FAQ

#Restangular

Restangular is an AngularJS service that will help you get, delete and update Restfull Resources with very few lines in the Client side. This service is a perfect fit for any WebApp that uses Restfull Resources as the API for your application.

#How do I add this to my project?

You can download this by:

Using bower and running bower install restangular
Using npm and running npm install restangular
Downloading it manually by clicking here to download development unminified version or here to download minified production version
Using JsDelivr CDN files:

<!-- Use LATEST folder to always get the latest version-->
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://cdn.jsdelivr.net/restangular/latest/restangular.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://cdn.jsdelivr.net/restangular/latest/restangular.min.js"></script>

<!-- Or use TAG number for specific version -->
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://cdn.jsdelivr.net/restangular/0.6.1/restangular.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://cdn.jsdelivr.net/restangular/0.6.1/restangular.min.js"></script>

#Dependencies

Restangular depends on Angular, Angular-Resources and (Underscore or Lodash).

#Starter Guide

Before starting, you can check out a Plunkr sample by Clicking Here. You can also read some code examples below.

Adding dependency to Restangular module in your app

The first thing you need to do after adding link to script file, is mentioning in your app that you'll use Restangular.

var app = angular.module('angularjs-starter', ['restangular']);

Using Restangular

Now that you have everything configured, you can just inject this Service to any Controller or Directive like any other :)

Creating Main Restangular object

There're 2 ways of creating a main Restangular object. The first one and most common one is by stating the main route of all requests. The second one is by stating the main route and object of all requests.

// Only stating main route
Restangular.all('accounts')

// Stating main object
Restangular.one('accounts', 1234)

Let's code!

Now that we have our main Object lets's start playing with it.

// First way of creating a Restangular object. Just saying the base URL
var baseAccounts = Restangular.all('accounts');

// This will query /accounts and return a promise. As Angular supports setting promises to scope variables
// as soon as we get the information from the server, it will be shown in our template :)
$scope.allAccounts = baseAccounts.getList();

var newAccount = {name: "Gonto's account"};

// POST /accounts
baseAccounts.post(newAccount);

//You can do RequestLess "connections" if you need as well

// Just ONE GET to /accounts/123/buildings/456
Restangular.one('accounts', 123).one('buildings', 456).get()

// Just ONE GET to /accounts/123/buildings
Restangular.one('accounts', 123).all('buildings').getList()

//Here we use Promises then 
// GET /accounts
baseAccounts.getList().then(function (accounts) {
  // Here we can continue fetching the tree :).

  var firstAccount = accounts[0];
  // This will query /accounts/123/buildings considering 123 is the id of the firstAccount
  $scope.buildings = firstAccount.getList("buildings");
  
  // GET /accounts/123/places?query=param with request header: x-user:mgonto
  $scope.loggedInPlaces = firstAccount.getList("places", {query: param}, {'x-user': 'mgonto'})

  // This is a regular JS object, we can change anything we want :) 
  firstAccount.name = "Gonto"
  
  //If we wanted to keep the original as it's we can copy it to a new element
  var editFirstAccount = Restangular.copy(firstAccount);
  editFirstAccount.name = "New Name";
  

  // PUT /accounts/123. The name of this account will be changed from now on
  firstAccount.put();
  editFirstAccount.put();

  // DELETE /accounts/123 We don't have first account anymore :(
  firstAccount.remove();
  
  var myBuilding = {
    name: "Gonto's Building",
    place: "Argentina"
  };
  
  // POST /accounts/123/buildings with MyBuilding information
  firstAccount.post("Buildings", myBuilding).then(function() {
    console.log("Object saved OK");
  }, function() {
    console.log("There was an error saving");
  });

  // GET /accounts/123/users?query=params
  firstAccount.getList("users", {query: params}).then(function(users) {
    // Instead of posting nested element, a collection can post to itself
    // POST /accounts/123/users
    users.post({userName: 'unknown'});
    
    // Custom methods are available now :).
    // GET /accounts/123/users/messages?param=myParam
    users.customGET("messages", {param: "myParam"})
    
    var firstUser = users[0];

    // GET /accounts/123/users/456. Just in case we want to update one user :)
    $scope.userFromServer = firstUser.get();
    
    // ALL http methods are available :)
    // HEAD /accounts/123/users/456
    firstUser.head()

  });

