Laminas API Tools Application

Requirements

Please see the composer.json file.

NOTE ABOUT USING APACHE

Apache forbids the character sequences %2F and %5C in URI paths. However, the Laminas API Tools Admin API uses these characters for a number of service endpoints. As such, if you wish to use the Admin UI and/or Admin API with Apache, you will need to configure your Apache vhost/project to allow encoded slashes:

AllowEncodedSlashes On

This change will need to be made in your server's vhost file (it cannot be added to .htaccess).

NOTE ABOUT OPCACHE

Disable all opcode caches when running the admin!

The admin cannot and will not run correctly when an opcode cache, such as APC or OpCache, is enabled. Laminas API Tools does not use a database to store configuration; instead, it uses PHP configuration files. Opcode caches will cache these files on first load, leading to inconsistencies as you write to them, and will typically lead to a state where the admin API and code become unusable.

The admin is a development tool, and intended for use a development environment. As such, you should likely disable opcode caching, regardless.

When you are ready to deploy your API to production, however, you can disable development mode, thus disabling the admin interface, and safely run an opcode cache again. Doing so is recommended for production due to the tremendous performance benefits opcode caches provide.

NOTE ABOUT DISPLAY_ERRORS

The display_errors php.ini setting is useful in development to understand what warnings, notices, and error conditions are affecting your application. However, they cause problems for APIs: APIs are typically a specific serialization format, and error reporting is usually in either plain text, or, with extensions like XDebug, in HTML. This breaks the response payload, making it unusable by clients.

For this reason, we recommend disabling display_errors when using the Laminas API Tools admin interface. This can be done using the -ddisplay_errors=0 flag when using the built-in PHP web server, or you can set it in your virtual host or server definition. If you disable it, make sure you have reasonable error log settings in place. For the built-in PHP web server, errors will be reported in the console itself; otherwise, ensure you have an error log file specified in your configuration.

display_errors should never be enabled in production, regardless.

Docker

If you develop or deploy using Docker, we provide configuration for you.

Prepare your development environment using docker compose:

$ git clone https://github.com/laminas-api-tools/api-tools-skeleton
$ cd api-tools-skeleton
$ docker-compose build
# Install dependencies via composer, if you haven't already:
$ docker-compose run api-tools composer install
# Enable development mode:
$ docker-compose run api-tools composer development-enable

Start the container:

$ docker-compose up

Access Laminas API Tools from http://localhost:8080/ or http://<boot2docker ip>:8080/ if on Windows or Mac.

You may also use the provided Dockerfile directly if desired.

Once installed, you can use the container to update dependencies:

$ docker-compose run api-tools composer update

Or to manipulate development mode:

$ docker-compose run api-tools composer development-enable
$ docker-compose run api-tools composer development-disable
$ docker-compose run api-tools composer development-status

QA Tools

The skeleton ships with minimal QA tooling by default, including laminas/laminas-test. We supply basic tests for the shipped Application\Controller\IndexController.

We also ship with configuration for phpcs. If you wish to add this QA tool, execute the following:

$ composer require --dev squizlabs/php_codesniffer

We provide aliases for each of these tools in the Composer configuration:

# Run CS checks:
$ composer cs-check
# Fix CS errors:
$ composer cs-fix
# Run PHPUnit tests:
$ composer test