fmrest-ruby

Gem Version

A Ruby client for FileMaker 18's Data API using Faraday and with optional Spyke support (ActiveRecord-ish models).

If you're looking for a Ruby client for the legacy XML/Custom Web Publishing API try the fabulous ginjo-rfm gem instead.

fmrest-ruby only partially implements FileMaker 18's Data API. See the implementation completeness table to see if a feature you need is natively supported by the gem.

Installation

Add this line to your Gemfile:

gem 'fmrest'

# Optional but recommended (for ORM features)
gem 'spyke'

Basic usage (without ORM)

To get a Faraday connection that can handle FM's Data API auth workflow:

connection = FmRest::V1.build_connection(
  host:     "example.com",
  database: "database name",
  username: "username",
  password: "password"
)

The returned connection will prefix any non-absolute paths with "/fmi/data/v1/databases/:database/", so you only need to supply the meaningful part of the path.

To send a request to the Data API use Faraday's standard methods, e.g.:

# Get all records
connection.get("layouts/MyFancyLayout/records")

# Create new record
connection.post do |req|
  req.url "layouts/MyFancyLayout/records"

  # You can just pass a hash for the JSON body
  req.body = { ... }
end

For each request fmrest-ruby will first request a session token (using the provided username and password) if it doesn't yet have one in store.

Connection settings

In addition to the required :host, :database, :username and :password connection options, you can also pass :ssl and :proxy, which are passed to the underlying Faraday connection.

You can use this to, for instance, disable SSL verification:

FmRest::V1.build_connection(
  host:     "example.com",
  ...
  ssl:      { verify: false }
)

You can also pass a :log option for basic request logging, see the section on Logging below.

:username is also aliased as :account_name to provide cross-compatibility with the ginjo-rfm gem.

Default connection settings

If you're only connecting to a single FM database you can configure it globally through FmRest.default_connection_settings=. E.g.:

FmRest.default_connection_settings = {
  host:     "example.com",
  database: "database name",
  username: "username",
  password: "password"
}

This configuration will be used by default by FmRest::V1.build_connection as well as your models whenever you don't pass a configuration hash explicitly.

Session token store

By default fmrest-ruby will use a memory-based store for the session tokens. This is generally good enough for development, but not good enough for production, as in-memory tokens aren't shared across threads/processes.

Besides the default token store the following token stores are bundled with fmrest-ruby:

ActiveRecord

On Rails apps already using ActiveRecord setting up this token store should be dead simple:

# config/initializers/fmrest.rb
require "fmrest/token_store/active_record"

FmRest.token_store = FmRest::TokenStore::ActiveRecord

No migrations are needed, the token store table will be created automatically when needed, defaulting to the table name "fmrest_session_tokens". If you want to change the table name you can do so by initializing the token store and passing it the :table_name option:

FmRest.token_store = FmRest::TokenStore::ActiveRecord.new(table_name: "my_token_store")

Redis

To use the Redis token store do:

require "fmrest/token_store/redis"

FmRest.token_store = FmRest::TokenStore::Redis

You can also initialize it with the following options:

  • :redis - A Redis object to use as connection, if ommited a new Redis object will be created with remaining options
  • :prefix - The prefix to use for token keys, by default "fmrest-token:"
  • Any other options will be passed to Redis.new if :redis isn't provided

Examples:

# Passing a Redis connection explicitly
FmRest.token_store = FmRest::TokenStore::Redis.new(redis: Redis.new, prefix: "my-fancy-prefix:")

# Passing options for Redis.new
FmRest.token_store = FmRest::TokenStore::Redis.new(prefix: "my-fancy-prefix:", host: "10.0.1.1", port: 6380, db: 15)

NOTE: redis-rb is not included as a gem dependency of fmrest-ruby, so you'll have to add it to your Gemfile.

Moneta

Moneta is a key/value store wrapper around many different storage backends. If ActiveRecord or Redis don't suit your needs, chances are Moneta will.

To use it:

# config/initializers/fmrest.rb
require "fmrest/token_store/moneta"

FmRest.token_store = FmRest::TokenStore::Moneta

By default the :Memory moneta backend will be used.

