Chapters

28 Chapters | 2:51:42 |

01

Installing API Platform

7:29
02

Creating your First ApiResource

5:44
03

Swagger UI: Interactive Docs

6:41
04

The Powerful OpenAPI Spec

5:24
05

JSON-LD: Giving Meaning to your Data

7:21
06

Hydra: Describing API Classes, Operations & More

4:06
07

API Debugging with the Profiler

5:12
08

Operations / Endpoints

6:38
09

The Serializer

9:08
10

Serialization Groups: Choosing Fields

7:28
11

Serialization Tricks

5:15
12

Pagination & Foundry Fixtures

5:44
13

Filters: Searching Results

5:14
14

PropertyFilter: Sparse Fieldsets

6:55
15

More Formats: HAL & CSV

7:10
16

Validation

5:29
17

Creating a User Entity

4:06
18

User API Resource

5:51
19

Relating Resources

7:08
20

Relations & Iris

3:40
21

Embedded Relations

5:58
22

Embedded Write

7:29
23

Adding Items to a Collection Property

4:04
24

Creating Embedded Objects

5:34
25

Removing Items from a Collection

3:49
26

Filtering on Relations

3:51
27

Subresources

9:54
28

React Admin

9:20

> APIs > API Platform 3 Part 1: Mythically Good RESTful APIs

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07.

API Debugging with the Profiler

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We're going to be doing some seriously cool and complex stuff with API platform. So before we get there, I want to make sure we have a really awesome debugging setup. Because... sometimes debugging APIs can be a pain! Ever made an Ajax request from JavaScript... and the endpoint explodes in a 500 error full of HTML? Yea, not super helpful.

Installing the Profiler

One of the best features of Symfony is its Web Debug Toolbar. But if we're building an API... there's not going to be a Web Debug Toolbar on the bottom of these JSON responses. So should we even bother installing that package? The answer is: absolutely!

Spin over to the terminal and run:

composer require debug

This is another Symfony Flex alias that installs symfony/debug-pack. If you pop over to your composer.json file, this installed a bunch of good stuff: a logger... then down in require-dev, it also added DebugBundle and WebProfilerBundle, which is the most important thing for what we'll talk about.

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                        92 lines
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            composer.json
        
            {
        
                Show Lines

                                                    // ... lines 2 - 83
                            
                "require-dev": {
        
                    "symfony/debug-bundle": "6.2.*",
        
                Show Lines

                                                    // ... line 86
                            
                    "symfony/monolog-bundle": "^3.0",
        
                    "symfony/stopwatch": "6.2.*",
        
                    "symfony/web-profiler-bundle": "6.2.*"
        
                }
        
            }

Head back to our documentation homepage and refresh. Sweet! We get the Web Debug Toolbar down on the bottom! Though... that doesn't really help us because... all of this info is literally for the documentation page itself. Not particularly useful.

What we really want is all of this profiler info for any API request we make. And that's super possible. Use the GET collection endpoint. Hit "Try it out" and then watch closely down here on the Web Debug Toolbar. When I hit "Execute"... boom! Because that made an AJAX request the AJAX icon on the Web Debug Toolbar showed up! Want to see all the deep profiler info for that request? Just click the little link on that panel. Yup, as you can see here, we're now looking at the profiler for the GET /api/dragon_treasures API call.

API Platform & Serializer in the Profiler

And there's lots of cool stuff in here. Obviously, there's the Performance section and all the normal goodies. But one of my favorite parts is the "Exception" tab. If you have an API endpoint and that API endpoint explodes with an error - it happens - you can open this part of the profiler to see the full beautiful HTML exception: including the stack trace in all its glory. So handy.

I have two other favorite spots when working on an API. The first, no surprise, is the "API Platform" tab. This gives us info about the configuration for all of our API resources. We're going to talk more about this config, but this shows you the current and possible options that you could put inside of this ApiResource attribute. That's pretty cool. For example, this shows a description option...

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            src/Entity/DragonTreasure.php
        
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                                                    // ... lines 1 - 10
                            
            #[ApiResource(
        
                description: 'A rare and valuable treasure.'
        
            )]
        
            class DragonTreasure
        
            {
        
                Show Lines

                                                    // ... lines 16 - 117
                            
            }

and we already have that!

The other really useful section in the profiler is relatively new: it's for the "Serializer". We're going to be talking a lot about Symfony's serializer and this tool will help us get a look at what's going on internally.

Finding the Profiler for an API Request

So the big takeaway is that every API request actually has a profiler! And there are a few ways to find it. We just say the first: if you're making an AJAX request - even if it's via your own JavaScript - then you can use the web debug toolbar.

And, if you look down here a bit, these are the response headers our API returned. One is called X-Debug-Token-Link which offers us a second way to find the profiler for any API request. This is exactly the URL we were just at.

The last way is... maybe the simplest. Suppose we go directly to /api/dragon_treasure.json. From here, there's no easy way to get to the profiler. But now, open up a new tab and manually go to /_profiler. Yup! This shows us a list of the latest request to our app... include the GET request we just made! If you click the little token link... boom! We're inside that profiler.

You can click this "Last 10" at any point to get back to that list... and find whichever request you need.

