Operations

API Platform relies on the concept of operations. Operations can be applied to a resource exposed by the API. From an implementation point of view, an operation is a link between a resource, a route and its related controller.

Watch the Operations screencast

API Platform automatically registers typical CRUD operations and describes them in the exposed documentation (Hydra and Swagger). It also creates and registers routes corresponding to these operations in the Symfony routing system (if it is available).

The behavior of built-in operations is briefly presented in the Getting started guide.

The list of enabled operations can be configured on a per-resource basis. Creating custom operations on specific routes is also possible.

There are two types of operations: collection operations and item operations.

Collection operations act on a collection of resources. By default two routes are implemented: POST and GET. Item operations act on an individual resource. Three default routes are defined: GET, PUT and DELETE (PATCH is also supported when using the JSON:API format, as required by the specification).

When the ApiPlatform\Metadata\ApiResource annotation is applied to an entity class, the following built-in CRUD operations are automatically enabled:

Collection operations:

Method	Mandatory	Description
`GET`	yes	Retrieve the (paginated) list of elements
`POST`	no	Create a new element

Item operations:

Method	Mandatory	Description
`GET`	yes	Retrieve an element
`PUT`	no	Replace an element
`PATCH`	no	Apply a partial modification to an element
`DELETE`	no	Delete an element

Note: the PATCH method must be enabled explicitly in the configuration, refer to the Content Negotiation section for more information.

Note: with JSON Merge Patch, the null values will be skipped in the response.

Note: Current PUT implementation behaves more or less like the PATCH method. Existing properties not included in the payload are not removed, their current values are preserved. To remove an existing property, its value must be explicitly set to null. Implementing the standard PUT behavior is on the roadmap, follow issue #4344 to track the progress.

Enabling and Disabling Operations

If no operation is specified, all default CRUD operations are automatically registered. It is also possible - and recommended for large projects - to define operations explicitly.

Keep in mind that once you explicitly set up an operation, the automatically registered CRUD will no longer be. If you declare even one operation manually, such as #[GET], you must declare the others manually as well if you need them.

Operations can be configured using annotations, XML or YAML. In the following examples, we enable only the built-in operation for the GET method for both collection and item to create a readonly endpoint.

If the operation’s name matches a supported HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, PATCH or DELETE), the corresponding method property will be automatically added.

Note: The #[GetCollection] attribute is an alias for #[Get(collection: true)]

<?php
// api/src/Entity/Book.php
namespace App\Entity;

use ApiPlatform\Metadata\ApiResource;
use ApiPlatform\Metadata\Get;
use ApiPlatform\Metadata\GetCollection;

#[ApiResource(
    operations: [
        new Get(),
        new GetCollection()
    ]
)]
class Book
{
    // ...
}

# api/config/api_platform/resources.yaml
App\Entity\Book:
    operations:
        ApiPlatform\Metadata\GetCollection: ~ # nothing more to add if we want to keep the default controller
        ApiPlatform\Metadata\Get: ~

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<!-- api/config/api_platform/resources.xml -->

<resources xmlns="https://api-platform.com/schema/metadata/resources-3.0"
        xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
        xsi:schemaLocation="https://api-platform.com/schema/metadata/resources-3.0
        https://api-platform.com/schema/metadata/resources-3.0.xsd">
    <resource class="App\Entity\Book">
        <operations>
            <operation class="ApiPlatform\Metadata\Get" />
            <operation class="ApiPlatform\Metadata\GetCollection" />
        </operations>
    </resource>
</resources>

The previous example can also be written with an explicit method definition:

<?php
// api/src/Entity/Book.php
namespace App\Entity;

use ApiPlatform\Metadata\ApiResource;
use ApiPlatform\Metadata\Get;
use ApiPlatform\Metadata\GetCollection;

#[ApiResource(
    operations: [
        new Get(),
        new GetCollection()
    ]
)]
class Book
{
    // ...
}

# api/config/api_platform/resources.yaml
App\Entity\Book:
    operations:
        ApiPlatform\Metadata\GetCollection:
            method: GET
        ApiPlatform\Metadata\Get:
            method: GET

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<!-- api/config/api_platform/resources.xml -->

<resources xmlns="https://api-platform.com/schema/metadata/resources-3.0"
        xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
        xsi:schemaLocation="https://api-platform.com/schema/metadata/resources-3.0
        https://api-platform.com/schema/metadata/resources-3.0.xsd">
    <resource class="App\Entity\Book">
        <operations>
            <operation class="ApiPlatform\Metadata\GetCollection" />
            <operation class="ApiPlatform\Metadata\Get" method="GET" />
        </operations>
    </resource>
</resources>

API Platform is smart enough to automatically register the applicable Symfony route referencing a built-in CRUD action just by specifying the method name as key, or by checking the explicitly configured HTTP method.

