Yii Framework: CModel replicating CActiveRecord functionality with WebServices - yii

Question

Has anyone tried or found an example of a class derived from CModel that replicates CActiveRecord functionality with WebServices instead of database connection???
If done with RESTFULL WebServices it would be great. If data is transmitted JSON encoded, wonderful!!...
I'd appretiate your help. Thanks.

Answer 1

I spend a lot of time looking for that as well, I came across this Yii extension on Github:
https://github.com/Haensel/ActiveResource
It allows you to have exactly what you are looking for, the readme isn't updated with the changes reflected in changes.md, so I recommend you read through this document as well.
EActiveResource for Yii
...is an extension for the Yii PHP framework allowing the user to create models that use RESTful services as persistent storage.
The implementation is inspired by Yii's CActiveRecord class and the Ruby on Rails implementation of ActiveResource (http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveResource/Base.html).
HINT:
CAUTION: THIS IS STILL AN ALPHA RELEASE!
This project started as a draft and is still under development, so as long is there is no 1.0 release you may experience changes that could break your code. Look at the CHANGES.md file for further information
As there are thousands of different REST services out there that use a thousand different approaches it can be tricky to debug errors. Because of that I added extensive
tracing to all major functions, so you should always be able to see every request, which method it used and how the service responded. Just enable the tracing functionality of Yii
and look for the category "ext.EActiveResource"
INSTALL:
Add the extension to Yii by placing it in your application's extension folder (for example '/protected/extensions')
Edit your applications main.php config file and add 'application.extensions.EActiveResource.*' to your import definitions
Add the configuration for your resources to the main config
'activeresource'=>array(
'class'=>'EActiveResourceConnection',
'site'=>'http://api.aRESTservice.com',
'contentType'=>'application/json',
'acceptType'=>'application/json',
)),
'queryCacheId'=>'SomeCacheComponent')
4.) Now create a class extending EActiveResource like this (don't forget the model() function!):
QUICK OVERVIEW:
class Person extends EActiveResource
{
/* The id that uniquely identifies a person. This attribute is not defined as a property
* because we don't want to send it back to the service like a name, surname or gender etc.
*/
public $id;
public static function model($className=__CLASS__)
{
return parent::model($className);
}
public function rest()
{
return CMap::mergeArray(
parent::rest(),
array(
'resource'=>'people',
)
);
}
/* Let's define some properties and their datatypes
public function properties()
{
return array(
'name'=>array('type'=>'string'),
'surname'=>array('type'=>'string'),
'gender'=>array('type'=>'string'),
'age'=>array('type'=>'integer'),
'married'=>array('type'=>'boolean'),
'salary'=>array('type'=>'double'),
);
}
/* Define rules as usual */
public function rules()
{
return array(
array('name,surname,gender,age,married,salary','safe'),
array('age','numerical','integerOnly'=>true),
array('married','boolean'),
array('salary','numerical')
);
}
/* Add some custom labels for forms etc. */
public function attributeLabels()
{
return array(
'name'=>'First name',
'surname'=>'Last name',
'salary'=>'Your monthly salary',
);
}
}
Usage:
/* sends GET to http://api.example.com/person/1 and populates a single Person model*/
$person=Person::model()->findById(1);
/* sends GET to http://api.example.com/person and populates Person models with the response */
$persons=Person::model()->findAll();
/* create a resource
$person=new Person;
$person->name='A name';
$person->age=21;
$person->save(); //New resource, send POST request. Returns false if the model doesn't validate
/* Updating a resource (sending a PUT request)
$person=Person::model()->findById(1);
$person->name='Another name';
$person->save(); //Not at new resource, update it. Returns false if the model doesn't validate
//or short version
Person::model()->updateById(1,array('name'=>'Another name'));
/* DELETE a resource
$person=Person::model()->findById(1);
$person->destroy(); //DELETE to http://api.example.com/person/1
//or short version
Person::model()->deleteById(1);
Hope this helps you