Creating Resources¶

Request Data¶

All data posted to the listener is transformed from JSON API format to standard CakePHP format so it can be processed “as usual” once the data is accepted.

To make sure posted data complies with the JSON API specification it is first validated by the listener’s DocumentValidator which will throw a (422) ValidationException if it does not comply along with a pointer to the cause.

A valid JSON API request body for creating a new Country would look similar to:

{
  "data": {
    "type": "countries",
    "attributes": {
      "code": "NL",
      "name": "The Netherlands"
    }
  }
}

The same rules apply when you create a new Resource and want to set its belongsTo relationships. For example, the JSON API request body for creating a new Country with currency_id=1 would like:

{
  "data": {
    "type": "countries",
    "attributes": {
      "code": "NL",
      "name": "The Netherlands"
    },
    "relationships": {
      "currency": {
        "data": {
          "type": "currencies",
          "id": "1"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Side-Posting¶

Side-posting is an often requested feature which would allow creating multiple Resources (and/or relationships) using a single POST request.

However, this functionality is NOT supported by version 1.0 of the JSON API specification and is therefore NOT supported by crud-json-api.

In practice this means:

• you will only be able to create Resources with belongsTo relationships pointing to EXISTING foreign keys
• crud-json-api will throw a BadRequestException when it detects attempts to side-post hasMany relationships