What is Grape?

Grape is a REST-like API micro-framework for Ruby. It's designed to run on Rack or complement existing web application frameworks such as Rails and Sinatra by providing a simple DSL to easily develop RESTful APIs. It has built-in support for common conventions, including multiple formats, subdomain/prefix restriction, content negotiation, versioning and much more.

Stable Release

You're reading the documentation for the next release of Grape, which should be 0.2.5. The current stable release is 0.2.4.

Project Tracking

• Grape Google Group
• Grape Wiki

Installation

Grape is available as a gem, to install it just install the gem:

gem install grape

If you're using Bundler, add the gem to Gemfile.

gem 'grape'

Run bundle install.

Basic Usage

Grape APIs are Rack applications that are created by subclassing Grape::API. Below is a simple example showing some of the more common features of Grape in the context of recreating parts of the Twitter API.

module Twitter
  class API < Grape::API

    version 'v1', :using => :header, :vendor => 'twitter'
    format :json

    helpers do
      def current_user
        @current_user ||= User.authorize!(env)
      end

      def authenticate!
        error!('401 Unauthorized', 401) unless current_user
      end
    end

    resource :statuses do

      desc "Return a public timeline."
      get :public_timeline do
        Status.limit(20)
      end

      desc "Return a personal timeline."
      get :home_timeline do
        authenticate!
        current_user.statuses.limit(20)
      end

      desc "Return a status."
      params do
        requires :id, :type => Integer, :desc => "Status id."
      end
      get ':id' do
        Status.find(params[:id])
      end

      desc "Create a status."
      params do
        requires :status, :type => String, :desc => "Your status."
      end
      post do
        authenticate!
        Status.create!({
          :user => current_user,
          :text => params[:status]
        })
      end

      desc "Update a status."
      params do
        requires :id, :type => String, :desc => "Status ID."
        requires :status, :type => String, :desc => "Your status."
      end
      put ':id' do
        authenticate!
        current_user.statuses.find(params[:id]).update({
          :user => current_user,
          :text => params[:status]
        })
      end

      desc "Delete a status."
      params do
        requires :id, :type => String, :desc => "Status ID."
      end
      delete ':id' do
        authenticate!
        current_user.statuses.find(params[:id]).destroy
      end

    end
  end
end

Mounting

Rack

The above sample creates a Rack application that can be run from a rackup config.ru file with rackup:

run Twitter::API

And would respond to the following routes:

GET /statuses/public_timeline(.json)
GET /statuses/home_timeline(.json)
GET /statuses/:id(.json)
POST /statuses(.json)
PUT /statuses/:id(.json)
DELETE /statuses/:id(.json)

Rails

In a Rails application, modify config/routes:

mount Twitter::API

Note that when using Rails you will need to restart the server to pick up changes in your API classes (see Issue 131).

Modules

You can mount multiple API implementations inside another one. These don't have to be different versions, but may be components of the same API.

class Twitter::API < Grape::API
  mount Twitter::APIv1
  mount Twitter::APIv2
end

Versioning

There are three strategies in which clients can reach your API's endpoints: :header, :path and :param. The default strategy is :path.

Header

version 'v1', :using => :header, :vendor => 'twitter'

Using this versioning strategy, clients should pass the desired version in the HTTP Accept head.

curl -H Accept=application/vnd.twitter-v1+json http://localhost:9292/statuses/public_timeline

By default, the first matching version is used when no Accept header is supplied. This behavior is similar to routing in Rails. To circumvent this default behavior, one could use the :strict option. When this option is set to true, a 406 Not Acceptable error is returned when no correct Accept header is supplied.

Path

version 'v1', :using => :path

Using this versioning strategy, clients should pass the desired version in the URL.

curl -H http://localhost:9292/v1/statuses/public_timeline

Param

version 'v1', :using => :param

Using this versioning strategy, clients should pass the desired version as a request parameter, either in the URL query string or in the request body.

curl -H http://localhost:9292/statuses/public_timeline?apiver=v1

The default name for the query parameter is 'apiver' but can be specified using the :parameter option.

version 'v1', :using => :param, :parameter => "v"

curl -H http://localhost:9292/statuses/public_timeline?v=v1

Describing Methods

You can add a description to API methods and namespaces.

desc "Returns your public timeline."
get :public_timeline do
  Status.limit(20)
end

Parameters

Request parameters are available through the params hash object. This includes GET, POST and PUT parameters, along with any named parameters you specify in your route strings.

get :public_timeline do
  Status.order(params[:sort_by])
end

Parameters are automatically populated from the request body on POST and PUT for form input, JSON and XML content-types.

