Revision: Tue, 30 May 2023 16:57:04 GMT
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HTTP - Request and Response

You controllers or endpoints will require a way to access active PSR-7 request and ability to generate the response. In this section, we will cover the use of requests/responses in the MVC setup.

The middleware and native PSR-15 handlers can receive PSR-7 objects directly.

The Request Scope

The fastest way to get access to the user request is to create Psr\Http\Message\ServerRequestInterface method injection.

php
namespace App\Controller;

use Psr\Http\Message\ServerRequestInterface;
use Spiral\Core\Container\SingletonInterface;

class HomeController implements SingletonInterface
{
    public function index(ServerRequestInterface $request)
    {
        dump($request->getHeaders());
    }
}

Attention, you are not allowed to use ServerRequestInterface as constructor injection in singletons.

Once the request obtained, you can use it to all read methods available per PSR-7 Standard.

InputManager

Alternatively, you can use context-manager Spiral\Http\Request\InputManager, which can be stored inside singleton services/controllers and always point to the current user request. This object provides several user-friendly methods to read the incoming data.

php
namespace App\Controller;

use Spiral\Core\Container\SingletonInterface;
use Spiral\Http\Request\InputManager;

class HomeController implements SingletonInterface
{
    private $input;

    public function __construct(InputManager $input)
    {
        $this->input = $input;
    }

    public function index()
    {
        dump($this->input->query->all());
    }
}

You can also access InputManager via PrototypeTrait.

php
namespace App\Controller;

use Spiral\Prototype\Traits\PrototypeTrait;

class HomeController
{
    use PrototypeTrait;

    public function index()
    {
        // $this->request is alias to $this->input
        dump($this->request->data->all());
    }
}

Note, is it recommended to avoid direct access to ServerRequestInterface and InputManager unless necessary, use Request Filters instead.

You can use InputManager to access the full array of input data or any specific field by its name (dot notation is allowed for nested structures). Every input structure are represented using InputBag class with set of common methods, let's review query accessing as example:

php
/**
 * @var InputManager $input
 */
 
// Get instance of QueryBag associated with query data
dump($input->query);
 
// Get all query params as array
dump($input->query->all());
 
// Count of query params
dump($input->query->count());
 
// Check if parameter "name" presented in query
dump($input->query->has('name'));
 
// Get value for parameter "name"
dump($input->query->get('name'));
 
// Both get and has methods support dot notation for nested structures
dump($input->query->has('name.subName'));
dump($input->query->get('name.subName'));
 
// Fetch only given query params (no dot notation allowed), only existed records will be returned
dump($input->query->fetch(["name", "nameB"]);

// Fetch only given query params (no dot notation allowed), non existed records will be filled with `null`
dump($input->query->fetch(['name', 'nameB'], true, null);

// In addition query get method has short alias in input manager
dump($input->query('name'));

Input headers

We can use the 'headers' input bad and header method in InputManager to access input headers. HeadersBag has a few additions we have to mention:

  • HeaderBad will automatically normalize requested header name
  • "get" method will implode header values using ',' by default
php
dump($input->headers->all());

// Will be normalized into "Accept"
dump($input->headers->get('accept')); 

// Return Accept header as array of values
dump($input->headers->get('accept', false));

dump($input->header('accept'));

Cookies

php
dump($input->cookies->all());
dump($input->cookie('name'));

Server variables

php
dump($input->server->all());
dump($input->server('name'));

ServerBag will automatically normalize all requested server values. This makes it possible to get value without using all uppercase letters for the names:

php
dump($input->server('SERVER_PORT'));
dump($input->server('server-port'));

Post/Data parameters

php
dump($input->data->all());
dump($input->data('name'));

// An alias
dump($input->post('name'));

Post/Data with fallback to Query parameters

If you want to read the value from POST data and then from Query, simply use the method input.

php
dump($input->input('name'));

PSR7 request attributes

php
dump($input->attributes->all());
dump($input->attribute('name'));

Uploaded Files

To get a list of the uploaded files or individual files, use the files bag and file method. Every uploaded file instance represented using UploadedFileInterface, which is part of PSR7.

php
dump($this->input->files->all());
dump($this->input->file('upload'));

Per PSR, all files organized to logical hierarchy, which differs from default way php handle uploaded files. You can use dot notation to access nested file instances.

