api_mapper

This is a proof of concept shard for developing object mappings for JSON APIs in an automated fashion.

The idea is to use a pull parser to interpret the API response into an ECR template that generates a struct mapped with JSON::Serializable.

Usage

At the moment, something like this should work:

require "api_mapper"

class_name = ARGV[0]
filename = ARGV[1]?

io = if filename
       File.open(filename, "w")
     else
       STDOUT
     end

template = APIMapper::ObjectTemplate.from_json(STDIN, class_name)
template.to_s(io)

io.close if io.is_a?(File)

Let's try httpbin.org's GET:

curl \
  -X GET "https://httpbin.org/get?foo=bar" \
  -H "accept: application/json"\
  | ./test Response

We'll get on STDOUT:

struct Response
  include JSON::Serializable

  @[JSON::Field(key: "args")]
  property args : T # => {"foo":"bar"}

  @[JSON::Field(key: "headers")]
  property headers : T # => {"Accept":"application/json","Connection":"close","Host":"httpbin.org","User-Agent":"curl/7.60.0"}

  @[JSON::Field(key: "origin")]
  property origin : String # => "12.34.456.789"

  @[JSON::Field(key: "url")]
  property url : String # => "https://httpbin.org/get?foo=bar"
end

• See other examples from Discord's API

• The raw value of that key is written in a comment following the property, so that you can review it afterwards and maybe change it to a more accurate type.

• A JSON::Field annotation is provided with key, as the most common correction from an API response you might make for use in Crystal-space is giving the property a more appropriate name. The line can be left, or removed if you don't need it.

Status

There's lots of things this doesn't support yet, but it shows its possible and probably very useful in getting a head start in mapping very large API responses.

• More JSON types should be covered
• For :begin_object, we could parse this again into another ObjectTemplate and defer its output to output a full mapping for a nested object.

If this is useful to you, please feel free to PR! This was just an experiment and I may or may not keep developing it in my free time.