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Lawrence Lagerlof
Lawrence Lagerlof

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MoodleRest, a PHP class to query Moodle REST webservices

#moodle #php #rest #lms

What it does, exactly?

MoodleRest allow you to easily make GET or POST requests to query or update information from many webservices available on Moodle.

"Moodle is a learning platform designed to provide educators, administrators and learners with a single robust, secure and integrated system to create personalised learning environments".

This lib can return information from Moodle webservices in one of these formats:

  • array
  • json
  • xml

The GitHub project page

https://github.com/llagerlof/MoodleRest

This dev.to article covers the basics. Many more examples and other features on project page.

Requirements

Ensure you already have access to a Moodle webservice. To use this class you will need a token (generated by Moodle admin) with the necessary capabilities for the services you want to access.

To the code

You have 2 options to add this lib to your project:

Option One

Use Composer to include it in your project.

  • Inside your project directory create or modify the file composer.json: 
{ "require": { "llagerlof/moodlerest": "2.3.0" } }
  • In the same directory of the composer.json, run: 
$ composer install
  • In your project, load the lib using composer autoloader: 
<?php require_once dirname(__FILE__) . '/vendor/autoload.php';

Option Two

Just include the MoodleRest.php class directly in your script.

require_once dirname(__FILE__) . '/MoodleRest.php';

The MoodleRest constructor

You can pass 2 parameters:

  • A full url path to the Moodle webserver
  • The token generated by Moodle admin.

Example:

$MoodleRest = new MoodleRest( 'http://127.0.0.1/moodle/webservice/rest/server.php', '8f12e614dae30735260a045313caa400' );

The method request()

This method needs at least 2 parameters:

  • The webservice functiona name (string).
  • The parameters (array) passed to the webservice. The MoodleRest will internally convert this array to a query string. If you need to learn how to build an array compatible to each webservice's function I have you covered!

Query example (GET)

Query 2 Moodle groups with IDs 1 and 2, passing the server URL and token in constructor using the request method.

$MoodleRest = new MoodleRest( 'http://127.0.0.1/moodle/webservice/rest/server.php', '8f12e614dae30735260a045313caa400' ); $groups = $MoodleRest->request( 'core_group_get_groups', array('groupids' => array(1,2)) ); print_r($groups);

Inserting data example (POST)

Set the server and token in constructor and make a request to create a group on Moodle.

$MoodleRest = new MoodleRest( 'http://127.0.0.1/moodle/webservice/rest/server.php', '8f12e614dae30735260a045313caa400' ); $new_group = array( 'groups' => array( array( 'courseid' => 2, 'name' => 'Group name', 'description' => 'Group description' ) ) ); /* The default request's METHOD is to make a GET request, but you can change it to POST. This is recommended when inserting and updating data. */ $return = $MoodleRest->request( 'core_group_create_groups', $new_group, MoodleRest::METHOD_POST ); // If you want the requested URL echo $MoodleRest->getUrl();

That's it! Quick and easy.

More features and examples on project page.

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