You can also initialize it with the following options:

  • :backend - The moneta backend to initialize the store with
  • :prefix - The prefix to use for token keys, by default "fmrest-token:"
  • Any other options will be passed to Moneta.new

Examples:

# Using YAML as a backend with a custom prefix
FmRest.token_store = FmRest::TokenStore::Moneta.new(
  backend: :YAML,
  file:    "tmp/tokens.yml",
  prefix:  "my-tokens"
)

NOTE: the moneta gem is not included as a dependency of fmrest-ruby, so you'll have to add it to your Gemfile.

Spyke support (ActiveRecord-like ORM)

Spyke is an ActiveRecord-like gem for building REST models. fmrest-ruby has Spyke support out of the box, although Spyke itself is not a dependency of fmrest-ruby, so you'll need to add it to your Gemfile yourself:

gem 'spyke'

Then require fmrest-ruby's Spyke support:

# Put this in config/initializers/fmrest.rb if it's a Rails project
require "fmrest/spyke"

And finally extend your Spyke models with FmRest::Spyke:

class Honeybee < Spyke::Base
  include FmRest::Spyke
end

This will make your Spyke model send all its requests in Data API format, with token session auth. Find, create, update and destroy actions should all work as expected.

Alternatively you can inherit directly from the shorthand FmRest::Spyke::Base, which is in itself a subclass of Spyke::Base with FmRest::Spyke already included:

class Honeybee < FmRest::Spyke::Base
end

In this case you can pass the fmrest_config hash as an argument to Base():

class Honeybee < FmRest::Spyke::Base(host: "...", database: "...", username: "...", password: "...")
end

Honeybee.fmrest_config
# => { host: "...", database: "...", username: "...", password: "..." }

All of Spyke's basic ORM operations work:

bee = Honeybee.new

bee.name = "Hutch"
bee.save # POST request

bee.name = "ハッチ"
bee.save # PATCH request

bee.reload # GET request

bee.destroy # DELETE request

bee = Honeybee.find(9) # GET request

Read Spyke's documentation for more information on these basic features.

In addition FmRest::Spyke extends Spyke::Base subclasses with the following features:

Model.fmrest_config=

Usually to tell a Spyke object to use a certain Faraday connection you'd use:

class Honeybee < Spyke::Base
  self.connection = Faraday.new(...)
end

fmrest-ruby simplfies the process of setting up your Spyke model with a Faraday connection by allowing you to just set your Data API connection settings:

class Honeybee < Spyke::Base
  include FmRest::Spyke

  self.fmrest_config = {
    host:     "example.com",
    database: "My Database",
    username: "...",
    password: "..."
  }
end

This will automatically create a proper Faraday connection for those connection settings.

Note that these settings are inheritable, so you could create a base class that does the initial connection setup and then inherit from it in models using that same connection. E.g.:

class BeeBase < Spyke::Base
  include FmRest::Spyke

  self.fmrest_config = {
    host:     "example.com",
    database: "My Database",
    username: "...",
    password: "..."
  }
end

class Honeybee < BeeBase
  # This model will use the same connection as BeeBase
end

Model.layout

Use layout to set the :layout part of API URLs, e.g.:

class Honeybee < FmRest::Spyke::Base
  layout "Honeybees Web" # uri path will be "layouts/Honeybees%20Web/records(/:id)"
end

This is much preferred over using Spyke's uri to set custom URLs for your Data API models.

Note that you only need to set this if the name of the model and the name of the layout differ, otherwise the default will just work.

Mapped Model.attributes

Spyke allows you to define your model's attributes using attributes, however sometimes FileMaker's field names aren't very Ruby-ORM-friendly, especially since they may sometimes contain spaces and other special characters, so fmrest-ruby extends attributes' functionality to allow you to map Ruby-friendly attribute names to FileMaker field names. E.g.:

class Honeybee < FmRest::Spyke::Base
  attributes first_name: "First Name", last_name: "Last Name"
end

You can then simply use the pretty attribute names whenever working with your model and they will get mapped to their FileMaker fields:

bee = Honeybee.find(1)

bee.first_name # => "Princess"
bee.last_name  # => "Buzz"

bee.first_name = "Queen"

bee.attributes # => { "First Name": "Queen", "Last Name": "Buzz" }

Model.has_portal

You can define portal associations on your model as such:

class Honeybee < FmRest::Spyke::Base
  has_portal :flowers
end

class Flower < FmRest::Spyke::Base
  attributes :color, :species
end

In this case fmrest-ruby will expect the portal table name and portal object name to be both "flowers", i.e. the expected portal JSON portion should look like this:

