Orphan REST Client

Orphan is a pure javascript browser-based client for consuming RESTful services.

Installation

git clone https://github.com/julianbrowne/Orphan.git

Examples

See examples directory for list of ways Orphan can be used.

Usage

Include require.js and the main loader file:

<script src="/lib/require.js"></script>
<script src="/lib/loader.js"></script>

Create a client instance that points to a root location:

var client = new Orphan('http://localhost/');

Now call a resource on the server:

client.get('/some/resource/location', function(content) { 
	// do something with content here
});

What makes Orphan different from most other XHR wrap-around libraries (or just using $.get in JQuery) is the suite of functions it contains to handle returned content.

For example:

Render Markdown (example 1)

function(content) { 
	var html = Orphan.markdown.makeHtml(content);
}

Render JSON (example 2)

function(content) { 
    var obj = JSON.parse(content);
    var html = Orphan.utils.inspectToHTML(obj);
}

Render JSON with EJS template (example 3)

function(content) { 
    var obj = JSON.parse(content);
    var template = Orphan.template.ejs.create(path_to_ejs_template);
    var html = template.render(obj);
}

Render JSON with Mustache template (example 4)

function(content) { 
    var obj = JSON.parse(content);
    var template = Orphan.template.mustache.create(path_to_mustache_template);
    var html = template.render(obj);
}

Render JSON with Dynamic template (example 5)

The dynamic template engine renders JSON as HTML but converts embedded links into clickable hrefs so that they can be followed:

// create client object

var client = new Orphan("http://127.0.0.1/docs/");

// parse query string and grab any resource request (res=path/to/json) from the url
// if there is none then set a 'home' json resource

var qs = Orphan.utils.queryStringObj(location.href);
var resource = (qs['res']) ? qs['res'] : 'index.json';

client.get(resource, function(json) { 
    var obj = JSON.parse(json);
    var template = Orphan.template.dynamic.create(cfg);
    document.body.innerHTML = template.render(obj);
}

Any links: [] sections containing href and rel fields will be rendered as clickable links of the form <a href="http://host/docs/?res=path/to/json" and will reload in the current page if clicked. Field names (links, href and rel are configurable for any of the various standard specs).

Note

Because Orphan is a client-side script it is subject to cross-site-scripting (XSS) rules and so source sites must either be 'local' (same protocol, hostname and port as Orphan) or must use CORS. Orphan also supports JSONP.