Back end to Back end API request and response

Question

I have an app built on laravel 8 with a Vue Spa front end, using Sanctum.

I have a controller method that requests from another Laravel project (using its Sanctum API) so essentially, the Spa requests from Laravel 1, which requests from Laravel 2 project.

Following the responses from L2 project back, the Controller method on L2 is:

 public function popular(Request $request)
 {
    $limit = 20;
    if ($request->has('limit')) {
        $limit = $request->limit;
    }

    $perPage = 20;
    if ($request->has('per_page')) {
        $limit = $request->per_page;
    }

    if ($request->has('page')) {

        $articles = $request
            ->user()
            ->articles()
            ->activeArticles()
            ->select('articles.uuid', 'articles.title')
            ->orderBy('articles.views', 'DESC')
            ->simplePaginate($perPage);

    } else {

        $articles = $request
            ->user()
            ->articles()
            ->activeArticles()
            ->select('articles.uuid', 'articles.title')
            ->orderBy('articles.views', 'DESC')
            ->limit($limit)
            ->get();
    }

    return $articles;
}

This response is received by L1 Controller method, and sent back to the Spa like this:

public function popular(Request $request)
{
    $apiEndPoint = self::$apiBaseUrl . '/article/popular';

    $response = self::$httpRequest->get($apiEndPoint, $request->query());

    if (!$response->successful()) {
        return $this->setMessage(trans('help.api_error'))->send();
    }

    $body = $response->getBody();

    return response(['data' => $body]);
}

With this return:

    return response(['data' => $body]);

I get and empty data object:

{
    data: {}
}

And with this return:

   return response($body);

I get the payload as text / string:

[{"id":15,"uuid":"c6082143-0f34-443b-9447-3fa57ed73f48","name":"dashboard","icon":"database","active":1,"owned_by":2,"product_id":4,"created_at":"2021-12-23T11:46:35.000000Z","updated_at":"2021-12-23T11:46:35.000000Z"},{"id":16,

How do I return the $body as JSON to the Spa?

UPDATE: I tried suggestions below, but the result is still exception.

return response()->json($body);

Returns:

"message": "json_decode(): Argument #1 ($json) must be of type string, GuzzleHttp\\Psr7\\Stream given",

So getting the body in getBody() returns a string I understood.

If I Log the $body I get:

$body = $response->getBody();
Log::info($body);

[2021-12-25 23:15:36] local.INFO: {"current_page":2,"data":[{"uuid":"aa4a47bf-4975-4e78-868a-103398934504","title":"Ritchie-Hoeger"},

Thanks for any help and happy festive season.

Answer 1

API Responser

First create a trait in laravel in 'app\Traits\ApiResponser.php'

<?php

namespace App\Traits;
use Carbon\Carbon;

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\DB;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Auth;

trait ApiResponser{

    public function  set_response($data, $status_code, $status, $details)
    {
        $resData = response(json_encode(
                [
                    'status'        =>  $status, // true or false
                    'code'          =>  $status_code,
                    'data'          =>  $data,
                    'message'       =>  $details
                ]
        ), 200)
        ->header('Content-Type', 'application/json');

        $data = [];

        return $resData;
    }

}

Second in any controller call this trait's function set_response()

<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use App\Models\User;
use App\Traits\ApiResponser;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;

class ListController extends Controller
{
    use ApiResponser;


    public function getAllUserList(Request $request)
    {
        $data = User::select('id', 'name', 'email')->get();
        return $this->set_response(['data' => $data], 200,'success', ['User list']);
    }


}

Output will be like this

Answer 2

use the json helper function

    return response()->json($body);

or

    use Response;
    
    return Response::json($body);

This will create an instance of \Illuminate\Routing\ResponseFactory. See the phpDocs for possible parameters below:

/**
* Return a new JSON response from the application.
*
* @param string|array $data
* @param int $status
* @param array $headers
* @param int $options
* @return \Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response 
* @static 
*/
public static function json($data = array(), $status = 200, $headers = array(), $options = 0){
   
    return \Illuminate\Routing\ResponseFactory::json($data, $status, $headers, $options);
}

Answer 3

I needed to ->getContents() after the ->getBody()

$body = $response->getBody()->getContents();

All good again...