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Author Topic: New formats for API (experimental)  (Read 675 times)

Eileen

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New formats for API (experimental)
May 29, 2011, 04:44:14 pm
We have talked about making the api easier to use by having some alternative output formats handled through create_success. . I have had a go at implementing the formats as $params that I normally implement using wrappers. This is so you can do things like:


$params['format.true_false'] = 1;
if(civicrm_api('Contact','Create',$params) == 1 ){
   // it succeeded which is all I care about
}

The formats I tried all have examples in http://svn.civicrm.org/civicrm/branches/v3.4/api/v3/examples/Contact
'format.true_false'
'format.IDOnly'
'format.count'
'format.single_entity'
'format.single_value'


I also tried these formats in the context of chained / nested api calls (examples in the same location)

I wanted to build up an example of using CustomValue in chaining  so we could see how it looked being used alongside the other api :http://svn.civicrm.org/civicrm/branches/v3.4/api/v3/examples/Contact/APIChainedArrayMultipleCustom.php

NB I did have to edit my version of 'CustomValue' to accept 'entity_id' & 'entity_table' to work with nested calls - not checked in. In fact I have only checked in the examples at the moment.
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xavier

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Re: New formats for API (experimental)
May 30, 2011, 03:06:47 am
I prefer
is_success to true_false
(and only_id to IDOnly, but cf below)

I like it, but it means that you got the BAO/DAO that retrieve everything and that you discard it for the end result, eg if you have format.count

It'd be much better to call the needed that does a select count() instead of selecting everything and discarding the values. I have no idea if it's possible

I think it's better to create new apis getCount, getOne/getSingle, getField instead of having them as options of the get action.

(benefit beside being "clearer" is that you can use your generic code for now, and override for some entities, eg civicrm_api3_contact_getCount that would use the existing count functions directly.

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Erik Hommel

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Re: New formats for API (experimental)
May 30, 2011, 08:21:37 am
I agree with Xavier that doing a select count instead of invoking the BAO/DAO when it is not necessary. And I also like is_success better than true_false ;D
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