In this lesson we're going to create api endpoints for voting question and answers. We're going to copy our existing controllers then make a bit changes on them and then make some tests in postman.

This lesson also available in PDF. You can download it in course attachment.

Alright, before we get started let's go ahead and open up our terminal. Then create a new branch to isolate our work today:

git checkout -b lesson-52

Creating vote question & answer endpoints

1. Copy & paste the VoteAnswerController and VoteQuestionController`

Alright, let's go to app/Http/Controllers directory. Then copy VoteAnswerController as well as VoteQuestionController.

Go to Api folder and paste them inside.

Firstly let's open the VoteAnswerController. Then at the top let's adjust the controller namespace to Api like so.

namespace App\Http\Controllers\Api;

Also we also need to import the base controller since we're in different namespace.

use App\Http\Controllers\Controller;

Remove the constructor since we're going to use auth:api middleware in the route level. Let's also get rid of the if statement and return back() from the __invoke method. So out Api/VoteAnswerController will look like this:

# Api/VoteAnswerController.php
<?php
  
namespace App\Http\Controllers\Api;
use App\Answer;
use App\Http\Controllers\Controller;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;

class VoteAnswerController extends Controller
{
    public function __invoke(Answer $answer)
    {
        $vote = (int) request()->vote;
        $votesCount = auth()->user()->voteAnswer($answer, $vote);

        return response()->json([
            'message'    => 'Thanks for the feedback',
            'votesCount' => $votesCount
        ]);
    }
}

Second, let's open the VoteQuestionController and do the same thing as before:

# VoteQuestionController
<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers\Api;
use App\Question;
use App\Http\Controllers\Controller;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;

class VoteQuestionController extends Controller
{
    public function __invoke(Question $question)
    {
        $vote = (int) request()->vote;

        $votesCount = auth()->user()->voteQuestion($question, $vote);

        return response()->json([
            'message'    => 'Thanks for the feedback',
            'votesCount' => $votesCount
        ]);
    }
}

2. Define api routes

Alright, let's open up our web.php file. Then copy both these routes:

Route::post('/questions/{question}/vote', 'VoteQuestionController');
Route::post('/answers/{answer}/vote', 'VoteAnswerController');

Let's open the api.php, then pate inside the previous routes in auth:api middleware group. Don't forget to adjust the controller's path to Api.

Route::middleware(['auth:api'])->group(function() {
    // ...
    Route::post('/questions/{question}/vote', 'Api\VoteQuestionController');
    Route::post('/answers/{answer}/vote', 'Api\VoteAnswerController');
});

Alright, I think that's all we need. Now we can test these endpoint out in the Postman.

Test Endpoints in postman

1. Testing Vote Question Endpoint

In Postman we can go to Questions folder and duplicate the Create Question request. Let's rename it to Vote Question.

The HTTP method is going to be POST while the url is going to be ~/api/questions/3/vote. You can change the question id to any existing number you have.

Go to Headers and make sure you add Accept to application/json, Authorization to Bearer and add the access token to it.

Then in body we can choose raw option with application/json selected. Then specify vote: 1 or vote: -1 in the input.

Now if you hit the Send button. Make sure you're get back the success message along with votes count.

2. Testing Vote Answer Endpoint

To test Vote Answer endpoint we can duplicate Vote Question request in Questions folder. Then move it to Answers folder. And then rename it to Vote Answer.

All request attributes excpet the url are going to be the same. So all you need to do is change the url to ~/api/answers/1/vote. You can adjust the answer id in the url to any existing number that you have in answers table. You can also adjust the vote whether 1 or -1.

If you hit the Send button. Make sure you're getting back the proper response like this figure:

Summary

In this lesson, we looked at how to create api endpoints for voting question and answer by simply copy our existing controllers. In the next lesson we're gonna make other endpoints that are used for favoriting question and marking an answer as best answer.

Alright, let's go ahead and commit our changes that we made today into our git repo.

git add .
git commit -m "Create api endpoints for vote question and answer"
git push origin lesson-52