...
"portalData": {
  "flowers": [
    {
      "flowers::color": "red",
      "flowers::species": "rose"
    }
  ]
}

If you need to specify different values for them you can do so with portal_key for the portal table name, and attribute_prefix for the portal object name, and class_name, e.g.:

class Honeybee < FmRest::Spyke::Base
  has_portal :pollinated_flowers, portal_key: "Bee Flowers",
                                  attribute_prefix: "Flower",
                                  class_name: "Flower"
end

The above will use the Flower model class and expects the following portal JSON portion:

...
"portalData": {
  "Bee Flowers": [
    {
      "Flower::color": "white",
      "Flower::species": "rose"
    }
  ]
}

Dirty attributes

fmrest-ruby includes support for ActiveModel's Dirty mixin out of the box, providing methods like:

bee = Honeybee.new

bee.changed? # => false

bee.name = "Maya"

bee.changed? # => true

bee.name_changed? # => true

fmrest-ruby uses the Dirty functionality to only send changed attributes back to the server on save.

You can read more about ActiveModel's Dirty in Rails Guides.

Query API

Since Spyke is API-agnostic it only provides a wide-purpose .where method for passing arbitrary parameters to the REST backend. fmrest-ruby however is well aware of its backend API, so it extends Spkye models with a bunch of useful querying methods.

.limit

.limit sets the limit for get and find request:

Honeybee.limit(10)

NOTE: You can also set a default limit value for a model class, see Other notes on querying.

You can also use .limit to set limits on portals:

Honeybee.limit(hives: 3, flowers: 2)

To remove the limit on a portal set it to nil:

Honeybee.limit(flowers: nil)

.offset

.offset sets the offset for get and find requests:

Honeybee.offset(10)

You can also use .offset to set offsets on portals:

Honeybee.offset(hives: 3, flowers: 2)

To remove the offset on a portal set it to nil:

Honeybee.offset(flowers: nil)

.sort

.sort (or .order) sets sorting options for get and find requests:

Honeybee.sort(:name, :age)
Honeybee.order(:name, :age) # alias method

You can set descending sort order by appending either ! or __desc to a sort attribute (defaults to ascending order):

Honeybee.sort(:name, :age!)
Honeybee.sort(:name, :age__desc)

NOTE: You can also set default sort values for a model class, see Other notes on querying.

.portal

.portal (aliased as .includes and .portals) sets which portals to fetch (if any) for get and find requests (this recognizes portals defined with has_portal):

Honeybee.portal(:hives)   # include just the :hives portal
Honeybee.includes(:hives) # alias method
Honeybee.portals(:hives, :flowers) # alias for pluralization fundamentalists

Chaining calls to .portal will add portals to the existing included list:

Honeybee.portal(:flowers).portal(:hives) # include both portals

If you want to disable portals for the scope call .portal(false):

Honeybee.portal(false) # disable portals for this scope

If you want to include all portals call .portal(true):

Honeybee.portal(true) # include all portals

For convenience you can also use .with_all_portals and .without_portals, which behave just as calling .portal(true) and portal(false) respectively.

NOTE: By default all portals are included.

.query

.query sets query conditions for a find request (and supports attributes as defined with attributes):

Honeybee.query(name: "Hutch")
# JSON -> {"query": [{"Bee Name": "Hutch"}]}

Passing multiple attributes to .query will group them in the same JSON object:

Honeybee.query(name: "Hutch", age: 4)
# JSON -> {"query": [{"Bee Name": "Hutch", "Bee Age": 4}]}

Calling .query multiple times or passing it multiple hashes creates separate JSON objects (so you can define OR queries):

Honeybee.query(name: "Hutch").query(name: "Maya")
Honeybee.query({ name: "Hutch" }, { name: "Maya" })
# JSON -> {"query": [{"Bee Name": "Hutch"}, {"Bee Name": "Maya"}]}

.omit

.omit works like .query but excludes matches:

Honeybee.omit(name: "Hutch")
# JSON -> {"query": [{"Bee Name": "Hutch", "omit": "true"}]}

You can get the same effect by passing omit: true to .query:

Honeybee.query(name: "Hutch", omit: true)
# JSON -> {"query": [{"Bee Name": "Hutch", "omit": "true"}]}

.script

.script enables the execution of scripts during query requests.