If you do not want to allow access to the resource item (i.e. you don’t want a GET item operation), instead of omitting it altogether, you should instead declare a GET item operation which returns HTTP 404 (Not Found), so that the resource item can still be identified by an IRI. For example:

<?php
// api/src/Entity/Book.php
namespace App\Entity;

use ApiPlatform\Action\NotFoundAction;
use ApiPlatform\Metadata\Get;
use ApiPlatform\Metadata\GetCollection;
use ApiPlatform\Metadata\ApiResource;

#[ApiResource(operations: [
    new Get(
        controller: NotFoundAction::class, 
        read: false, 
        output: false
    ),
    new GetCollection()
])]
class Book
{
    // ...
}

# api/config/api_platform/resources.yaml
App\Entity\Book:
    operations:
        ApiPlatform\Metadata\GetCollection: ~
        ApiPlatform\Metadata\Get:
            controller: ApiPlatform\Action\NotFoundAction
            read: false
            output: false

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<!-- api/config/api_platform/resources.xml -->

<resources xmlns="https://api-platform.com/schema/metadata/resources-3.0"
        xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
        xsi:schemaLocation="https://api-platform.com/schema/metadata/resources-3.0
        https://api-platform.com/schema/metadata/resources-3.0.xsd">
    <resource class="App\Entity\Book">
        <operations>
            <operation class="ApiPlatform\Metadata\GetCollection" />
            <operation class="ApiPlatform\Metadata\Get" controller="ApiPlatform\Action\NotFoundAction"
                       read="false" output="false" />
        </operations>
    </resource>
</resources>

Configuring Operations

The URL, the method and the default status code (among other options) can be configured per operation.

In the next example, both GET and POST operations are registered with custom URLs. Those will override the URLs generated by default. In addition to that, we require the id parameter in the URL of the GET operation to be an integer, and we configure the status code generated after successful POST request to be 301:

<?php
// api/src/Entity/Book.php
namespace App\Entity;

use ApiPlatform\Metadata\ApiResource;
use ApiPlatform\Metadata\Get;
use ApiPlatform\Metadata\Post;

#[ApiResource(operations: [
    new Get(
        uriTemplate: '/grimoire/{id}', 
        requirements: ['id' => '\d+'], 
        defaults: ['color' => 'brown'], 
        options: ['my_option' => 'my_option_value'], 
        schemes: ['https'], 
        host: '{subdomain}.api-platform.com'
    ),
    new Post(
        uriTemplate: '/grimoire', 
        status: 301
    )
])]
class Book
{
    //...
}

# api/config/api_platform/resources.yaml
App\Entity\Book:
    operations:
        ApiPlatform\Metadata\Post:
            uriTemplate: '/grimoire'
            status: 301
        ApiPlatform\Metadata\Get:
            uriTemplate: '/grimoire/{id}'
            requirements:
                id: '\d+'
            defaults:
                color: 'brown'
            host: '{subdomain}.api-platform.com'
            schemes: ['https']
            options:
                my_option: 'my_option_value'

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<!-- api/config/api_platform/resources.xml -->

<resources xmlns="https://api-platform.com/schema/metadata/resources-3.0"
        xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
        xsi:schemaLocation="https://api-platform.com/schema/metadata/resources-3.0
        https://api-platform.com/schema/metadata/resources-3.0.xsd">
    <resource class="App\Entity\Book">
        <operations>
            <operation class="ApiPlatform\Metadata\Post" uriTemplate="/grimoire" status="301" />
            <operation class="ApiPlatform\Metadata\Get" uriTemplate="/grimoire/{id}" host="{subdomain}.api-platform.com">
                <requirements>
                    <requirement property="id">\d+</requirement>
                </requirements>
                <defaults>
                    <values>
                        <value name="color">brown</value>
                    </values>
                </defaults>
                <schemes>
                    <scheme>https</scheme>
                </schemes>
                <options>
                    <values>
                        <value name="color">brown</value>
                    </values>
                </options>
            </operation>
        </operations>
    </resource>
</resources>

Prefixing All Routes of All Operations

Sometimes it’s also useful to put a whole resource into its own “namespace” regarding the URI. Let’s say you want to put everything that’s related to a Book into the library so that URIs become library/book/{id}. In that case you don’t need to override all the operations to set the path but configure the routePrefix attribute for the whole entity instead:

<?php
// api/src/Entity/Book.php
namespace App\Entity;

use ApiPlatform\Metadata\ApiResource;

#[ApiResource(routePrefix: '/library')]
class Book
{
    //...
}

# api/config/api_platform/resources.yaml
App\Entity\Book:
    routePrefix: /library

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<!-- api/config/api_platform/resources.xml -->

<resources xmlns="https://api-platform.com/schema/metadata/resources-3.0"
        xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
        xsi:schemaLocation="https://api-platform.com/schema/metadata/resources-3.0
        https://api-platform.com/schema/metadata/resources-3.0.xsd">
    <resource class="App\Entity\Book" routePrefix="/library" />
</resources>

API Platform will automatically map this post_publication operation to the route book_post_publication. Let’s create a custom action and its related route using annotations:

<?php
// api/src/Controller/CreateBookPublication.php

namespace App\Controller;

use App\Entity\Book;
use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;
use Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\Attribute\AsController;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Annotation\Route;

#[AsController]
class CreateBookPublication extends AbstractController
{
    public function __construct(
        private BookPublishingHandler $bookPublishingHandler
    ) {}

    #[Route(
        path: '/books/{id}/publication',
        name: 'book_post_publication',
        defaults: [
            '_api_resource_class' => Book::class,
            '_api_operation_name' => '_api_/books/{id}/publication_post',
        ],
        methods: ['POST'],
    )]
    public function __invoke(Book $book): Book
    {
        $this->bookPublishingHandler->handle($book);

        return $book;
    }
}

It is mandatory to set _api_resource_class and _api_operation_namein the parameters of the route (defaults key). It allows API Platform to work with the Symfony routing system.

