为网页构建API的正确方法[关闭]

Question

I am using symfony. When I am creating web page that will also have an API how should I do It ? Difference between them is that API will return for example JSON string as response, but web page will return html/text response if I am not mistaken. So should I add some condition that if the URL will be api.something.com then return JSON and if it will be something.com then return html/text ? Or should I build separate controllers ? but they will be same with exception of returning object.

Answer 1

Best practices

It is better to separate domains, this way you can use RESTful best practices to build your API without interfering with your www urls. The security checks are different for an API than for a web request, it means that you need to build separate controllers as well to handle those checks properly.

For small projects

If you really want to use one controller for both usage (because you don't think your projet need to have the higher standards) you can check for a header in the request to distinguish an api call from a web request. For instance you could use the header accept: application/json for your api request.

Example:

function isXmlHttpRequest()
{
    return !empty($_SERVER['HTTP_X_REQUESTED_WITH']) && strtolower($_SERVER['HTTP_X_REQUESTED_WITH']) === 'xmlhttprequest';
}
function isApiRequest()
{
    return strtolower($_SERVER['HTTP_ACCEPT']) === 'application/json';
}
if(isApiRequest() || isXmlHttpRequest()){
    return $jsonResponse;
}else{
    return $webPage;
}

Framework suggestion

Laravel framework is a good solution to make such web architecture. It helps you to separate domains and controllers in a simple and easy way. It has tools to help you build a RESTful architecture as well in no time. You can learn how to use it here.