}, function errorCallback() {
  alert("Oops error from server :(");
})

// Second way of creating Restangular object. URL and ID :)
var account = Restangular.one("accounts", 123);

// GET /accounts/123?single=true
$scope.account = account.get({single: true});

// POST /accounts/123/messages?param=myParam with the body of name: "My Message"
account.customPOST("messages", {param: "myParam"}, {}, {name: "My Message"})

Configuring Restangular

Properties

Restangular comes with some defaults for all of it's properties but you can configure them. All of this properties have setters so that you can change them.

baseUrl

The base URL for all calls to your API. For example if your URL for fetching accounts is http://example.com/api/v1/accounts, then your baseUrl is /api/v1. The default baseUrl is an empty string which resolves to the same url that AngularJS is running, so you can also set an absolute url like http://api.example.com/api/v1 if you need do set another domain.

extraFields

This are the fields that you want to save from your parent resources if you need to display them. By default this is an Empty Array which will suit most cases

defaultHttpFields

$http from AngularJS can receive a bunch of parameters like cache, transformRequest and so on. You can set all of those properties in the object sent on this setter so that they will be used in EVERY API call made by Restangular. This is very useful for caching for example. All properties that can be set can be checked here: http://docs.angularjs.org/api/ng.$http#Parameters

urlCreator

This is the factory that will create URLs based on the resources. For the time being, only Path UrlCreator is implemented. This means that if you have a resource names Building which is a child of Account, the URL to fetch this will be /accounts/123/buildings. In the future, I'll implement more UrlCreator like QueryParams UrlCreator.

onElemRestangularized

This is a hook. After each element has been "restangularized" (Added the new methods from Restangular), this will be called. It means that if you receive a list of objects in one call, this method will be called first for the collection and then for each element of the collection. This callback is a function that has 3 parameters:

elem: The element that has just been restangularized. Can be a collection or a single element.
isCollection: Boolean indicating if this is a collection or a single element.
what: The model that is being modified. This is the "path" of this resource. For example buildings

This can be used together with addRestangularMethod (Explained later) to add custom methods to an element

responseInterceptor (or responseExtractor. It's an Alias)

The responseInterceptor is called after we get each response from the server. It's a function that receives 4 arguments:

response: The response got from the server
operation: The operation made. It'll be the HTTP method used except for a GET which returns a list of element which will return getList so that you can distinguish them.
what: The model that's being requested. It can be for example: accounts, buildings, etc.
url: The relative URL being requested. For example: /api/v1/accounts/123

Some of the use cases of the responseInterceptor are handling wrapped responses and enhancing response elements with more methods among others.

requestInterceptor

The requestInterceptor is called before sending any data to the server. It's a function that must return the element to be requested. This function receives the following arguments:

element: The element to send to the server.
operation: The operation made. It'll be the HTTP method used except for a GET which returns a list of element which will return getList so that you can distinguish them.
what: The model that's being requested. It can be for example: accounts, buildings, etc.
url: The relative URL being requested. For example: /api/v1/accounts/123

listTypeIsArray

You can set in this property wether the getList method will return an Array or not. Most of the times, it will return an array, as it returns a collection of values. However, sometimes this method returns first some metadata and inside it has the array. So this can be used together with responseExtractor to get the real array. The default value is true.

restangularFields

Restangular required 3 fields for every "Restangularized" element. This are:

id: Id of the element. Default: id
route: Name of the route of this element. Default: route
parentResource: The reference to the parent resource. Default: parentResource
restangularCollection: A boolean indicating if this is a collection or an element. Default: restangularCollection
what: The name of the parameter to be used in inner $resource to handle the PATH of the url. For example, in /users/123/messages, messagesrepresents the "what". Default: restangularWhat

All of this fields except for id are handled by Restangular, so most of the time you won't change them. You can configure the name of the property that will be binded to all of this fields by setting restangularFields property.

methodOverriders

You can now Override HTTP Methods. You can set here the array of methods to override. All those methods will be sent as POST and Restangular will add an X-HTTP-Method-Override header with the real HTTP method we wanted to do.

requestSuffix

If all of your requests require to send some suffix to work, you can set it here. For example, if you need to send the format like /users/123.jsonyou can add that .json to the suffix using the setRequestSuffixmethod