The request:

curl -d '{"text": "140 characters"}' 'http://localhost:9292/statuses' -H Content-Type:application/json -v

The Grape endpoint:

post '/statuses' do
  Status.create!({ :text => params[:text] })
end

Parameter Validation and Coercion

You can define validations and coercion options for your parameters using a params block.

params do
  requires :id, type: Integer
  optional :text, type: String, regexp: /^[a-z]+$/
  group :media do
    requires :url
  end
end
put ':id' do
  # params[:id] is an Integer
end

When a type is specified an implicit validation is done after the coercion to ensure the output type is the one declared.

Parameters can be nested using group. In the above example, this means params[:media][:url] is required along with params[:id].

Namespace Validation and Coercion

Namespaces allow parameter definitions and apply to every method within the namespace.

namespace :statuses do
  params do
    requires :user_id, type: Integer, desc: "A user ID."
  end
  namespace ":user_id" do
    desc "Retrieve a user's status."
    params do
      requires :status_id, type: Integer, desc: "A status ID."
    end
    get ":status_id" do
      User.find(params[:user_id]).statuses.find(params[:status_id])
    end
  end
end

Custom Validators

class AlphaNumeric < Grape::Validations::Validator
  def validate_param!(attr_name, params)
    unless params[attr_name] =~ /^[[:alnum:]]+$/
      throw :error, :status => 400, :message => "#{attr_name}: must consist of alpha-numeric characters"
    end
  end
end

params do
  requires :text, :alpha_numeric => true
end

You can also create custom classes that take parameters.

class Length < Grape::Validations::SingleOptionValidator
  def validate_param!(attr_name, params)
    unless params[attr_name].length <= @option
      throw :error, :status => 400, :message => "#{attr_name}: must be at the most #{@option} characters long"
    end
  end
end

params do
  requires :text, :length => 140
end

Validation Errors

When validation and coercion errors occur an exception of type Grape::Exceptions::ValidationError is raised. If the exception goes uncaught it will respond with a status of 400 and an error message. You can rescue a Grape::Exceptions::ValidationError and respond with a custom response.

rescue_from Grape::Exceptions::ValidationError do |e|
    Rack::Response.new({
        'status' => e.status,
        'message' => e.message,
        'param' => e.param
    }.to_json, e.status)
end

Headers

Headers are available through the header helper or the env hash object.

get do
  content_type = header['Content-type']
  # ...
end

get do
  error!('Unauthorized', 401) unless env['HTTP_SECRET_PASSWORD'] == 'swordfish'
  # ...
end

Routes

Optionally, you can define requirements for your named route parameters using regular expressions. The route will match only if all requirements are met.

get ':id', :requirements => { :id => /[0-9]*/ } do
  Status.find(params[:id])
end

Helpers

You can define helper methods that your endpoints can use with the helpers macro by either giving a block or a module.

module StatusHelpers
  def user_info(user)
    "#{user} has statused #{user.statuses} status(s)"
  end
end

class API < Grape::API
  # define helpers with a block
  helpers do
    def current_user
      User.find(params[:user_id])
    end
  end

  # or mix in a module
  helpers StatusHelpers

  get 'info' do
    # helpers available in your endpoint and filters
    user_info(current_user)
  end
end

Cookies

You can set, get and delete your cookies very simply using cookies method.

class API < Grape::API

  get 'status_count' do
    cookies[:status_count] ||= 0
    cookies[:status_count] += 1
    { :status_count => cookies[:status_count] }
  end

  delete 'status_count' do
    { :status_count => cookies.delete(:status_count) }
  end

end

Use a hash-based syntax to set more than one value.

cookies[:status_count] = {
    :value => 0,
    :expires => Time.tomorrow,
    :domain => '.twitter.com',
    :path => '/'
}

cookies[:status_count][:value] +=1

Delete a cookie with delete.

cookies.delete :status_count

Specify an optional path.

cookies.delete :status_count, :path => '/'

Redirecting

You can redirect to a new url temporarily (302) or permanently (301).