Alternatively, you can also use a traditional Symfony controller and YAML or XML route declarations. The following example does the exact same thing as the previous example:

<?php
// api/src/Controller/BookController.php

namespace App\Controller;

use App\Entity\Book;
use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;
use Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\Attribute\AsController;

#[AsController]
class BookController extends AbstractController
{
    public function createPublication(Book $book, BookPublishingHandler $bookPublishingHandler): Book
    {
        return $bookPublishingHandler->handle($book);
    }
}

# api/config/routes.yaml
book_post_publication:
    path: /books/{id}/publication
    methods: ['POST']
    defaults:
        _controller: App\Controller\BookController::createPublication
        _api_resource_class: App\Entity\Book
        _api_operation_name: post_publication

Expose a Model Without Any Routes

Sometimes, you may want to expose a model, but want it to be used through subrequests only, and never through item or collection operations. Because the OpenAPI standard requires at least one route to be exposed to make your models consumable, let’s see how you can manage this kind of issue.

Let’s say you have the following entities in your project:

<?php
// api/src/Entity/Place.php
namespace App\Entity;

use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;

#[ORM\Entity]
class Place
{
    #[ORM\Id, ORM\Column, ORM\GeneratedValue]
    private ?int $id = null;

    #[ORM\Column] 
    private string $name = '';

    #[ORM\Column(type: 'float')]
    private float $latitude = 0;

    #[ORM\Column(type: 'float')] 
    private float $longitude = 0;

    // ...
}

<?php
// api/src/Entity/Weather.php
namespace App\Entity;

class Weather
{
    private float $temperature;

    private float $pressure;

    // ...
}

We don’t save the Weather entity in the database, since we want to return the weather in real time when it is queried. Because we want to get the weather for a known place, it is more reasonable to query it through a subresource of the Place entity, so let’s do this:

<?php
// api/src/Entity/Place.php
namespace App\Entity;

use ApiPlatform\Metadata\Get;
use ApiPlatform\Metadata\Put;
use ApiPlatform\Metadata\Delete;
use ApiPlatform\Metadata\GetCollection;
use ApiPlatform\Metadata\Post;
use ApiPlatform\Metadata\ApiResource;
use App\Controller\GetWeather;
use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;

#[ApiResource(
    operations: [
        new Get(),
        new Put(),
        new Delete(),
        new Get(name: 'weather', uriTemplate: '/places/{id}/weather', controller: GetWeather::class),
        new GetCollection(),
        new Post(),
    ]
)]
#[ORM\Entity]
class Place
{
    // ...

The GetWeather controller fetches the weather for the given city and returns an instance of the Weather entity. This implies that API Platform has to know about this entity, so we will need to make it an API resource too:

<?php
// api/src/Entity/Weather.php
namespace App\Entity;

use ApiPlatform\Metadata\ApiResource;

#[ApiResource]
class Weather
{
    // ...

This will expose the Weather model, but also all the default CRUD routes: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE and POST, which is a non-sense in our context. Since we are required to expose at least one route, let’s expose just one:

<?php
// api/src/Entity/Weather.php
namespace App\Entity;

use ApiPlatform\Metadata\ApiResource;
use ApiPlatform\Metadata\Get;

#[ApiResource(operations: [
    new Get(controller: SomeRandomController::class)
])]
class Weather
{
    // ...
}

This way, we expose a route that will do… nothing. Note that the controller does not even need to exist.

It’s almost done, we have just one final issue: our fake item operation is visible in the API docs. To remove it, we will need to decorate the Swagger documentation. Then, remove the route from the decorator:

<?php
// src/OpenApi/OpenApiFactory.php
namespace App\OpenApi;

use ApiPlatform\OpenApi\Factory\OpenApiFactoryInterface;
use ApiPlatform\OpenApi\OpenApi;
use ApiPlatform\OpenApi\Model;

final class OpenApiFactory implements OpenApiFactoryInterface
{
    private $decorated;

    public function __construct(OpenApiFactoryInterface $decorated)
    {
        $this->decorated = $decorated;
    }

    public function __invoke(array $context = []): OpenApi
    {
        $openApi = $this->decorated->__invoke($context);

        $paths = $openApi->getPaths()->getPaths();

        $filteredPaths = new Model\Paths();
        foreach ($paths as $path => $pathItem) {
            // If a prefix is configured on API Platform's routes, it must appear here.
            if ($path === '/weathers/{id}') {
                continue;
            }
            $filteredPaths->addPath($path, $pathItem);
        }

        return $openApi->withPaths($filteredPaths);
    }
}

That’s it: your route is gone!

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