• Grape::Entity
  • Introduction
    • Example
  • Reusable Responses with Entities
    • Defining Entities
      • Basic Exposure
      • Exposing with a Presenter
      • Conditional Exposure
      • Safe Exposure
      • Nested Exposure
      • Collection Exposure
      • Merge Fields
      • Runtime Exposure
      • Unexpose
      • Overriding exposures
      • Returning only the fields you want
      • Aliases
      • Format Before Exposing
      • Expose Nil
      • Default Value
      • Documentation
    • Options Hash
      • Passing Additional Option To Nested Exposure
      • Attribute Path Tracking
    • Using the Exposure DSL
    • Using Entities
    • Entity Organization
    • Caveats
    • Preloading Associations
  • Installation
  • Testing with Entities
  • Project Resources
  • Contributing
  • License
  • Copyright

This gem adds Entity support to API frameworks, such as Grape. Grape's Entity is an API focused facade that sits on top of an object model.

module API module Entities class Status < Grape::Entity format_with(:iso_timestamp) { |dt| dt.iso8601 } expose :user_name expose :text, documentation: { type: "String", desc: "Status update text." } expose :ip, if: { type: :full } expose :user_type, :user_id, if: lambda { |status, options| status.user.public? } expose :location, merge: true expose :contact_info do expose :phone expose :address, merge: true, using: API::Entities::Address end expose :digest do |status, options| Digest::MD5.hexdigest status.txt end expose :replies, using: API::Entities::Status, as: :responses expose :last_reply, using: API::Entities::Status do |status, options| status.replies.last end with_options(format_with: :iso_timestamp) do expose :created_at expose :updated_at end end end end module API module Entities class StatusDetailed < API::Entities::Status expose :internal_id end end end

Entities are a reusable means for converting Ruby objects to API responses. Entities can be used to conditionally include fields, nest other entities, and build ever larger responses, using inheritance.

Entities inherit from Grape::Entity, and define a simple DSL. Exposures can use runtime options to determine which fields should be visible, these options are available to :if, :unless, and :proc.

Define a list of fields that will always be exposed.

expose :user_name, :ip

The field lookup takes several steps

• first try entity-instance.exposure
• next try object.exposure
• next try object.fetch(exposure)
• last raise an Exception

exposure is a Symbol by default. If object is a Hash with stringified keys, you can set the hash accessor at the entity-class level to properly expose its members:

class Status < GrapeEntity self.hash_access = :to_s expose :code expose :message end Status.represent({ 'code' => 418, 'message' => "I'm a teapot" }).as_json #=> { code: 418, message: "I'm a teapot" }

Don't derive your model classes from Grape::Entity, expose them using a presenter.

expose :replies, using: API::Entities::Status, as: :responses

Presenter classes can also be specified in string format, which helps with circular dependencies.

expose :replies, using: "API::Entities::Status", as: :responses

Use :if or :unless to expose fields conditionally.

expose :ip, if: { type: :full } expose :ip, if: lambda { |instance, options| options[:type] == :full } # exposed if the function evaluates to true expose :ip, if: :type # exposed if :type is available in the options hash expose :ip, if: { type: :full } # exposed if options :type has a value of :full expose :ip, unless: ... # the opposite of :if

Don't raise an exception and expose as nil, even if the :x cannot be evaluated.

expose :ip, safe: true

Supply a block to define a hash using nested exposures.

expose :contact_info do expose :phone expose :address, using: API::Entities::Address end

You can also conditionally expose attributes in nested exposures:

expose :contact_info do expose :phone expose :address, using: API::Entities::Address expose :email, if: lambda { |instance, options| options[:type] == :full } end

Use root(plural, singular = nil) to expose an object or a collection of objects with a root key.

root 'users', 'user' expose :id, :name, ...

By default every object of a collection is wrapped into an instance of your Entity class. You can override this behavior and wrap the whole collection into one instance of your Entity class.

As example:

 present_collection true, :collection_name # `collection_name` is optional and defaults to `items` expose :collection_name, using: API::Entities::Items 

Use :merge option to merge fields into the hash or into the root:

expose :contact_info do expose :phone expose :address, merge: true, using: API::Entities::Address end expose :status, merge: true

This will return something like:

{ contact_info: { phone: "88002000700", city: 'City 17', address_line: 'Block C' }, text: 'HL3', likes: 19 }

It also works with collections:

expose :profiles do expose :users, merge: true, using: API::Entities::User expose :admins, merge: true, using: API::Entities::Admin end

Provide lambda to solve collisions:

expose :status, merge: ->(key, old_val, new_val) { old_val + new_val if old_val && new_val }

Use a block or a Proc to evaluate exposure at runtime. The supplied block or Proc will be called with two parameters: the represented object and runtime options.