redirect "/statuses"

redirect "/statuses", :permanent => true

Allowed Methods

When you add a route for a resource, a route for the HTTP OPTIONS method will also be added. The response to an OPTIONS request will include an "Allow" header listing the supported methods.

class API < Grape::API

  get '/rt_count' do
    { :rt_count => current_user.rt_count }
  end

  params do
    requires :value, :type => Integer, :desc => 'Value to add to the rt count.'
  end
  put '/rt_count' do
    current_user.rt_count += params[:value].to_i
    { :rt_count => current_user.rt_count }
  end

end

curl -v -X OPTIONS http://localhost:3000/rt_count

> OPTIONS /rt_count HTTP/1.1
>
< HTTP/1.1 204 No Content
< Allow: OPTIONS, GET, PUT

If a request for a resource is made with an unsupported HTTP method, an HTTP 405 (Method Not Allowed) response will be returned.

curl -X DELETE -v http://localhost:3000/rt_count/

> DELETE /rt_count/ HTTP/1.1
> Host: localhost:3000
>
< HTTP/1.1 405 Method Not Allowed
< Allow: OPTIONS, GET, PUT

Raising Exceptions

You can abort the execution of an API method by raising errors with error!.

error! "Access Denied", 401

You can also return JSON formatted objects by raising error! and passing a hash instead of a message.

error! { "error" => "unexpected error", "detail" => "missing widget" }, 500

Exception Handling

Grape can be told to rescue all exceptions and return them in the API format.

class Twitter::API < Grape::API
  rescue_from :all
end

You can also rescue specific exceptions.

class Twitter::API < Grape::API
  rescue_from ArgumentError, NotImplementedError
end

The error format will match the request format. See "Content-Types" below.

Custom error formatters for existing and additional types can be defined with a proc.

class Twitter::API < Grape::API
  error_formatter :txt, lambda { |message, backtrace, options, env|
    "error: #{message} from #{backtrace}"
  }
end

You can also use a module or class.

module CustomFormatter
  def self.call(message, backtrace, options, env)
    { message: message, backtrace: backtrace }
  end
end

class Twitter::API < Grape::API
  error_formatter :custom, CustomFormatter
end

You can rescue all exceptions with a code block. The rack_response wrapper automatically sets the default error code and content-type.

class Twitter::API < Grape::API
  rescue_from :all do |e|
    rack_response({ :message => "rescued from #{e.class.name}" })
  end
end

You can also rescue specific exceptions with a code block and handle the Rack response at the lowest level.

class Twitter::API < Grape::API
  rescue_from :all do |e|
    Rack::Response.new([ e.message ], 500, { "Content-type" => "text/error" }).finish
  end
end

Or rescue specific exceptions.

class Twitter::API < Grape::API
  rescue_from ArgumentError do |e|
    Rack::Response.new([ "ArgumentError: #{e.message}" ], 500)
  end
  rescue_from NotImplementedError do |e|
    Rack::Response.new([ "NotImplementedError: #{e.message}" ], 500)
  end
end

Logging

Grape::API provides a logger method which by default will return an instance of the Logger class from Ruby's standard library.

To log messages from within an endpoint, you need to define a helper to make the logger available in the endpoint context.

class API < Grape::API
  helpers do
    def logger
      API.logger
    end
  end
  post '/statuses' do
    # ...
    logger.info "#{current_user} has statused"
  end
end

You can also set your own logger.

class MyLogger
  def warning(message)
    puts "this is a warning: #{message}"
  end
end

class API < Grape::API
  logger MyLogger.new
  helpers do
    def logger
      API.logger
    end
  end
  get '/statuses' do
    logger.warning "#{current_user} has statused"
  end
end

API Formats

By default, Grape supports XML, JSON, and TXT content-types. The default format is :txt.

Serialization takes place automatically. For example, you do not have to call to_json in each JSON API implementation.

Your API can declare which types to support by using content_type. Response format is determined by the request's extension, an explicit format parameter in the query string, or Accept header.

