Building RESTful Web Services with PHP 7

Key Features

• Leverage the Lumen framework to build RESTful API endpoints for your applications
• Understand how to increase efficiency and security of your web service.
• Learn to apply the concepts by implementing the examples covered in the book

Book Description

REST is the most wide spread and effective standard to develop APIs for internet services. With the way PHP and its eco-system has modernized the way code is written by simplifying various operations, it is useful to develop RESTful APIs with PHP 7 and modern tools.

This book explains in detail how to create your own RESTful API in PHP 7 that can be consumed by other users in your organization.

Starting with a brief introduction to the fundamentals of REST architecture and the new features in PHP 7, you will learn to implement basic RESTful API endpoints using vanilla PHP. The book explains how to identify flaws in security and design and teach you how to tackle them. You will learn about composer, Lumen framework and how to make your RESTful API cleaner, secure and efficient. The book emphasizes on automated tests, teaches about different testing types and give a brief introduction to microservices which is the natural way forward.

After reading this book, you will have a clear understanding of the REST architecture and you can build a web service from scratch.

What you will learn

• REST API architecture and its benefits
• How to write RESTful API web services in PHP7
• To address security related issues in a REST API
• Importance of automated testing and to write tests for API endpoints
• Implement SOLID principles in your code and the purpose of Micro-services
• How to identify security flaws in our current API endpoints and tackle them effectively
• The working of Lumen microframework and writing RESTful web services in it

About the Author

Haafiz Waheed-ud-din Ahmad has been working in the IT industry since 2008. He has mostly worked in web application development and mostly used PHP at the server side. Although most of his experience is in PHP, he is a technology agnostic person and also likes to learn and adapt to new technologies. He also acts as an adviser for startups and new developers.

He has worked on Python and JavaScript as well. He likes to experiment with new technologies, and he has also explored Golang, Scala, and Neo4J. He also has a keen interest in data science and big data domain and has worked on D3.js for data visualization. He is not just a technology enthusiast but also likes to solve day-to-day problems by the usage of technology. You can follow him on twitter at @Haafiz786.

Table of Contents

1. REST Architecture and RESTful Web Services
2. Important Features In PHP 7
3. Creating RESTful API endpoints in Vanilla PHP
4. Identify Security and Design Flaws
5. Load and resolve with Composer, an Evolutionary
6. Illuminating RESTful Web Services with Lumen
7. Improving RESTful web services
8. API Testing – Guards on the Gates
9. Micro-services