How to configure them

You can configure this properties inside the config method of your app

app.config(function(RestangularProvider) {
    RestangularProvider.setBaseUrl('/api/v1');
    RestangularProvider.setExtraFields(['name']);
    RestangularProvider.setResponseExtractor(function(response, operation) {
        return response.data;
    });
    
    RestangularProvider.setDefaultHttpFields({cache: true});
    RestangularProvider.setMethodOverriders(["put", "patch"]);
    
    RestangularProvider.setListTypeIsArray(true);
    
    // In this case we configure that the id of each element will be the _id field and we change the Restangular route. We leave the default value for parentResource
    RestangularProvider.setRestangularFields({
      id: "_id",
      route: "restangularRoute"
    });
    
    RestangularProvider.setRequestSuffix('.json');
    
    RestangularProvider.setRequestInterceptor(function(element, operation, route, url) {
      delete elem.name;
      return elem;
    });
});

Methods description

There're 3 sets of methods. Collections have some methods and elements have others. There're are also some common methods for all of them

Restangular methods

This are the methods that can be called in the Restangular object.

one(route, id): This will create a new Restangular object that is just a pointer to one element with the route route and the specified id.
all(route): This will create a new Restangular object that is just a pointer to a list of elements for the specified path.
copy(fromElement): This will create a copy of the from element so that we can modified the copied one.

Element methods

get([queryParams, headers]): Gets the element. Query params and headers are optionals
getList(subElement, [queryParams, headers]): Gets a nested resource. subElement is mandatory. It's a string with the name of the nested resource (and URL). For example buildings
put([queryParams, headers]): Does a put to the current element
post(subElement, elementToPost, [queryParams, headers]): Does a POST and creates a subElement. Subelement is mandatory and is the nested resource. Element to post is the object to post to the server
remove([queryParams, headers]): Does a DELETE
head([queryParams, headers]): Does a HEAD
trace([queryParams, headers]): Does a TRACE
options([queryParams, headers]): Does a OPTIONS
patch([queryParams, headers]): Does a PATCH
one(route, id): Used for RequestLess connections and URL Building. See section below.
all(route): Used for RequestLess connections and URL Building. See section below.

Collection methods

getList([queryParams, headers]): Gets itself again (Remember this is a collection).
post(elementToPost, [queryParams, headers]): Creates a new element of this collection.
head([queryParams, headers]): Does a HEAD
trace: ([queryParams, headers]): Does a TRACE
options: ([queryParams, headers]): Does a OPTIONS
patch([queryParams, headers]): Does a PATCH

Custom methods

customGET(path, [params, headers]): Does a GET to the specific path. Optionally you can set params and headers.
customGETLIST(path, [params, headers]): Does a GET to the specific path. In this case, you expect to get an array, not a single element. Optionally you can set params and headers.
customDELETE(path, [params, headers]): Does a DELETE to the specific path. Optionally you can set params and headers.
customPOST(path, [params, headers, elem]): Does a POST to the specific path. Optionally you can set params and headers and elem. Elem is the element to post. If it's not set, it's assumed that it's the element itself from which you're calling this function.
customPUT(path, [params, headers, elem]): Does a POST to the specific path. Optionally you can set params and headers and elem. Elem is the element to post. If it's not set, it's assumed that it's the element itself from which you're calling this function.
customOperation(operation, path, [params, headers, elem]): This does a custom operation to the path that we specify. This method is actually used from all the others in this subsection. Operation can be one of: get, post, put, delete, head, options, patch, trace
addRestangularMethod(name, operation, [path, params, headers, elem]): This will add a new restangular method to this object with the name name to the operation and path specified (or current path otherwise). There's a section on how to do this later.

Let's see an example of this:

//GET /accounts/123/messages
Restangular.one("accounts", 123).customGET("messages")

//GET /accounts/messages?param=param2
Restangular.all("accounts").customGET("messages", {param: "param2"})

Copying elements

Before modifying an object, we sometimes want to copy it and then modify the copied object. We can't use angular.copy for this because it'll not change the this binded in the functions we add to the object. In this cases, you must use Restangular.copy(fromElement).

Enhanced promises

Restangular uses enhanced promises when returning. What does this mean? All promises returned now have 2 additional methods and collection promises have 3. This are the methods:

call(methodName, params)*: This will return a new promise of the previous value, after calling the method called methodName with the parameters params.
get(fieldName): This will return a new promise for the type of the field. The param of this new promise is the property fieldName from the original promise result.
push(object): This method will only be in the promises of arrays. It's a sub set of the call method that does a push.