Sweet debugging tools, check! Next: let's talk about the concept of "operations" in API platform, which represent these six endpoints. How can we configure these? Or disable one? Or add more? Let's find out!

8 Comments

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zulfi 6 months ago

hi, I get "NGINX 502 Bad Gateway" all the time. I just have to change APP_ENV from dev to prod and is working. but is that correct way?

| Reply |

MolloKhan SFCASTS zulfi 6 months ago edited

Hey @zulfi

Are you using Nginx locally? It should be able to run your app in dev mode too. I recommend you to check your app's logs

Cheers!

| Reply |

zulfi MolloKhan 6 months ago

hi thanks for reply. im using Laravel Herd. so there is no issue logged :-). Anyway im looking for solution online. This issue is starting with installing debug tool. So if any idea, please reply.

| Reply |

MolloKhan SFCASTS zulfi 6 months ago

I see, well, it's pretty hard to know where the problem is without an error message, but the first thing to do is to detect where this is coming from, it could be from your app or Ngninx. You can try running your app using any other web server (Symfony CLI comes with a pretty good one)

Cheers!

| Reply |

SebSept 8 months ago

Great!
What about getting the profiling for a request triggered on a phpunit test ? Is it possible ?

| Reply |

MolloKhan SFCASTS SebSept 8 months ago edited

Hey @SebSept

That's a good question and Symfony got you covered. I'll point you to the docs because they explain pretty well how to enable the profiler for tests https://symfony.com/doc/current/testing/profiling.html

Cheers!

| Reply |

SebSept MolloKhan 8 months ago

Yep, thanks. I've found that doc and Stack overflow questions about it but I did not make it work :/
I must do something wrong, but I don't know what..
It may be an idea for a future video ;)

Cheers

| Reply |

MolloKhan SFCASTS SebSept 8 months ago

Double-check you're enabling the profiler for the test environment

1 | Reply |

Symfony 6.2 API Platform 3.0

What PHP libraries does this tutorial use?

// composer.json
{
    "require": {
        "php": ">=8.1",
        "ext-ctype": "*",
        "ext-iconv": "*",
        "api-platform/core": "^3.0", // v3.0.8
        "doctrine/annotations": "^1.0", // 1.14.2
        "doctrine/doctrine-bundle": "^2.8", // 2.8.0
        "doctrine/doctrine-migrations-bundle": "^3.2", // 3.2.2
        "doctrine/orm": "^2.14", // 2.14.0
        "nelmio/cors-bundle": "^2.2", // 2.2.0
        "nesbot/carbon": "^2.64", // 2.64.1
        "phpdocumentor/reflection-docblock": "^5.3", // 5.3.0
        "phpstan/phpdoc-parser": "^1.15", // 1.15.3
        "symfony/asset": "6.2.*", // v6.2.0
        "symfony/console": "6.2.*", // v6.2.3
        "symfony/dotenv": "6.2.*", // v6.2.0
        "symfony/expression-language": "6.2.*", // v6.2.2
        "symfony/flex": "^2", // v2.2.4
        "symfony/framework-bundle": "6.2.*", // v6.2.3
        "symfony/property-access": "6.2.*", // v6.2.3
        "symfony/property-info": "6.2.*", // v6.2.3
        "symfony/runtime": "6.2.*", // v6.2.0
        "symfony/security-bundle": "6.2.*", // v6.2.3
        "symfony/serializer": "6.2.*", // v6.2.3
        "symfony/twig-bundle": "6.2.*", // v6.2.3
        "symfony/ux-react": "^2.6", // v2.6.1
        "symfony/validator": "6.2.*", // v6.2.3
        "symfony/webpack-encore-bundle": "^1.16", // v1.16.0
        "symfony/yaml": "6.2.*" // v6.2.2
    },
    "require-dev": {
        "doctrine/doctrine-fixtures-bundle": "^3.4", // 3.4.2
        "symfony/debug-bundle": "6.2.*", // v6.2.1
        "symfony/maker-bundle": "^1.48", // v1.48.0
        "symfony/monolog-bundle": "^3.0", // v3.8.0
        "symfony/stopwatch": "6.2.*", // v6.2.0
        "symfony/web-profiler-bundle": "6.2.*", // v6.2.4
        "zenstruck/foundry": "^1.26" // v1.26.0
    }
}

Previous Challenge

Next Chapter

API Debugging with the Profiler

Share this awesome video!

Installing the Profiler

API Platform & Serializer in the Profiler

Finding the Profiler for an API Request

8 Comments

Delete comment?

What PHP libraries does this tutorial use?

	{
Show Lines	// ... lines 2 - 83
	"require-dev": {
	"symfony/debug-bundle": "6.2.*",
Show Lines	// ... line 86
	"symfony/monolog-bundle": "^3.0",
	"symfony/stopwatch": "6.2.*",
	"symfony/web-profiler-bundle": "6.2.*"
	}
	}

Show Lines	// ... lines 1 - 10
	#[ApiResource(
	description: 'A rare and valuable treasure.'
	)]
	class DragonTreasure
	{
Show Lines	// ... lines 16 - 117
	}

API Debugging with the Profiler

Installing the Profiler

AJAX Requests in the Web Debug Toolbar

API Platform & Serializer in the Profiler

Finding the Profiler for an API Request

8 Comments

What PHP libraries does this tutorial use?