RestGenerator

RestGenerator is a DSL package (a plugin module) for Rhetos development platform. It automatically generates RESTful JSON web service for all entities, actions and other data structures that are defined in a Rhetos application.

See rhetos.org for more information on Rhetos.

Features

Web service methods

For each data structure, a service is available at <rhetos server url>/Rest/<module name>/<entity name>.

Example - a service for entity Claim in module Common, on default local server installation:

• Base service URI (reading service metadata): http://localhost/Rhetos/Rest/Common/Claim
• Reading all entity's records: http://localhost/Rhetos/Rest/Common/Claim/ (don't forget the slash at the end)

Following are URI templates for the web methods.

Reading data:

• Reading records: /?filters={{filters}}&top={{top}}&skip={{skip}}&sort={{sort}}
  • For filters, see Filters paragraph below.
  • Example of sorting by multiple properties: sort=CreationDate desc,Name,ID.
• Reading total records count for paging: /TotalCount?filters={{filters}}&sort={{sort}}
• Reading records and total count: /RecordsAndTotalCount?filters={{filters}}&top={{top}}&skip={{skip}}&sort={{sort}}
• Reading a single record: /{{id}}

Writing data:

• Inserting a record: POST at the entity's service base URI.
• Updating a record: PUT /{{id}}
• Deleting a record: DELETE /{{id}}

Actions:

• Executing an action: POST at the action's service base URI.

Reports:

• Downloading a report: /?parameter={{parameter}}&convertFormat={{convertFormat}}
  • Query parameters parameter and convertFormat are optional.
  • Example format http://localhost/Rhetos/Rest/TestModule/TestReport/?parameter={"Prefix":"a"}&convertFormat=pdf

Filters

Filters are given as a JSON-serialized array containing any number of filters of the following types:

1. Property filter
   • Example: select items where year is greater than 2005: [{"Property":"Year","Operation":"Greater", "Value":2005}]
   • Available operations:
   • Equals, NotEquals, Greater, GreaterEqual, Less, LessEqual,
   • StartsWith, EndsWith, Contains, NotContains -- String only,
   • DateIn, DateNotIn -- Date or DateTime property only, provided value must be string. Returns whether the property's value is within a given day, month or year. Valid value format is yyyy-mm-dd, yyyy-mm or yyyy.
2. Predefined filter without a parameter
   • Example: select active records (filter name: "Common.Active"): [{"Filter":"Common.Active"}]
3. Predefined filter with a parameter
   • Example: select records that contain pattern "abc" (filter name: "Common.SmartSearch" with parameter property "Pattern"): [{"Filter":"Common.SmartSearch","Value":{"Pattern":"abc"}}]

When combining multiple filters, the intersection of the filters is returned (AND).

Obsolete features

These features are available for backward compatibility. They will be removed in future versions.

• /Count WEB API method. Use /TotalCount method instead.
• Reading method query parameters page and psize. Use top and skip.
• Reading method query parameters filter and fparam. Use filters instead (see "Predefined filter with a parameter").
• Reading method query parameter genericfilter. Renamed to filters.
• Property filter operations Equal and NotEqual. Use Equals and NotEquals instead.

Deployment

Dependencies

• CommonConcepts package must be deployed along with RestGenerator.

Building binaries from source

Prerequisites

• Build utilities in this project are based on relative path to Rhetos repository. Rhetos source should be downloaded to a folder with relative path ..\..\Rhetos and compiled (use Build.bat), before this package's Build.bat script is executed.

Sample folder structure:

\ROOT
    \Rhetos
    \RhetosPackages
        \RestGenerator

Build

1. Build this package by executing Build.bat. The script will pause in case of an error.
   • The script automatically copies all needed dll files from Rhetos folder and builds the Rhetos.RestGenerator.sln using Visual Studio (command-line).

Create installation package

1. Set the new version number in ChangeVersion.bat and execute it.
2. Execute Build.bat.
3. Execute CreatePackage.bat. It creates installation package (.zip) in parent directory of RestGenerator.