Legacy REST Sample Calls

Follow these instructions to quickly set up the environment for legacy REST development and develop your first app.

Setting Up IDE

We provide a set of instructions which help you set up a default environment for developing with REST API.

Required Components

Oracle Java JDK

1. Navigate to https://java.com/en/download/, download, and install the JDK 1.8.121 or later
2. Make sure that the JAVA_HOME and the PATH system environment variables are set to the root (directory which contains the bin folder) directory of your Java installation. You can check it by opening a command prompt and running the javac -version command.

tribefire

For information on how to install tribefire, see Quick Installation.

Developing a Simple App Using Legacy REST

The following example shows how to send simple REST calls useful when working with entity types or entity instances.

Sending Simple Legacy REST Calls

To successfully send REST calls, you must first obtain a valid sessionId.

Obtaining a sessionId

1. Open Postman and send a POST request to the http://localhost:8080/tribefire-services/rest/authenticate?user=cortex&password=cortex address. This call is used for authentication and returns a session token based on the credentials provided.

2. Copy the sessionId from the response body and save it.

Reflecting a Model

As you know, every access has a metamodel assigned to it. It is the metamodel that provides the entities the access returns. To see what metamodel your access is using, perform the following steps:

1. In Postman, send a GET request to http://localhost:8080/tribefire-services/rest/reflect-model?accessId=auth&sessionId=YOURSESSIONID. This call returns a JSON representation of the metamodel.

For the sake of simplicity, we are using the auth access in this tutorial.

2. Inspect the response body which should look as follows:

  {
    "_type": "com.braintribe.model.meta.GmMetaModel",
    "_id": "0",
    "globalId": "model:com.braintribe.gm:user-model",
    "id": "model:com.braintribe.gm:user-model",
    "name": "com.braintribe.gm:user-model",
    "partition": "cortex",
    "version": "2.2.2"
  }

Returning a List of Users

Let's say you want to see all the available users.

1. In Postman, send a GET request to the http://localhost:8080/tribefire-services/rest/fetch?accessId=auth&type=com.braintribe.model.user.User&sessionId=YOURSESSIONID address. This results in returning all instances of the com.braintribe.model.user.User type associated to the auth access:

[
 {
   "_type": "com.braintribe.model.user.User",
   "_id": "0",
   "firstName": "C.",
   "globalId": "78e72523-ff64-436e-8fed-1769fcd07f8a",
   "id": "6eff2613-82d1-426a-8b99-9c5ca06fdc85",
   "lastName": "Cortex",
   "name": "cortex",
   "partition": "auth",
   "password": "*****"
 },
 {
   "_type": "com.braintribe.model.user.User",
   "_id": "1",
   "firstName": "",
   "globalId": "5b29e469-4668-4ba7-8feb-5531c1c1a54d",
   "id": "66f5ac24-873d-412c-adaf-ee0f5793ba21",
   "lastName": "Locksmith",
   "name": "locksmith",
   "partition": "auth",
   "password": "*****"
 },
 {
   "_type": "com.braintribe.model.user.User",
   "_id": "2",
   "email": "mary.williams@braintribe.com",
   "firstName": "Mary",
   "globalId": "f56cad8a-830f-4116-98d2-ff81df7147e5",
   "id": "mary.williams",
   "lastName": "Williams",
   "name": "mary.williams",
   "partition": "auth",
   "password": "*****"
 },
 {
   "_type": "com.braintribe.model.user.User",
   "_id": "3",
   "email": "robert.taylor@braintribe.com",
   "firstName": "Robert",
   "globalId": "e9e1a139-cff7-43ec-8b6b-421bbe203bf1",
   "id": "robert.taylor",
   "lastName": "Taylor",
   "name": "robert.taylor",
   "partition": "auth",
   "password": "*****"
 },
 {
   "_type": "com.braintribe.model.user.User",
   "_id": "4",
   "email": "john.smith@braintribe.com",
   "firstName": "John",
   "globalId": "b158fbc3-5bf2-4dd0-8950-383f60d93e32",
   "id": "john.smith",
   "lastName": "Smith",
   "name": "john.smith",
   "partition": "auth",
   "password": "*****"
 },
 {
   "_type": "com.braintribe.model.user.User",
   "_id": "5",
   "email": "steven.brown@braintribe.com",
   "firstName": "Steven",
   "globalId": "3cfa9a3c-d487-4c55-8d8f-53012f45fb18",
   "id": "steven.brown",
   "lastName": "Brown",
   "name": "steven.brown",
   "partition": "auth",
   "password": "*****"
 }
]

If you don't know what type your entity is, you can go find an instance of an entity in the tribefire Explorer and navigate to the General tab. They type is listed there.

Updating and Returning an Entity

1. In Postman, send a POST request to the http://localhost:8080/tribefire-services/rest/update?accessId=auth&type=com.braintribe.model.user.User&id=john.smith&*lastName=Smithski&sessionId=YOURSESSIONID address. This results in changing the value of the lastName attribute to the value provided for the user with the id john.smith.

Using the asterisk *, you specify which parameters are dynamic for a REST call.

2. Send a new GET request to the http://localhost:8080/tribefire-services/rest/entity?accessId=auth&type=com.braintribe.model.user.User&id=john.smith&sessionId=YOURSESSIONID address. This results in returning the JSON representation of the user with the id john.smith. Note that the value of the lastName attribute has changed:

    {
      "_type": "com.braintribe.model.user.User",
      "_id": "0",
      "email": "john.smith@braintribe.com",
      "firstName": "John",
      "globalId": "b158fbc3-5bf2-4dd0-8950-383f60d93e32",
      "id": "john.smith",
      "lastName": "Smithski",
      "name": "john.smith",
      "partition": "auth",
      "password": "*****"
    }

For information about available Legacy REST operations, see Legacy Rest Introduction