I really just want to focus on writing the iPhone app and not spend too much time on this API. It would be great if I could get web administration and revision history too. I should also add that the API isn't supposed to be public, so support for authentication would be great as well.
Just to be clear. I wouldn't mind a PHP framework. In fact it could possibly be better since I know that my current hosting supports it.
EDIT:
The links below which apparently were good for 3 years are no longer working so I went and found a couple of new tutorials that I think are going to stick around for a while. These are on the Ray Wenderlich site, a very well respected ios dev tutorial site. The first article actually references the broken links below but it is complete within itself:
How To Write A Simple PHP/MySQL Web Service for an iOS App
and the second one has a little twist to it. It used parse.com on the backend and AFNetworking. Both of which are quite excellent.
How To Synchronize Core Data with a Web Service – Part 1
I have fixed the broken links below by finding the articles in the way back machine. People seem to like the links so I will keep them. The links above should provide more food for thought.
I am doing exactly the same thing with my iphone app. I found this article on building a RESTful API in PHP:
https://web.archive.org/web/20130910164802/http://www.gen-x-design.com/archives/create-a-rest-api-with-php/
and there is also a followup article here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20130323001500/http://www.gen-x-design.com/archives/making-restful-requests-in-php/
with a link to source code at the bottom of the article.
I have programmed a REST API in ZEND Framework using the Zend_Rest_Controller, on the iPhone I used ASIHTTPRequest. My experience with both where good. At the beginning I had some trouble setting up ZEND and connecting it to mySQL, but once I figured out how to do it I was able to write the API very quickly. I can share more information with you if you have any further questions.
EDIT: There seems to be no official documentation on Zend_Rest_Controller. This link describes how to use it to create your API. You simply have to disable rendering in the init() of your subclass and implement the methods for each REST call.
Just to let you know:
I ended up using Ruby on Rails.
EDIT: Since this answer has been downvoted for not providing the reason behind choosing Ruby on Rails and also no instructions on how to write a REST API with it, I thought I would give you my motivation and some simple instructions.
I started reading a book about Ruby on Rails and realized that all I needed to do was to use scaffolding and I got a JSON REST API for free.
Here's a good guide to get you started: http://guides.rubyonrails.org/getting_started.html
When you have your Ruby on Rails environment up and running, creating your REST API isn't harder than running:
$ rails generate scaffold Post name:string title:string content:text
(Example from the above link.) I also found that Rails is very easy and free to deploy to heroku, which meant that I didn't have to pay for hosting for my very basic, low traffic, REST API. There are many other reasons why I am very happy to work with Ruby on Rails, but that's beyond the context of this question.
I followed a quite simple tutorial for creating RESTful APIs with PHP:
Corey Maynard - Creating a RESTful API with PHP
The main concept includes:
one abstract class that handles the parsing of the URI and returning the response, and
one concrete class that consists of just the endpoints for the API.
What about Python?
I'd use Python, Django and Piston.
I'd generate Django models from your
existent DB using inspectdb.
Add the Django admin to your models.
Add Django Piston to your app.
Profit.
With no experience with Python or Django probably it'll take you a day to develop this solution and all code is unit tested and proved to work.
If you want to use PHP I recommend using the CodeIgniter framework with Phil Sturgeon's REST server:
http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/php/working-with-restful-services-in-codeigniter-2
https://github.com/philsturgeon/codeigniter-restserver
Checkout the following PHP class that follows MVC.
http://www.phpclasses.org/package/5080-PHP-Implement-REST-Web-services-servers.html
Hope this helps.
If you already know PHP, there's nothing wrong with a PHP/MySQL backend. You can send all responses in iPhone-compatible plist xml format, and instantly turn the response into a NSDictionary/NSArray/NSNumber data structure with this short snippet of code:
NSString *response = [request responseString];
NSData* plistData = [response dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
NSPropertyListFormat format;
NSString *errorStr;
NSDictionary* plist = [NSPropertyListSerialization propertyListFromData:plistData
mutabilityOption:NSPropertyListImmutable
format:&format
errorDescription:&errorStr];
I also use the ASIHTTP package for forming URLs, sending asynchronous requets, and receiving the responses, I highly recommend it:
http://allseeing-i.com/ASIHTTPRequest/
You should use whatever languages you are comfortable with for the web service. Any language that can formulate REST responses to requests is fine.
That said, if you want to get something running quickly, I suggest using Python on Google App Engine. It's free and you can use Java instead of Python if you so desire. App Engine supports authentication using OpenID and/or Google Accounts (not sure if they're mutually exclusive) so that should make things easier to code.
As far as making the requests on the iOS device, I suggest using ASIHTTPRequest.
Another option is restSQL, an ultra-lightweight persistence framework. See http://restsql.org. It supports MySQL and PostgreSQL and runs in a standard Java EE container, e.g. Apache Tomcat.
restSQL is a very unconventional data access layer. restSQL is not an object-oriented view of the database. It presents flat or hierarchical "views" of relational database tables. These views are query-able and updatable through a simple REST-based HTTP or Java API. The HTTP interface is based on REST principles, which use HTTP’s built-in features, rather than abstracting away from them.
You want a 'REST API with CRUD functionality' and that's exactly restSQL's sweet spot. You could do this with no code. Simply define your SQL Resources via XML files and start doing HTTP calls against them with full CRUD capability.
I have made a site which can pull and upload videos from and to YouTube,
http://www.tole-rants.com/
This site was made with the combination of Python, Google App Engine and YouTube API. It is hosted at Google App Engine. I did not code the main structure of this application bcos I don't speak Python so I was made with a Python programmer. However, we found that this application has been causing lot of problems, especially on uploading videos.
Now I hope I can code the entire site myself with PHP - is it possible?
Another big question - do I have to host this site on Google's?? Can I just host this site on a normal/ standard server which I normally do when I develop a website?
I have read the documentation about YouTube API for developers, but I still cannot get my head around if I want to make this site from scratch with PHP.
It seems to suggest that using a PHP framework - Zend Framework, which I have no clues about it - do I really have to use a PHP framework then?
Any thoughts/ better suggestions or any online tutorials/ books I can follow through?
Many thanks,
Lau
No you dont have to host it on Google's. You can host it anywhere. And you don't need to use the Zend Framework. What they are suggesting is that you use the Zend framework's GData library to communicate with YouTube API. But you wouldnt even need that. YouTube Data API documentation is complete with examples. I am sure it will help you. But ofcourse if you have some specific questions you can ask them here.
About to start working on a social networking site, but I'd like to incorporate OpenID logins.
The JanRain plugin is packed in Debian, but seems flakey, and my brief interactions with it so far have not gone well. There's a bunch of others out there, but which ones are people using in production?
The OpenID Wiki has a great list of libraries available for PHP. Always begin your searches in the official documentation.
I have personally used and recommend EasyOpenId (requires PHP OpenID).
See PHP library for openID for a list of other PHP OpenID libraries.
I personally use the PEAR OpenID library.
I've used the Zend_OpenID library from the Zend Framework and had good success with that. Very easy to setup and very easy to use. Their documentation on it is pretty extensive as well and comes with some good code samples that should show you everything you need to know. I used this briefly on one of my sites I was working on and only removed it because users didn't like OpenID in general. But the implementation was quick and easy.
Zend Framework OpenID Documentation