I know this explanations are quite complicated, so let's see an example :D.

var buildings = Restangular.all("buildings").getList();

// New promise after adding the new building
// Now you can show in scope this newBuildings promise and it'll show all the buildings 
// received from server plus the new one added
var newBuildings = buildings.push({name: "gonto"});

var newBuildingsSame = buildings.call("push", {name: "gonto"});

// This is a promise of a number value. You can show it in the UI
var lengthPromise = buildings.get("length");

lengthPromise.then(function(length) {
  // Here the length is the real length value of the returned collection of buildings
});

URL Building

Sometimes, we have a lot of entities names with their ids and we just want to fetch the later entity. In those cases, doing a request for everything to get the last entity is an overkill. For those cases, I've added the possibility to create URLs using the same API as creating a new Restangular object. This connections are created without doing any request. Let's see how to do this:

var restangualrSpaces = Restangular.one("accounts",123).one("buildings", 456).all("spaces");

// This will do ONE get to /accounts/123/buildings/456/spaces
restangularSpaces.getList()

// This will do ONE get to /accounts/123/buildings/456/spaces/789
Restangular.one("accounts", 123).one("buildings", 456).one("spaces", 789).get()

// POST /accounts/123/buildings/456/spaces
Restangular.one("accounts", 123).one("buildings", 456).all("spaces").post({name: "New Space"});

Creating new Restangular Methods

Let's assume that your API needs some custom methods to work. If that's the case, always calling customGET or customPOST for that method with all parameters is a pain in the ass. That's why every element has a addRestangularMethod method. This can be used together with the hook setOnElemRestangularized to do some neat stuff. Let's see an example to learn this:

//In your app configuration (config method)
RestangularProvider.setOnElemRestangularized(function(elem, isCollection, route) {
    if (!isCollection && route === "buildings") {
        // This will add a method called evaluate that will do a get to path evaluate with NO default
        // query params and with some default header
        // signature is (name, operation, path, params, headers, elementToPost)
        elem.addRestangularMethod('evaluate', 'get', 'evaluate', undefined, {'myHeader': 'value'});
    }
    return elem;
})

// Then, later in your code you can do the following:

//GET to /buildings/123/evaluate?myParam=param with headers myHeader: value
//Signature for this "custom created" methods is (params, headers, elem)
// If something is set to any of this variables, the default set in the method creation will be overrided
// If nothing is set, then the defaults are sent
building.evaluate({myParam: 'param'});

//GET to /buildings/123/evaluate?myParam=param with headers myHeader: specialHeaderCase
building.evaluate({myParam: 'param'}, {'myHeader': 'specialHeaderCase'});

FAQ

How can I handle errors?

Errors can be checked on the second argument of the then.

Restangular.all("accounts").getList().then(function() {
  console.log("All ok");
}, function(response) {
  console.log("Error with status code", response.status);
});

I need to send one header in EVERY Restangular request, how do I do this?

Restangular uses $http inside, so you can actually set default headers by using $httpProvider. This also applies to XSRF headers as well

app.config(["$httpProvider", function($httpProvider) {
  $httpProvider.defaults.headers.common['Tenant-id'] = 'X';
  $httpProvider.defaults.headers.get['Gonto-id'] = 'P';
}]);

Can I cache requests?

$http can cache requests if you send the property cache to true. You can do that for every Restangular request by using defaultHttpFields property. This is the way:

RestangularProvider.setDefaultHttpFields({cache: true});

Can it be used in `$routeProvider.resolve`?

Yes, of course. Every method in Restangular returns a promise so this can be used without any problem.

My response is actually wrapped with some metadata. How do I get the data in that case?

