This is the first article, in what will be a series for Blesta 3.0, our next major release. When we sat down to discuss the primary goals of Blesta 3.0, one of the first topics to come up was API design. The two major issues we discovered with the original API design (of 1.0) were that:
- It was limited in its capabilities
- It was difficult and cumbersome to update
By implementing Blesta on top of an MVC framework (minPHP) we were able to create an automatic API, which eliminated both of these issues entirely. Within an MVC application the model contains all of the business logic, so the only thing required to complete the API is a controller to handle access to the various models. Since models are objects, the API controller can instantiate and access all of the public methods within a requested model. This facilitates requests on logical objects that may perform specific actions.
In addition, the API controller could now fulfill requests in any number of various formats (e.g. json, xml, etc.). The syntax was simple: /api/model/method.format.
The only thing necessary to complete the RESTful design were HTTP status codes, and the API controller easily handled those. The result is an automatic RESTful API system, that not only grants access to the Blesta core, but to the back end of any plugins installed within that copy of Blesta as well.
In case you missed it, this means that ALL public model methods will be accessible through the API. We’re really excited about the new API and how much support it lends to developers.
Blesta 3.0 is currently in active development. A release date has not yet been determined.