ApiLibs

ApiLibs is a library to easily implement REST-API's in CSharp in an Object Oriented way.

It is both a jumping off point for your own api and a collection of API's I am personally using. Current list of implemented API's can be found here

Install

Clone the repository and open with the latest version of your favorite editor and run dotnet restore

Using any of the API's

Authenticating

The library should be relatively self explanatory. Almost all of the Services will have a dedicated test that used to test the Service and will explain the expected workflow into authenticating. The short version is as follows:

Call the constructor of the Service with as few parameters as possible
Call the Connect method with the required parameters
Pass the token gotten from the above method and call the ConvertToToken method if exists. It will return an access token to be used with the Service.

The life of an ApiLibs request

To make development easy, the library is built up into layers. When the end user makes a call, they will only see the final layer, which will look as follows: service.MakeCall(stringParam1, stringParam2).

The second layer is the layer that you will probably need to work with. You will create a class extending the Service class. This will add the handrails and batteries you need to get your work done. These days, many API's are extensive. To enable splitting of the API, a notion of SubService is introduced. Then you start implementing the API, by using the MakeRequest method. For most simple request, you can just fill in all parameters. For more difficult queries, you can use the Request class. For request, where you expect a response, use the MakeRequest<T> and Request<T> classes. Are you expecting multiple responses? Set the RequestHandler property in Request.

In the next layer, HandleRequest handles all the other overhead needed (are you calling from a SubService? Here's where your url part is added).

Then it is passed along to the ICallImplementation, the final layer. This is a generic implementation used to make the actual call to the the endpoint. By default, this library uses the great RestSharp library.

MakeRequest

MakeRequest is the method that you will probably use most of the time. It will make the request and deserialize the response automatically for you.

Parameter	Explanation
T	The class we expect the response text to be
url	url to call
method	method to use when calling the endpoint
parameters	the list of parameters in the url to add. (See parameters)
headers	the headers to add to the request
content	See content
statuscode	The expected returned statuscode

Content

There are 3 types of content:

HtmlContent
PlainTextContent
Default: Will automatically serialize the text into json and add it to the request body

Parameters

There are 3 types of parameters:

Param (the default parameter)
OParam (optional parameter. Will not be added if the parameter value is null)
DParam (parameter with a default value)

Subservice

In many cases, an API is so large, it warrents splitting up the original service into catagories. ApiLibs supports this in the way of SubServices.

Create a subservice like so:

public class AlbumService : SubService<SpotifyService>
{
    public AlbumService(SpotifyService spotify) : base(spotify) { }
}

and initiate it in the main Service:

public class SpotifyService : RestSharpService
{
    public SpotifyService() : base("https://api.spotify.com/v1/")
    {
        AlbumService = new AlbumService(this);
    }
}

A reference will be kept of the original Service and therefore each call that the SubService makes will be routed through the main Service.

mjwsteenbergen / ApiLibs

readme