So, let's assume that your data is the following:

 // When getting the list, this is the response.
{
  "status":"success",
  "data": {
    "data": [{
      "id":1,
      // More data
    }],
    "meta": {
      "totalRecord":100
    }
  }
}

// When getting a single element, this is the response.
{
  "status":"success",
  "data": {
    "id" : 1
    // More data
  }
}

In this case, you'd need to configure Restangular's responseExtractorand listTypeIsArray. See the following:

app.config(function(RestangularProvider) {
    // First let's set listTypeIsArray to false, as we have the array wrapped in some other object.
    RestangularProvider.setListTypeIsArray(false);
    
    // Now let's configure the response extractor for each request
    RestangularProvider.setResponseExtractor(function(response, operation, what, url) {
      // This is a get for a list
      var newResponse;
      if (operation === "getList") {
        // Here we're returning an Array which has one special property metadata with our extra information
        newResponse = response.data.data;
        newResponse.metadata = response.data.meta;
      } else {
        // This is an element
        newResponse = response.data;
      }
      return newResponse;
    });
});

I use Mongo and the ID of the elements is `_id` not `id` as the default. Therefore requests are sent to undefined routes

What you need to do is to configure the RestangularFields and set the id field to _id. Let's see how:

RestangularProvider.setRestangularFields({
  id: "_id"
});

After getting some List, how do I add an object to the array? When I want to add a new element to the array, it gives me an error saying that push method doesn't exist

When you actually get some list by doing

$scope.owners = house.getList('owners')

You're actually assigning a Promise to the owners value of the $scope. As Angular knows how to process promises, if in your view you do an ng-repeat of this $scope variable, results will be shown once the promise is resolved (Response arrived). So, I've enhanced this promise from Angular and added a push method which will return a new promise with the list with the new elements. So you should do something like this:

// First
$scope.owners = house.getList('owners');

// Then after some ng-click to add an item
$scope.owners = $scope.owners.push({name: "gonto"});

When I set baseUrl with a port, it's stripped out.

Restangular uses $resource inside. $resource requires ports to be escaped to as not to think they are actually parameters. So the right way of setting a baseUrl with a port is the following:

RestangularProvider.setBaseUrl('http://localhost\\:8080');

Why does this depend on Lodash / Underscore?

This is a very good question. I could've done the code so that I don't depend on Underscore nor Lodash, but I think both libraries make your life SO much easier. They have all of the "functional" stuff like map, reduce, filter, find, etc. With these libraries, you always work with Inmutable stuff, you get compatibility for browsers which don't implement ECMA5 nor some of these cool methods, and they're actually quicker. So, why not use it? If you've never heard of them, by using Restangular, you could start using them. Trust me, you're never going to give them up after this!

Server Frameworks

This server frameworks play real nice with Restangular, as they let you create a Nested Restful Resources API easily:

Ruby on Rails
CakePHP for PHP
Play1 & 2 for Java & scala
Restify and Express for NodeJS

Releases Notes

Click here to see Releases Notes

License

The MIT License

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
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dist		dist
src		src
test		test
.gitignore		.gitignore
.travis.yml		.travis.yml
CHANGELOG.md		CHANGELOG.md
CONTRIBUTE.md		CONTRIBUTE.md
Gruntfile.js		Gruntfile.js
README.md		README.md
component.json		component.json
karma.conf.js		karma.conf.js
karma.underscore.conf.js		karma.underscore.conf.js
license.md		license.md
package.json		package.json

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sarath2/restangular

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Adding dependency to Restangular module in your app

Using Restangular

Creating Main Restangular object

Let's code!

Configuring Restangular

Properties

baseUrl

extraFields

defaultHttpFields

urlCreator

onElemRestangularized

responseInterceptor (or responseExtractor. It's an Alias)

requestInterceptor

listTypeIsArray

restangularFields

methodOverriders

requestSuffix

How to configure them

Methods description

Restangular methods

Element methods

Collection methods

Custom methods

Copying elements

Enhanced promises

URL Building

Creating new Restangular Methods

FAQ

How can I handle errors?

I need to send one header in EVERY Restangular request, how do I do this?

Can I cache requests?

Can it be used in $routeProvider.resolve?

My response is actually wrapped with some metadata. How do I get the data in that case?

I use Mongo and the ID of the elements is _id not id as the default. Therefore requests are sent to undefined routes

After getting some List, how do I add an object to the array? When I want to add a new element to the array, it gives me an error saying that push method doesn't exist

When I set baseUrl with a port, it's stripped out.

Why does this depend on Lodash / Underscore?

Server Frameworks

Releases Notes

License

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Can it be used in `$routeProvider.resolve`?

I use Mongo and the ID of the elements is `_id` not `id` as the default. Therefore requests are sent to undefined routes

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