Simple REST Data Provider For React-Admin

Simple REST Data Provider for react-admin, the frontend framework for building admin applications on top of REST/GraphQL services.

Installation

npm install --save ra-data-simple-rest

Usage

Create a Data Provider by calling the simpleRestProvider function with the API URL as first argument. Then pass this Data Provider to the <Admin> component.

// in src/App.js
import * as React from "react";
import { Admin, Resource } from 'react-admin';
import simpleRestProvider from 'ra-data-simple-rest';

import { PostList } from './posts';

const App = () => (
    <Admin dataProvider={simpleRestProvider('http://my.api.url/')}>
        <Resource name="posts" list={PostList} />
    </Admin>
);

export default App;

The simpleRestProvider function accepts a second parameter, which is an HTTP client function. By default, it uses react-admin's fetchUtils.fetchJson() as HTTP client. It's similar to HTML5 fetch(), except it handles JSON decoding and HTTP error codes automatically.

You can wrap this call in your own function to add custom headers, for instance to set an Authorization bearer token:

import { fetchUtils, Admin, Resource } from 'react-admin';
import simpleRestProvider from 'ra-data-simple-rest';

const httpClient = (url, options = {}) => {
    if (!options.headers) {
        options.headers = new Headers({ Accept: 'application/json' });
    }
    const { token } = JSON.parse(localStorage.getItem('auth'));
    options.headers.set('Authorization', `Bearer ${token}`);
    return fetchUtils.fetchJson(url, options);
};
const dataProvider = simpleRestProvider('http://localhost:3000', httpClient);

const App = () => (
    <Admin dataProvider={dataProvider} authProvider={authProvider}>
        ...
    </Admin>
);

REST Dialect

This Data Provider fits REST APIs using simple GET parameters for filters and sorting. This is the dialect used for instance in FakeRest.

Request Format

Method	API calls
getList	GET http://my.api.url/posts?sort=["title","ASC"]&range=[0, 24]&filter={"title":"bar"}
getOne	GET http://my.api.url/posts/123
getMany	GET http://my.api.url/posts?filter={"id":[123,456,789]}
getManyReference	GET http://my.api.url/posts?filter={"author_id":345}
create	POST http://my.api.url/posts
update	PUT http://my.api.url/posts/123
updateMany	Multiple calls to PUT http://my.api.url/posts/123
delete	DELETE http://my.api.url/posts/123
deleteMany	Multiple calls to DELETE http://my.api.url/posts/123

Response Format

An id field is required in all records. You can also set custom identifier or primary key for your resources

The API response when called by getList should look like this:

[
  { "id": 0, "author_id": 0, "title": "Anna Karenina" },
  { "id": 1, "author_id": 0, "title": "War and Peace" },
  { "id": 2, "author_id": 1, "title": "Pride and Prejudice" },
  { "id": 2, "author_id": 1, "title": "Pride and Prejudice" },
  { "id": 3, "author_id": 1, "title": "Sense and Sensibility" }
]

CORS Setup

The simple REST data provider expects the API to include a Content-Range header in the response to getList calls. The value must be the total number of resources in the collection. This allows react-admin to know how many pages of resources there are in total, and build the pagination controls.

Content-Range: posts 0-24/319

If your API is on another domain as the JS code, the browser won't be able to read the Content-Range header unless the server includes CORS headers in the response. So by default, you'll get an error message like this:

Access to fetch at [API_URL] from origin 'http://localhost:3000' has been blocked by CORS policy:
No 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' header is present on the requested resource.

To fix this, you need to configure your API server to set the Access-Control-Expose-Headers header to Content-Range in the CORS response.

Access-Control-Expose-Headers: Content-Range

Example Calls

getList

## DataProvider
dataProvider.getList('posts', {
    sort: { field: 'title', order: 'ASC' },
    pagination: { page: 1, perPage: 5 },
    filter: { author_id: 12 }
})

## Request
GET http://my.api.url/posts?sort=["title","ASC"]&range=[0, 4]&filter={"author_id":12}

## Response
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json
Content-Range: posts 0-4/27
[
    { "id": 126, "title": "allo?", "author_id": 12 },
    { "id": 127, "title": "bien le bonjour", "author_id": 12 },
    { "id": 124, "title": "good day sunshine", "author_id": 12 },
    { "id": 123, "title": "hello, world", "author_id": 12 },
    { "id": 125, "title": "howdy partner", "author_id": 12 }
]

getOne

## DataProvider
dataProvider.getOne('posts', { id: 123 })

## Request
GET http://my.api.url/posts/123

## Response
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json
{ "id": 123, "title": "hello, world", "author_id": 12 }

getMany

## DataProvider
dataProvider.getMany('posts', { ids: [123, 124, 125] })

## Request
GET http://my.api.url/posts?filter={"ids":[123,124,125]}

## Response
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json
[
    { "id": 123, "title": "hello, world", "author_id": 12 },
    { "id": 124, "title": "good day sunshine", "author_id": 12 },
    { "id": 125, "title": "howdy partner", "author_id": 12 }
]

getManyReference

## DataProvider
dataProvider.getManyReference('comments', {
    target: 'post_id',
    id: 12,
    pagination: { page: 1, perPage: 25 },
    sort: { field: 'created_at', order: 'DESC' }
    filter: {}
})