Honeybee.script("My script").find_some # Fetch records and execute a script

See section on script execution below for more info.

Other notes on querying

You can chain all query methods together:

Honeybee.limit(10).offset(20).sort(:name, :age!).portal(:hives).query(name: "Hutch")

You can also set default values for limit and sort on the class:

class Honeybee < FmRest::Spyke::Base
  self.default_limit = 1000
  self.default_sort = [:name, :age!]
end

Calling any Enumerable method on the resulting scope object will trigger a server request, so you can treat the scope as a collection:

Honeybee.limit(10).sort(:name).each { |bee| ... }

If you want to explicitly run the request instead you can use .find_some on the scope object:

Honeybee.limit(10).sort(:name).find_some # => [<Honeybee...>, ...]

If you want just a single result you can use .find_one instead (this will force .limit(1)):

Honeybee.query(name: "Hutch").find_one # => <Honeybee...>

If you know the id of the record you should use .find(id) instead of .query(id: id).find_one (so that the sent request is GET ../:layout/records/:id instead of POST ../:layout/_find).

Honeybee.find(89) # => <Honeybee...>

Note also that if you use .find(id) your .query() parameters (as well as limit, offset and sort parameters) will be discarded as they're not supported by the single record endpoint.

Container fields

You can define container fields on your model class with container:

class Honeybee < FmRest::Spyke::Base
  container :photo, field_name: "Beehive Photo ID"
end

:field_name specifies the original field in the FM layout and is optional, if not given it will default to the name of your attribute (just :photo in this example).

(Note that you don't need to define container fields with attributes in addition to the container definition.)

This will provide you with the following instance methods:

bee = Honeybee.new

bee.photo.url # The URL of the container file on the FileMaker server

bee.photo.download # Download the contents of the container as an IO object

bee.photo.upload(filename_or_io) # Upload a file to the container

upload also accepts an options hash with the following options:

  • :repetition - Sets the field repetition
  • :filename - The filename to use when uploading (defaults to filename_or_io.original_filename if available)
  • :content_type - The MIME content type to use (defaults to application/octet-stream)

Script execution

The Data API allows running scripts as part of many types of requests.

Model.execute_script

As of FM18 you can execute scripts directly. To do that for a specific model use Model.execute_script:

result = Honeybee.execute_script("My Script", param: "optional parameter")

This will return a Spyke::Result object containing among other things the result of the script execution:

result.metadata[:script][:after]
# => { result: "oh hi", error: "0" }

Script options object format

All other script-capable requests take one or more of three possible script execution options: script.prerequest, script.presort and plain script (which fmrest-ruby dubs after for convenience).

Because of that fmrest-ruby uses a common object format for specifying script options across multiple methods. That object format is as follows:

# Just a string means to execute that `after' script without a parameter
"My Script"

# A 2-elemnent array means [script name, script parameter]
["My Script", "parameter"]

# A hash with keys :prerequest, :presort and/or :after sets those scripts for
{
  prerequest: "My Prerequest Script",
  presort: "My Presort Script",
  after: "My Script"
}

# Using 2-element arrays as objects in the hash allows specifying parameters
{
  prerequest: ["My Prerequest Script", "parameter"],
  presort: ["My Presort Script", "parameter"],
  after: ["My Script", "parameter"]
}

Script execution on record save, destroy and reload

A record instance's .save and .destroy methods both accept a script: option to which you can pass a script options object with the above format:

# Save the record and execute an `after' script called "My Script"
bee.save(script: "My Script")

# Same as above but with an added parameter
bee.save(script: ["My Script", "parameter"])

# Save the record and execute a presort script and an `after' script
bee.save(script: { presort: "My Presort Script", after: "My Script" })

# Destroy the record and execute a prerequest script with a parameter
bee.destroy(script: { prerequest: ["My Prerequest Script", "parameter"] })

# Reload the record and execute a prerequest script with a parameter
bee.reload(script: { prerequest: ["My Prerequest Script", "parameter"] })

Retrieving script execution results

Every time a request is ran on a model or record instance of a model, a thread-local Model.last_request_metadata attribute is set on that model, which is a hash containing the results of script executions, if any were performed, among other metadata.

