Different response content type?

If I understand this you want to filter between something like

mysite.com/users which shows the view

mysite.com/user.json which shows the json list

Right? (if yes maybe I have a solution)

I showed how I handle different response format in this post : https://laracasts.com/discuss/channels/general-discussion/json-or-webvew?page=0#reply-29939

You can play with the request object to define the output format.

I like the one to rule them all approach as it is the same data with only different representation. I like this philosophy.

Or maybe I missed some points ?

@pmall That's what I think as well (one for all) and I'm playing with terminable middleware, that's why I'm asking. However I want to make it adhere to SRP too, and that's where I have to think it over.

@ludo237 Not really through the url .json suffix, but rather htttp accept header. But please, share your solution.

What is not SRP in my solution ?

@pmall Did I say that? :)

What I'm a bit worried about is that api calls may sometimes in fact require a bit different response, not only without html wrapper. Not referring to your solution again, I didn't analyze it thoroughly yet, just had a look previously.

i'm curious to see what you come up with

@pmall Something based on your macro. Right now I'm looking for a way to dynamically extend View object with layout template, like @extends does.

Any idea about it?

@JarekTkaczyk thank you for including me in the list of the legends :) . But, I am kind of in the same boat as you here. Currently working on a simple content sharing application that allows users like: add links to content, comments and votes and things like that. For handling ajax calls it uses same routes as for non-ajax calls and return the html in both cases ( and some messages in case of ajax ) . On the client site I am completely relying on the Http status codes for error handling to keep the json response simple for example this is what I have inside the Base Controller :

abstract class Controller extends BaseController {

    use ValidatesRequests;

    /**
     * layout to be used with this controller
     * @var string
     */
    protected $layout = '';

    /**
     * creates a json representation of the view
     * @param  string $view
     * @param  array $viewData
     * @return JsonResponse
     */
    protected function jsonResponse($view = null, $viewData = [], $mergeData = [])
    {   
        $jsonData = [];

        if($view)
        {
            $jsonData['html'] = view($view,$viewData)->render();

            if(($data = array_shift($viewData)) instanceof Paginator)
            {
                $jsonData['next_page_url'] = $data->nextPageUrl();//for infinite scroll and load more functionality.
            }
        }

        //merging any extra data to the final JSON response.
        //this may include success and error messages.
        $jsonData = array_merge($jsonData,$mergeData);

        return new JsonResponse($jsonData);
    }

    /**
     * creates the view response for the controller
     * @param  string $view
     * @param  array $viewData
     * @param  array $layoutData
     * @return Response
     */
    protected function viewResponse($view, $viewData = [], $layoutData = [])
    {
        if($this->layout)
        {
            return view($this->layout, $layoutData)->nest('content',$view, $viewData);
        }

        return view($view,$viewData);
    }

}

And a sample controller action for updating or deleting a posted link to some content looks like this: ( the app is not over-engineered)

    /**
     * saves the updated record
     * @param  Request $request
     * @return Response
     */
    public function processEditLinkForm(LinkFormRequest $request)
    {
        $link = $this->link->findOrFail($request->id);
        $link->update($request->only('url','title','description'));

        if($request->ajax())
        {
            return $this->jsonResponse('link.link',compact('link'),[
                'message' => 'Link updated successfully!'
                ]);
        }
        //here redirect back otherwise.
    }
    /**
     * deletes the link record from database
     * @param  Request $request
     * @return Response
     */
    public function deleteLink(LinkFormRequest $request)
    {
        $this->link->findOrFail($request->id)->delete();

        if($request->ajax())
        {
            return $this->jsonResponse(null,[],[
                'message'=>'Link Deleted successfully!'
                ]);
        }
    //redirect back otherwise
    }

In case of ajax call my responses would look like this:

{   
    html: "<...........> .....</>",
    message: "usually a success message for crud success"
}
//or as simple as:
{ message: "deleted successfully!" }

I am still looking for a better solution.

Usman.