NOTE: A block supplied with no parameters will be evaluated as a nested exposure (see above).

expose :digest do |status, options| Digest::MD5.hexdigest status.txt end

expose :digest, proc: ... # equivalent to a block

You can also define a method on the entity and it will try that before trying on the object the entity wraps.

class ExampleEntity < Grape::Entity expose :attr_not_on_wrapped_object # ... private def attr_not_on_wrapped_object 42 end end

You always have access to the presented instance (object) and the top-level entity options (options).

class ExampleEntity < Grape::Entity expose :formatted_value # ... private def formatted_value "+ X #{object.value} #{options[:y]}" end end

To undefine an exposed field, use the .unexpose method. Useful for modifying inherited entities.

class UserData < Grape::Entity expose :name expose :address1 expose :address2 expose :address_state expose :address_city expose :email expose :phone end class MailingAddress < UserData unexpose :email unexpose :phone end

If you want to add one more exposure for the field but don't want the first one to be fired (for instance, when using inheritance), you can use the override flag. For instance:

class User < Grape::Entity expose :name end class Employee < User expose :name, as: :employee_name, override: true end

User will return something like this { "name" : "John" } while Employee will present the same data as { "employee_name" : "John" } instead of { "name" : "John", "employee_name" : "John" }.

After exposing the desired attributes, you can choose which one you need when representing some object or collection by using the only: and except: options. See the example:

class UserEntity expose :id expose :name expose :email end class Entity expose :id expose :title expose :user, using: UserEntity end data = Entity.represent(model, only: [:title, { user: [:name, :email] }]) data.as_json

This will return something like this:

{ title: 'grape-entity is awesome!', user: { name: 'John Applet', email: 'john@example.com' } }

Instead of returning all the exposed attributes.

The same result can be achieved with the following exposure:

data = Entity.represent(model, except: [:id, { user: [:id] }]) data.as_json

Expose under a different name with :as.

expose :replies, using: API::Entities::Status, as: :responses

Apply a formatter before exposing a value.

module Entities class MyModel < Grape::Entity format_with(:iso_timestamp) do |date| date.iso8601 end with_options(format_with: :iso_timestamp) do expose :created_at expose :updated_at end end end

Defining a reusable formatter between multiples entities:

module ApiHelpers extend Grape::API::Helpers Grape::Entity.format_with :utc do |date| date.utc if date end end

module Entities class MyModel < Grape::Entity expose :updated_at, format_with: :utc end class AnotherModel < Grape::Entity expose :created_at, format_with: :utc end end

By default, exposures that contain nil values will be represented in the resulting JSON as null.

As an example, a hash with the following values:

{ name: nil, age: 100 }

will result in a JSON object that looks like:

{ "name": null, "age": 100 }

There are also times when, rather than displaying an attribute with a null value, it is more desirable to not display the attribute at all. Using the hash from above the desired JSON would look like:

{ "age": 100 }

In order to turn on this behavior for an as-exposure basis, the option expose_nil can be used. By default, expose_nil is considered to be true, meaning that nil values will be represented in JSON as null. If false is provided, then attributes with nil values will be omitted from the resulting JSON completely.

module Entities class MyModel < Grape::Entity expose :name, expose_nil: false expose :age, expose_nil: false end end

expose_nil is per exposure, so you can suppress exposures from resulting in null or express null values on a per exposure basis as you need:

module Entities class MyModel < Grape::Entity expose :name, expose_nil: false expose :age # since expose_nil is omitted nil values will be rendered as null end end

It is also possible to use expose_nil with with_options if you want to add the configuration to multiple exposures at once.

module Entities class MyModel < Grape::Entity # None of the exposures in the with_options block will render nil values as null with_options(expose_nil: false) do expose :name expose :age end end end

When using with_options, it is possible to again override which exposures will render nil as null by adding the option on a specific exposure.

module Entities class MyModel < Grape::Entity # None of the exposures in the with_options block will render nil values as null with_options(expose_nil: false) do expose :name expose :age, expose_nil: true # nil values would be rendered as null in the JSON end end end

This option can be used to provide a default value in case the return value is nil or empty.

module Entities class MyModel < Grape::Entity expose :name, default: '' expose :age, default: 60 end end

Expose documentation with the field. Gets bubbled up when used with Grape and various API documentation systems.

expose :text, documentation: { type: "String", desc: "Status update text." }

The option keys :version and :collection are always defined. The :version key is defined as api.version. The :collection key is boolean, and defined as true if the object presented is an array. The options also contain the runtime environment in :env, which includes request parameters in options[:env]['grape.request.params'].

