61 lines
4.1 KiB
Markdown
61 lines
4.1 KiB
Markdown
<!--
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order: 4
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synopsis: "This document describes how to create a REST interface for an SDK **application**. A separate document for creating a [**module**](../building-modules/intro.md) REST interface can be found [here](#../module-interfaces.md#rest)."
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-->
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# REST Interface
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## Prerequisites {hide}
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* [Query Lifecycle](./query-lifecycle.md) {prereq}
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* [Application CLI](./cli.md) {prereq}
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## Application REST Interface
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Building the REST Interface for an application is done by [aggregating REST Routes](#registering-routes) defined in the application's modules. This interface is served by a REST Server [REST server](#rest-server), which route requests and output responses in the application itself. The SDK comes with its own REST Server by default. To enable it, the `rest.ServeCommand` command needs to be added as a subcommand of the `rootCmd` in the `main()` function of the [CLI interface](./cli.md):
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```go
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rootCmd.AddCommand(rest.ServeCommand(cdc, registerRoutes))
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```
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Users will then be able to use the application CLI to start a new REST server, a local server through which they can securely interact with the application without downloading the entire state. The command entered by users would look something like this:
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```bash
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appcli rest-server --chain-id <chainID> --trust-node
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```
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Note that if `trust-node` is set to `false`, the REST server will verify the query proof against the merkle root (contained in the block header).
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## REST Server
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A REST Server is used to receive and route HTTP Requests, obtain the results from the application, and return a response to the user. The REST Server defined by the SDK `rest` package contains the following:
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* **Router:** A router for HTTP requests. A new router can be instantiated for an application and used to match routes based on path, request method, headers, etc. The SDK uses the [Gorilla Mux Router](https://github.com/gorilla/mux).
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* **CLIContext:** A [`CLIContext`](./query-lifecycle.md#clicontext) created for a user interaction.
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* **Keybase:** A [Keybase](../basics/accounts.md#keybase) is a key manager.
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* **Logger:** A logger from Tendermint `Log`, a log package structured around key-value pairs that allows logging level to be set differently for different keys. The logger takes `Debug()`, `Info()`, and `Error()`s.
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* **Listener:** A [listener](https://golang.org/pkg/net/#Listener) from the net package.
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Of the five, the only attribute that application developers need interact with is the `router`: they need to add routes to it so that the REST server can properly handle queries. See the next section for more information on registering routes.
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In order to enable the REST Server in an SDK application, the `rest.ServeCommand` needs to be added to the application's command-line interface. See the [above section](#application-rest-interface) for more information.
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## Registering Routes
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To include routes for each module in an application, the CLI must have some kind of function to register routes in its REST Server. This function is called `RegisterRoutes()`, and is utilized by the `ServeCommand` and must include routes for each of the application's modules. Since each module used by an SDK application implements a [`RegisterRESTRoutes`](../building-modules/module-interfaces.md#rest) function, application developers simply use the [Module Manager](../building-modules/module-manager.md) to call this function for each module (this is done in the [application's constructor](../basics/app-anatomy.md#constructor-function)).
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At the bare minimum, a `RegisterRoutes()` function should use the SDK client package `RegisterRoutes()` function to be able to route RPC calls, and instruct the application Module Manager to call `RegisterRESTRoutes()` for all of its modules. This is done in the `main.go` file of the CLI (typically located in `./cmd/appcli/main.go`).
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```go
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func registerRoutes(rs *rest.RestServer) {
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client.RegisterRoutes(rs.CliCtx, rs.Mux)
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app.ModuleBasics.RegisterRESTRoutes(rs.CliCtx, rs.Mux)
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}
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```
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This function is specific to the application and passed in to the `ServeCommand`, which should be added to the `rootCmd` as such:
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```go
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rootCmd.AddCommand(rest.ServeCommand(cdc, registerRoutes))
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```
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