The following API will only respond to the JSON content-type and will not parse any other input than application/json, 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded', 'multipart/form-data', 'multipart/related' and 'multipart/mixed'. All other requests will fail with an HTTP 406 error code.

class Twitter::API < Grape::API
  format :json
end

If you combine format with rescue_from :all, errors will be rendered using the same format. If you do not want this behavior, set the default error formatter with default_error_formatter.

class Twitter::API < Grape::API
  format :json
  content_type :txt, "text/plain"
  default_error_formatter :txt
end

Custom formatters for existing and additional types can be defined with a proc.

class Twitter::API < Grape::API
  content_type :xls, "application/vnd.ms-excel"
  formatter :xls, lambda { |object, env| object.to_xls }
end

You can also use a module or class.

module XlsFormatter
  def self.call(object, env)
    object.to_xls
  end
end

class Twitter::API < Grape::API
  content_type :xls, "application/vnd.ms-excel"
  formatter :xls, XlsFormatter
end

Built-in formats are the following.

• :json: use object's to_json when available, otherwise call MultiJson.dump
• :xml: use object's to_xml when available, usually via MultiXml, otherwise call to_s
• :txt: use object's to_txt when available, otherwise to_s
• :serializable_hash: use object's serializable_hash when available, otherwise fallback to :json

Use default_format to set the fallback format when the format could not be determined from the Accept header. See below for the order for choosing the API format.

class Twitter::API < Grape::API
  default_format :json
end

The order for choosing the format is the following.

• Use the file extension, if specified. If the file is .json, choose the JSON format.
• Use the value of the format parameter in the query string, if specified.
• Use the format set by the format option, if specified.
• Attempt to find an acceptable format from the Accept header.
• Use the default format, if specified by the default_format option.
• Default to :txt.

Content-type

Content-type is set by the formatter. You can override the content-type of the response at runtime by setting the Content-Type header.

class API < Grape::API
  get '/home_timeline_js' do
    content_type "application/javascript"
    "var statuses = ...;"
  end
end

API Data Formats

Grape accepts and parses input data sent with the POST and PUT methods as described in the Parameters section above. It also supports custom data formats. You must declare additional content-types via content_type and optionally supply a parser via parser unless a parser is already available within Grape to enable a custom format. Such a parser can be a function or a class.

Without a parser, data is available "as-is" and can be read with env['rack.input'].read.

The following example is a trivial parser that will assign any input with the "text/custom" content-type to :value. The parameter will be available via params[:value] inside the API call.

module CustomParser
  def self.call(object, env)
    { :value => object.to_s }
  end
end

content_type :txt, "text/plain"
content_type :custom, "text/custom"
parser :custom, CustomParser

put "value" do
  params[:value]
end

You can invoke the above API as follows.

curl -X PUT -d 'data' 'http://localhost:9292/value' -H Content-Type:text/custom -v

Reusable Responses with Entities

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.

Defining Entities

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. The option keys :version and :collection will always be 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.

• expose SYMBOLS
  • define a list of fields which will always be exposed
• expose SYMBOLS, HASH
  • HASH keys include :if, :unless, :proc, :as, :using, :format_with, :documentation
    • :if and :unless accept hashes (passed during runtime) or procs (arguments are object and options)
• expose SYMBOL, { :format_with => :formatter }
  • expose a value, formatting it first
  • :format_with can only be applied to one exposure at a time
• expose SYMBOL, { :as => "alias" }
  • Expose a value, changing its hash key from SYMBOL to alias
  • :as can only be applied to one exposure at a time
• expose SYMBOL BLOCK
  • block arguments are object and options
  • expose the value returned by the block
  • block can only be applied to one exposure at a time

module API
  module Entities
    class Status < Grape::Entity
      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 :digest { |status, options| Digest::MD5.hexdigest(satus.txt) }
      expose :replies, :using => API::Status, :as => :replies
    end
  end
end

module API
  module Entities
    class StatusDetailed < API::Entities::Status
      expose :internal_id
    end
  end
end

Using the Exposure DSL

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.

Using Entities

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.

If the entity includes documentation it can be included in an endpoint's description.

module API
  class Statuses < Grape::API
    version 'v1'

    desc 'Statuses index', {
      :object_fields => 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

Entity Organization

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
    Status.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 User.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.

Caveats

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

Hypermedia and other RESTful Representations

Although Grape ships with its own entity support, it's also possible to use it with other frameworks and renderers.

Hypermedia

Use Roar. Include Roar::Representer::JSON in your models or call to_json explicitly on representers in your API.

Rabl

Rabl is supported via the grape-rabl gem.

Describing and Inspecting an API

Grape routes can be reflected at runtime. This can notably be useful for generating documentation.