Any additional options defined on the entity exposure are included as is. In the following example user is set to the value of current_user.

class Status < Grape::Entity expose :user, if: lambda { |instance, options| options[:user] } do |instance, options| # examine available environment keys with `p options[:env].keys` options[:user] end end

present s, with: Status, user: current_user 

Sometimes you want to pass additional options or parameters to nested a exposure. For example, let's say that you need to expose an address for a contact info and it has two different formats: full and simple. You can pass an additional full_format option to specify which format to render.

# api/contact.rb expose :contact_info do expose :phone expose :address do |instance, options| # use `#merge` to extend options and then pass the new version of options to the nested entity API::Entities::Address.represent instance.address, options.merge(full_format: instance.need_full_format?) end expose :email, if: lambda { |instance, options| options[:type] == :full } end # api/address.rb expose :state, if: lambda {|instance, options| !!options[:full_format]} # the new option could be retrieved in options hash for conditional exposure expose :city, if: lambda {|instance, options| !!options[:full_format]} expose :street do |instance, options| # the new option could be retrieved in options hash for runtime exposure !!options[:full_format] ? instance.full_street_name : instance.simple_street_name end

Notice: In the above code, you should pay attention to Safe Exposure yourself. For example, instance.address might be nil and it is better to expose it as nil directly.

Sometimes, especially when there are nested attributes, you might want to know which attribute is being exposed. For example, some APIs allow users to provide a parameter to control which fields will be included in (or excluded from) the response.

GrapeEntity can track the path of each attribute, which you can access during conditions checking or runtime exposure via options[:attr_path].

The attribute path is an array. The last item of this array is the name (alias) of current attribute. If the attribute is nested, the former items are names (aliases) of its ancestor attributes.

Example:

class Status < Grape::Entity expose :user # path is [:user] expose :foo, as: :bar # path is [:bar] expose :a do expose :b, as: :xx do expose :c # path is [:a, :xx, :c] end end end

Grape ships with a DSL to easily define entities within the context of an existing class:

class Status include Grape::Entity::DSL entity :text, :user_id do expose :detailed, if: :conditional end end

The above will automatically create a Status::Entity class and define properties on it according to the same rules as above. If you only want to define simple exposures you don't have to supply a block and can instead simply supply a list of comma-separated symbols.

With Grape, once an entity is defined, it can be used within endpoints, by calling present. The present method accepts two arguments, the object to be presented and the options associated with it. The options hash must always include :with, which defines the entity to expose (unless namespaced entity classes are used, see next section). If the entity includes documentation it can be included in an endpoint's description.

module API class Statuses < Grape::API version 'v1' desc 'Statuses.', { params: API::Entities::Status.documentation } get '/statuses' do statuses = Status.all type = current_user.admin? ? :full : :default present statuses, with: API::Entities::Status, type: type end end end

In addition to separately organizing entities, it may be useful to put them as namespaced classes underneath the model they represent.

class Status def entity Entity.new(self) end class Entity < Grape::Entity expose :text, :user_id end end

If you organize your entities this way, Grape will automatically detect the Entity class and use it to present your models. In this example, if you added present Status.new to your endpoint, Grape would automatically detect that there is a Status::Entity class and use that as the representative entity. This can still be overridden by using the :with option or an explicit represents call.

Entities with duplicate exposure names and conditions will silently overwrite one another. In the following example, when object.check equals "foo", only field_a will be exposed. However, when object.check equals "bar" both field_b and foo will be exposed.

module API module Entities class Status < Grape::Entity expose :field_a, :foo, if: lambda { |object, options| object.check == "foo" } expose :field_b, :foo, if: lambda { |object, options| object.check == "bar" } end end end

This can be problematic, when you have mixed collections. Using respond_to? is safer.

module API module Entities class Status < Grape::Entity expose :field_a, if: lambda { |object, options| object.check == "foo" } expose :field_b, if: lambda { |object, options| object.check == "bar" } expose :foo, if: lambda { |object, options| object.respond_to?(:foo) } end end end

Also note that an ArgumentError is raised when unknown options are passed to either expose or with_options.

Use Grape::Entity::Preloader to preload associations and callbacks and avoid N+1 operations.

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'grape-entity' 

And then execute:

$ bundle 

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install grape-entity 

Test API request/response as usual.

Also see Grape Entity Matchers.

• Need help? Grape Google Group

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

MIT License. See LICENSE for details.

Copyright (c) 2010-2016 Michael Bleigh, Intridea, Inc., ruby-grape and Contributors.