fractal

Fractal

Fractal provides a presentation and transformation layer for complex data output, the like found in RESTful APIs, and works really well with JSON. Think of this as a view layer for your JSON/YAML/etc.

When building an API it is common for people to just grab stuff from the database and pass it to json_encode(). This might be passable for "trivial" APIs but if they are in use by the public, or used by mobile applications then this will quickly lead to inconsistent output.

Goals

• Create a protective shield between source data and output, so schema changes do not affect users
• Systematic type-casting of data, to avoid foreach()ing through and (bool)ing everything
• Include (a.k.a embedding, nesting or side-loading) relationships for complex data structures
• Work with standards like HAL and JSON-API but also allow custom serialization
• Support the pagination of data results, for small and large data sets alike
• Generally ease the subtle complexities of outputting data in a non-trivial API

This package is compliant with PSR-1, PSR-2 and PSR-4. If you notice compliance oversights, please send a patch via pull request.

Install

Via Composer

{
    "require": {
        "league/fractal": "0.9.*"
    }
}

Requirements

The following versions of PHP are supported by this version.

• PHP 5.3
• PHP 5.4
• PHP 5.5
• PHP 5.6
• HHVM

Documentation

Fractal has full documentation, powered by Sculpin.

Contribute to this documentation in the sculpin branch.

Todo

• Add JSON-API (kinda done) and HAL serializers

Testing

$ phpunit

Contributing

Please see CONTRIBUTING for details.

Credits

• Jason Lewis
• Phil Sturgeon
• All Contributors

License

The MIT License (MIT). Please see License File for more information.