RESTForms

RESTForms is a generalized REST API backend for web applications built on InterSystems (Caché or Ensemble) backend.

Installation

Import latest release appropriate for your Caché version (161 for 2016.1, 162 for 2016.2+).
Create REST web app with Form.REST.Main as Dispatch Class.
Generate test data: do ##class(Form.Util.Init).populateTestForms()

Usage description and examples

Read this post on Developer Community. Developer community article about queries.
Russian article.

Requests

URL	Type	Description
test	GET	Test request
info	GET	Basic information (currently language list)
logout	GET	End current session
form/info	GET	List of all availible forms
form/info/all	GET	Get metainformation for all forms
form/info/:class	GET	Form metainformation
form/field/:class	POST	Add field to form
form/field/:class	PUT	Modify form field
form/field/:class/:property	DELETE	Delete form field
form/object/:class/:id	GET	Retrieve form object
form/object/:class/:id/:property	GET	Retrieve one field of the form object
form/object/:class	POST	Create form object
form/object/:class/:id	PUT	Update form object from dynamic object
form/object/:class	PUT	Update form object from object
form/object/:class/:id	DELETE	Delete form object
form/objects/:class/:query	GET	(SQL) Get all members for the form by query
form/objects/:class/custom/:query	GET	(SQL) Get all members for the form by custom query
form/file/:class/:id/:property	POST	Add files to this property
form/file/:class/:id/:property	DELETE	Delete all files from this property
form/file/:class/:id/:property/:name	DELETE	Delete one file from property
form/file/:class/:id/:property/:name	GET	Download one file from property

For POST/PUT requests see method descriptions for request body samples

Postman

You can use Postman to query RESTForms API. Collection. Environment.

SQL requests

GET http://localhost:57772/forms/form/objects/Form.Test.Simple/info?size=2&page=1&orderby=text

GET http://localhost:57772/forms/form/objects/Form.Test.Simple/all?orderby=text+desc

GET http://localhost:57772/forms/form/objects/Form.Test.Simple/all?filter=text%20eq%20A9044

GET http://localhost:57772/forms/form/objects/Form.Test.Simple/all?filter=text%20in%20A9044~B5920

Note, that for SQL access user must have relevant SQL privileges (SELECT on form table).

Queries

There are two query types:

Basic queries work for all RESTForms classes once defined and they differ only by the field list
Custom queries work only for the classes in which they are specified and available, but the user has full access to query text

Basic queries

Execute form/objects/:class/:query request, to call a simple query. Second :query parameter determines query type - the contents of query between SELECT and FROM. Here are default query types:

Query	Description
all	all information
info	displayName and id
infoclass	displayName, id, class
count	number of rows

RESTForms looks for a query named myq in the following places (till first hit):

Class method queryMYQ in your form class
Parameter MYQ in your queries class
Class method queryMYQ in your queries class
Parameter MYQ in Form.REST.Objects class
Class method queryMYQ in Form.REST.Objects class

You can define your own queries class. To define your own query named myq there:

Define a class YourClassName
Define there a MYQ parameter or queryMYQ class method. Parameter takes precedence over the method.
Method or param must return the part of SQL query between SELECT and FROM
(Once) Execute in a terminal: Do ##class(For.Settings).setSetting("queryclass", YourClassName)

Method signature is: ClassMethod queryMYQ(class As %String) As %String

You can define a class-specific query. To define your own class query named myq:

Define a queryMYQ class method in your form class
Method signature is: ClassMethod queryMYQ() As %String
Method must return the part of SQL query between SELECT and FROM

Custom Queries

Execute form/objects/:class/custom/:query request, to call a custom query. Custom query allows user code to determine the full content of the query. URL parameters besides size and page are unavailable. Your method must parse all other url parameters.

To define your own custom query named myq:

Define a customqueryMYQ class method in your form class
Method signature is: ClassMethod customqueryMYQ() As %String
Method must return a valid SQL query

URL arguments:

All arguments are optional.

Argument	Sample Value	Description
size	2	page size
page	1	page number
filter	Value+contains+W	WHERE clause
orderby	Value+desc	ORDER BY clause
collation	UPPER	COLLATION clause
nocount	1	Remove count of rows (speeds up query)
mode	0	SQL mode value. Can be 0 - Logical, 1 - ODBC, 2 - Display. Defaults to 0.

ORDER BY clause

Value can be: Column or Column+desc. Column is a column from the sql table or a colum number.

WHERE clause

In a format: Column+condition+Value.

Several conditions are possible: Column+condition+Value+Column2+condition2+Value2.

If Value contains white spaces replace them with tabs before sending to the server.

Conditions:

URL	SQL
neq	!=
eq	=
gte	>=
gt	>
lte	<=
lt	<
startswith	%STARTSWITH
contains	[
doesnotcontain	’[
in	IN
like	LIKE

COLLATION clause

In a format: collation=UPPER or collation=EXACT.
Forces specified collation on WHERE clause. If omitted, default collation is used.

Settings

You can setup several settings.
Set them via Write ##class(For.Settings).setSetting(Setting, Value).

Setting	Values	Description
queryclass	Caché class name	Class with your own queries. See Query types for details.
fileDir	Directory path	Directory for files. Defaults to MGR\DB directory
timezone	ignore, utc	Affects how timestamps are converted for a client. UTC has Z on end, ignore does not

Samples

See Form.Test.Simple and other forms in Form.Test package for samples.
To generate test data execute: do ##class(Form.Util.Init).populateTestForms()
To remove test forms permanently from your local repository

Enter Form\Test directory from git bash
git update-index --assume-unchanged $(git ls-files | tr '\n' ' ')
Delete Form\Test directory

Object creation

For Form.Test.Simple.

POST http://localhost:57772/forms/form/object/Form.Test.Simple
Headers must contain Content-Type and (probably) authorization

Content-Type: application/json
Authorization: Basic Base64String

Body:

{
        "_class":"Form.Test.Simple",
        "text":3
}

Object update

For Form.TestForm.

PUT http://localhost:57772/forms/form/object/Form.Test.Simple

Body:

{
        "_class":"Form.Test.Simple",
        "_id":3,
        "text":4444
}

RESTForms project