---
layout: post
summary: In which I write an update about MooseX::Net::API
title: Moosex::Net::API - update
---

[MooseX::Net::API](http://github.com/franckcuny/moosex-net-api) is a module to help writing clients for RESTful (and even non-RESTful) WebServices:

{% highlight perl %}
package my::api;
use MooseX::Net::API;

net_api_declare myapi => (
    api_base_url => 'http://api....',
    api_format   => 'json',
);

net_api_method users => (
    method      => 'GET',
    path        => '/users/:country',
    description => 'fetch a list of users',
    params      => [qw/country/],
    expected    => [qw/200 404/],
);
{% endhighlight %}

We've been using this module at work for the last few months on various internal APIs, and I'm pretty pleased with the result so far.

Lately I've started to rework the core. I've tried to split most of the functionalities into roles, and rework the code that generates the various methods. I've also added methods to access miscellaneous information :

{% highlight perl %}
my $client = my::api->new;

# to get a list of API methods
$client->meta->get_all_net_api_methods();

# find an API method
my $method = $client->meta->find_net_api_method_by_name('users');

# and now informations about the method
say $method->documentation;

name:        users
description: fetch a list of useres
method:      GET
path:        /users/:country
arguments:   country
expected:    200, 404
{% endhighlight %}

It's not yet complete, but a new version will be available soon on CPAN. Here is a list of some more features I plan to add quickly:

* better internal API
* better authorization support (OAuth!)
* add more methods to provide better introspection
* better unserialization
* more tests and better documentation
* generate POD via a PODWeaver plugin ?
* plugins ?
* renaming ? (not sure it really fits in the MooseX:: namespace)

## http-console

I've also started [Net::HTTP::Console](http://github.com/franckcuny/net-http-console). It's inspired by [http-console](http://github.com/cloudhead/http-console). It relies on MX::Net::API, and can use any libraries written with MX::Net::API, as well as any **raw** RESTful API. As an example, let's use it on twitter.

{% highlight bash %}
% http-console --url http://api.twitter.com --format json

http://127.0.0.1:5984> GET /1/statuses/public_timeline
[
    {
        "source" : "web",
        "favorited" : false,
        "geo" : null,
        "coordinates" : null,
        "place" : null,
        ...
    }
]

http://127.0.0.1:5984> show headers
cache-control: no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate, pre-check=0, post-check=0
last-modified: Mon, 07 Jun 2010 15:27:12 GMT
x-transaction: 1275924432-94882-31146
x-ratelimit-reset: 1275925258
...
{% endhighlight %}

You can call any method from the twitter API (at the exception of the ones that require authentication: it's not supported yet).

You can also use it with any library that uses MX::Net::API:

{% highlight bash %}
% http-console --lib Net::Backtweet

http://api.backtweet.com> help command
available commands:
- tweets\_by_url
- stats\_by_url
- good\_tweets_by_url

http://api.backtype.com> help command tweets\_by_url
name:        tweets_by_url
description: Retrieve tweets that link to a given URL, whether the links are shortened or unshortened.
method:      GET
path:        /tweets/search/links

http://api.backtype.com> stats\_by_url {"q":"http://lumberjaph.net","key":s3kr3t"}
{
    "tweetcount" : 388
}
{% endhighlight %}

Arguments to the methods are serialized in JSON format. Not sure if it's the best idea I will see if it needs improvement while using it. You can also perform POST and PUT with content.

{% highlight bash %}
    http://localhost:5984> POST /test_rtgi_fetcher {"foo":"bar"}
    {
       "ok" : true,
       "rev" : "1-fe67006eb0e02e5f0057b5b2a6672391",
       "id" : "fe3175615a34eb28153479307c000f26"
    }
{% endhighlight %}

It's far from being complete at the moment, but I will extend it quickly. Right now, you can define global headers, and get help for all methods in your MX::Net::API library. Authentication is on top of my priority list, as is alias creation, so instead of doing (on a non-moosex::net::api lib): `GET /users/` you will do:

> alias users/:country as users

then:

> users {"country":"france"}

(and yes, I've switched from wordpress to [blawd](http://github.com/perigrin/blawd)).