The results for :after, :prerequest and :presort scripts are stored separately, under their matching key.

bee.save(script: { presort: "My Presort Script", after: "My Script" })

Honeybee.last_request_metadata[:script]
# => { after: { result: "oh hi", error: "0" }, presort: { result: "lo", error: "0" } }

Executing scripts through query requests

As mentioned under the Query API section, you can use the .script query method to specify that you want scripts executed when a query is performed on that scope.

.script takes the same options object specified above:

# Find one Honeybee record executing a presort and after script
Honeybee.script(presort: ["My Presort Script", "parameter"], after: "My Script").find_one

The model class' .last_request_metadata will be set in case you need to get the result.

In the case of retrieving multiple results (i.e. via .find_some) the resulting collection will have a .metadata attribute method containing the same metadata hash with script execution results. Note that this does not apply to retrieving single records, in that case you'll have to use .last_request_metadata.

Logging

If using fmrest-ruby + Spyke in a Rails app pretty log output will be set up for you automatically by Spyke (see their README).

You can also enable simple STDOUT logging (useful for debugging) by passing log: true in the options hash for either FmRest.default_connection_settings= or your models' fmrest_config=, e.g.:

FmRest.default_connection_settings = {
  host:     "example.com",
  database: "My Database",
  username: "z3r0c00l",
  password: "abc123",
  log:      true
}

# Or in your model
class LoggyBee < FmRest::Spyke::Base
  self.fmrest_config = {
    host:     "example.com",
    database: "My Database",
    username: "...",
    password: "...",
    log:      true
  }
end

If you need to set up more complex logging for your models can use the faraday block inside your class to inject your own logger middleware into the Faraday connection, e.g.:

class LoggyBee < FmRest::Spyke::Base
  faraday do |conn|
    conn.response :logger, MyApp.logger, bodies: true
  end
end

API implementation completeness table

FM Data API reference: https://fmhelp.filemaker.com/docs/18/en/dataapi/

FM 18 Data API feature Supported by basic connection Supported by FmRest::Spyke::Base
Log in using HTTP Basic Auth Yes Yes
Log in using OAuth No No
Log in to an external data source No No
Log in using a FileMaker ID account No No
Log out Manual* No
Get product information Manual* No
Get database names Manual* No
Get script names Manual* No
Get layout names Manual* No
Get layout metadata Manual* No
Create a record Manual* Yes
Edit a record Manual* Yes
Duplicate a record Manual* No
Delete a record Manual* Yes
Get a single record Manual* Yes
Get a range of records Manual* Yes
Get container data Manual* Yes
Upload container data Manual* Yes
Perform a find request Manual* Yes
Set global field values Manual* No
Run a script Manual* Yes
Run a script with another request Manual* Yes

* You can manually supply the URL and JSON to a FmRest connection.

TODO

  • [ ] Support for FM18 features
  • [ ] Better/simpler-to-use core Ruby API
  • [ ] Better API documentation and README
  • [ ] Oauth support
  • [x] Support for portal limit and offset
  • [x] More options for token storage
  • [x] Support for container fields
  • [x] Optional logging
  • [x] FmRest::Spyke::Base class for single inheritance (as alternative for mixin)
  • [x] Specs
  • [x] Support for portal data

Gem development

After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run rake spec to run the tests. You can also run bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment (it will auto-load all fixtures in spec/fixtures).

To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install. To release a new version, update the version number in version.rb, and then run bundle exec rake release, which will create a git tag for the version, push git commits and tags, and push the .gem file to rubygems.org.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the Contributor Covenant code of conduct.

License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License. See LICENSE.txt.

Disclaimer

This project is not sponsored by or otherwise affiliated with FileMaker, Inc, an Apple subsidiary. FileMaker is a trademark of FileMaker, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.

Code of Conduct

Everyone interacting in the fmrest-ruby project’s codebases, issue trackers, chat rooms and mailing lists is expected to follow the code of conduct.