## Request
GET http://my.api.url/comments?sort=["created_at","DESC"]&range=[0, 24]&filter={"post_id":123}

## Response
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json
Content-Range: comments 0-1/2
[
    { "id": 667, "title": "I agree", "post_id": 123 },
    { "id": 895, "title": "I don't agree", "post_id": 123 }
]

create

## DataProvider
dataProvider.create('posts', {
    data: { title: "hello, world", author_id: 12 }
})

## Request
POST http://my.api.url/posts
{ "title": "hello, world", "author_id": 12 }

## Response
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json
{ "id": 123, "title": "hello, world", "author_id": 12 }

update

## DataProvider
dataProvider.update('posts', {
    id: 123,
    data: { title: "hello, world" },
    previousData: { title: "hello, partner", author_id: 12 }
})

## Request
PUT http://my.api.url/posts/123
{ "title": "hello, world!" }

## Response
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json
{ "id": 123, "title": "hello, world!", "author_id": 12 }

updateMany

## DataProvider
dataProvider.updateMany('posts', {
    ids: [123, 124, 125],
    data: { title: "hello, world" },
})

## Request 1
PUT http://my.api.url/posts/123
{ "title": "hello, world!" }

## Response 1
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json
{ "id": 123, "title": "hello, world!", "author_id": 12 }

## Request 2
PUT http://my.api.url/posts/124
{ "title": "hello, world!" }

## Response 2
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json
{ "id": 124, "title": "hello, world!", "author_id": 12 }

## Request 3
PUT http://my.api.url/posts/125
{ "title": "hello, world!" }

## Response 3
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json
{ "id": 125, "title": "hello, world!", "author_id": 12 }

delete

## DataProvider
dataProvider.delete('posts', { id: 123 })

## Request
DELETE http://my.api.url/posts/123

## Response
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json
{ "id": 123, "title": "hello, world", "author_id": 12 }

deleteMany

## DataProvider
dataProvider.deleteMany('posts', { ids: [123, 124, 125] })

## Request 1
DELETE http://my.api.url/posts/123

## Response 1
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json
{ "id": 123, "title": "hello, world", "author_id": 12 }

## Request 2
DELETE http://my.api.url/posts/124

## Response 2
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json
{ "id": 124, "title": "good day sunshine", "author_id": 12 }

## Request 3
DELETE http://my.api.url/posts/125

## Response 3
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json
{ "id": 125, "title": "howdy partner", "author_id": 12 }

Adding Custom Headers

The provider function accepts an HTTP client function as second argument. By default, they use react-admin's fetchUtils.fetchJson() as HTTP client. It's similar to HTML5 fetch(), except it handles JSON decoding and HTTP error codes automatically.

That means that if you need to add custom headers to your requests, you just need to wrap the fetchJson() call inside your own function:

import { fetchUtils, Admin, Resource } from 'react-admin';
import simpleRestProvider from 'ra-data-simple-rest';

const httpClient = (url, options = {}) => {
    if (!options.headers) {
        options.headers = new Headers({ Accept: 'application/json' });
    }
    // add your own headers here
    options.headers.set('X-Custom-Header', 'foobar');
    return fetchUtils.fetchJson(url, options);
};
const dataProvider = simpleRestProvider('http://localhost:3000', httpClient);

render(
    <Admin dataProvider={dataProvider} title="Example Admin">
       ...
    </Admin>,
    document.getElementById('root')
);

Now all the requests to the REST API will contain the X-Custom-Header: foobar header.

Tip: The most common usage of custom headers is for authentication. fetchJson has built-on support for the Authorization token header:

const httpClient = (url, options = {}) => {
    options.user = {
        authenticated: true,
        token: 'SRTRDFVESGNJYTUKTYTHRG'
    };
    return fetchUtils.fetchJson(url, options);
};

Now all the requests to the REST API will contain the Authorization: SRTRDFVESGNJYTUKTYTHRG header.

Enabling Query Cancellation

To enable query cancellation, you need to set the supportAbortSignal property of the data provider to true. This will allow react-admin to cancel queries when the user navigates away from a view before the query is completed.

const dataProvider = simpleRestProvider('https://myapi.com');
dataProvider.supportAbortSignal = true;

Replacing Content-Range With Another Header

An infrastructure using a Varnish may use, modify or delete the Content-Range header.

The solution is to use another HTTP header to return the number of collection's items. The other header commonly used for this is X-Total-Count. So if you use X-Total-Count, you will have to :

• Whitelist this header with an Access-Control-Expose-Headers CORS header.

Access-Control-Expose-Headers: X-Total-Count

• Use the third parameter of simpleRestProvider to specify the name of the header to use:

// in src/App.js
import * as React from "react";
import { Admin, Resource } from 'react-admin';
import { fetchUtils } from 'ra-core';
import simpleRestProvider from 'ra-data-simple-rest';

import { PostList } from './posts';

const App = () => (
    <Admin dataProvider={simpleRestProvider('http://my.api.url/', fetchUtils.fetchJson, 'X-Total-Count')}>
        <Resource name="posts" list={PostList} />
    </Admin>
);

export default App;

License

This data provider is licensed under the MIT License, and sponsored by marmelab.