Simplified methods

In addition to data methods and InputBags, InputManager provides a set of methods to read various properties of active requests.

php
//Request Uri path, will always include leading /
dump($input->path());

//Active request Uri instance
dump($input->uri());

//GET, POST, PUT...
dump($input->method());

//Check if connection made over https
dump($input->isSecure());

//Check request headers to verify that request made over ajax
dump($input->isAjax());

//Check is request expects application/json as response (Accept: application/json)
dump($input->isJsonExpected());

//Receive client ip address (this method uses _SERVER value and may not be correct in some cases).
dump($input->remoteAddress());

To access InputBag without the use of __get:

php
dump($input->bag('data')->all());

InputInterface

The InputManager does not have get prefix for its methods. The reason for that located in an external package spiral/filters which require data source provider via Spiral\Filters\InputInterface:

php
namespace Spiral\Filters;

// ...

interface InputInterface
{
    public function withPrefix(string $prefix, bool $add = true): InputInterface;

    public function getValue(string $source, string $name = null);
}

You can invoke InputManager methods via short notation of InputInterface. Both approaches will produce the same set of data.

php
public function index(InputInterface $inputSource, InputManager $inputManager)
{
    dump($inputManager->query('name'));
    dump($inputSource->getValue('query', 'name'));

    dump($inputManager->path());
    dump($inputSource->getValue('path'));
}

This approach used to map incoming data into Request Filter.

You must activate Spiral\Bootloader\Security\FiltersBootloader in order to access Spiral\Filters\InputInterface.

Generate Response

You can return an instance of Psr\Http\Message\ResponseInterface from your controller, and it will be sent directly to the user.

php
namespace App\Controller;

use Nyholm\Psr7\Response;
use Psr\Http\Message\ResponseInterface;

class HomeController 
{
    public function index(): ResponseInterface
    {
        $r = new Response(200);
        $r->getBody()->write("hello world");

        return $r;
    }
}

The PSR-15 handler enabled by default provides the ability to generate the response automatically based on the returned string or the content of output buffer:

php
namespace App\Controller;

class HomeController
{
    public function index(): string
    {
        return "hello world";
    }
}

Identical to:

php
namespace App\Controller;

class HomeController
{
    public function index()
    {
        echo "hello world";
    }
}

We recommend using output buffer only during the development to display debug information. Stick to strict return types.

JSON responses

The default PSR-15 also supports array and JsonSerializable responses which will convert into JSON:

php
namespace App\Controller;

class HomeController
{
    public function index(): array
    {
        return [
            'status' => 200,
            'data'   => ['some' => 'json']
        ];
    }
}

Response Factory

The proper way to abstract from manual response creation is to use Psr\Http\Message\ResponseFactoryInterface:

php
namespace App\Controller;

use Psr\Http\Message\ResponseFactoryInterface;
use Psr\Http\Message\ResponseInterface;

class HomeController
{
    public function index(ResponseFactoryInterface $responseFactory): ResponseInterface
    {
        $response = $responseFactory->createResponse(200);
        $response->getBody()->write("hello world");

        return $response;
    }
}

ResponseWrapper

To generate more complex responses use ResponseFactoryInterface wrapper Spiral\Http\ResponseWrapper which adds a number of methods for simpler response generation:

php
namespace App\Controller;

use Psr\Http\Message\ResponseInterface;
use Spiral\Http\ResponseWrapper;

class HomeController
{
    public function index(ResponseWrapper $r): ResponseInterface
    {
        return $r->attachment(
            __FILE__,
            'controller.php'
        )->withAddedHeader('Key', 'value');
    }
}

You can also access the wrapper via PrototypeTrait and property response:

php
namespace App\Controller;

use Psr\Http\Message\ResponseInterface;
use Spiral\Prototype\Traits\PrototypeTrait;

class HomeController
{
    Use PrototypeTrait;

    public function index(): ResponseInterface
    {
        // temporary redirect
        return $this->response->redirect('https://google.com', 307);
    }
}

The create HTML response:

php
public function index()
{
    return $this->response->html('hello world');
}

To create application/json response:

php
public function index()
{
    return $this->response->json(
        ['something' => 123],
        200
    );
}

To send attachment:

php
public function index()
{
    return $this->response->attachment(__FILE__, 'name.php');
}

You can also use StreamInterface as the first argument and specify your mime-type as the third option.