Grape exposes arrays of API versions and compiled routes. Each route contains a route_prefix, route_version, route_namespace, route_method, route_path and route_params. The description and the optional hash that follows the API path may contain any number of keys and its values are also accessible via dynamically-generated route_[name] functions.

TwitterAPI::versions # yields [ 'v1', 'v2' ]
TwitterAPI::routes # yields an array of Grape::Route objects
TwitterAPI::routes[0].route_version # yields 'v1'
TwitterAPI::routes[0].route_description # etc.

Current Route and Endpoint

It's possible to retrieve the information about the current route from within an API call with route.

class MyAPI < Grape::API
  desc "Returns a description of a parameter."
  params do
    requires :id, :type => Integer, :desc => "Identity."
  end
  get "params/:id" do
    route.route_params[params[:id]] # yields the parameter description
  end
end

The current endpoint responding to the request is self within the API block or env['api.endpoint'] elsewhere. The endpoint has some interesting properties, such as source which gives you access to the original code block of the API implementation. This can be particularly useful for building a logger middleware.

class ApiLogger < Grape::Middleware::Base
  def before
    file = env['api.endpoint'].source.source_location[0]
    line = env['api.endpoint'].source.source_location[1]
    logger.debug "[api] #{file}:#{line}"
  end
end

Anchoring

Grape by default anchors all request paths, which means that the request URL should match from start to end to match, otherwise a 404 Not Found is returned. However, this is sometimes not what you want, because it is not always known upfront what can be expected from the call. This is because Rack-mount by default anchors requests to match from the start to the end, or not at all. Rails solves this problem by using a :anchor => false option in your routes. In Grape this option can be used as well when a method is defined.

For instance when you're API needs to get part of an URL, for instance:

class TwitterAPI < Grape::API
  namespace :statuses do
    get '/(*:status)', :anchor => false do

    end
  end
end

This will match all paths starting with '/statuses/'. There is one caveat though: the params[:status] parameter only holds the first part of the request url. Luckily this can be circumvented by using the described above syntax for path specification and using the PATH_INFO Rack environment variable, using env["PATH_INFO"]. This will hold everything that comes after the '/statuses/' part.

Writing Tests

You can test a Grape API with RSpec by making HTTP requests and examining the response.

Writing Tests with Rack

Use rack-test and define your API as app.

require 'spec_helper'

describe Twitter::API do
  include Rack::Test::Methods

  def app
    Twitter::API
  end

  describe Twitter::API do
    describe "GET /api/v1/statuses" do
      it "returns an empty array of statuses" do
        get "/api/v1/statuses"
        last_response.status.should == 200
        JSON.parse(last_response.body).should == []
      end
    end
    describe "GET /api/v1/statuses/:id" do
      it "returns a status by id" do
        status = Status.create!
        get "/api/v1/statuses/#{status.id}"
        last_response.body.should == status.to_json
      end
    end
  end
end

Writing Tests with Rails

require 'spec_helper'

describe Twitter::API do
  describe "GET /api/v1/statuses" do
    it "returns an empty array of statuses" do
      get "/api/v1/statuses"
      response.status.should == 200
      JSON.parse(response.body).should == []
    end
  end
  describe "GET /api/v1/statuses/:id" do
    it "returns a status by id" do
      status = Status.create!
      get "/api/v1/statuses/#{status.id}"
      response.body.should == status.to_json
    end
  end
end

In Rails, HTTP request tests would go into the spec/request group. You may want your API code to go into app/api - you can match that layout under spec by adding the following in spec/spec_helper.rb.

RSpec.configure do |config|
  config.include RSpec::Rails::RequestExampleGroup, :type => :request, :example_group => {
    :file_path => /spec\/api/
  }
end

Performance Monitoring

Grape integrates with NewRelic via the newrelic-grape gem.

Contributing to Grape

Grape is work of dozens of contributors. You're encouraged to submit pull requests, propose features and discuss issues.

• Fork the project
• Write tests for your new feature or a test that reproduces a bug
• Implement your feature or make a bug fix
• Add a line to CHANGELOG.markdown describing your change
• Commit, push and make a pull request. Bonus points for topic branches.

License

MIT License. See LICENSE for details.

Copyright

Copyright (c) 2010-2012 Michael Bleigh, and Intridea, Inc.