Impossible to change route model binding?

[Rapolas Gruzdys]

According to the docs of this package (here and here) and this issue here, it seems like the package should have the ability to use an attribute as an ID for routes.

My goal is to provide an API endpoint for "blog posts" which can be created and viewed. Instead of using the id in the URL I want to access my posts by the slug attribute.
Unfortunately, I'm unable to get it working and I'm not sure if it's a bug or if am I misunderstanding something. The docs mention this customization here:

• https://laraveljsonapi.io/docs/1.0/routing/#resource-uri-and-parameter
• https://laraveljsonapi.io/docs/1.0/routing/#id-constraints
• https://laraveljsonapi.io/docs/1.0/schemas/identifier.html#pattern

Here's how I've tried to make it work

1. As suggested by the docs, I changed my schema to use ID::make('slug'). When sending a request to api/v1/posts/test-post I got the 404 error with the message The route api/v1/posts/test-post could not be found.
2. Obviously, there's something wrong with how my routes are defined. So I figured the parameter() method should be used in the routes: $server->resource('posts', JsonApiController::class)->parameter('post:slug'). The parameter post:slug is defined according to Laravel's routing key customization. After this change, sending a GET request to api/v1/posts/test-post results in a LogicException with a message No JSON API resource id set on route..

The exception is thrown, because the method modelOrResourceId() isn't able to get a parameter with the $name of post:slug, because only these parameters exist:

[
    'post' => 'test-post',
    'resource_type' => 'posts',
    'resource_id_name' => 'posts:slug'
]

It appears as if the method is looking for a parameter that doesn't even exist in the route.
Secondly, even if this didn't throw an exception, the request still returns a 404 because in substituteBindings() the method uses the repository to find() a model by the resource ID. Unfortunately, this resource ID is no longer the primary key, but an attribute slug.

Am I missing something here or is this feature not working as expected?

EDIT: I've also tried using a custom Controller that uses route-model binding, which also failed due to the substituteBindings() method

[Christopher Gammie]

Hi. Have you set a pattern on the ID field that works for slugs? That's all documented here: https://laraveljsonapi.io/docs/3.0/schemas/identifier.html#pattern

[Rapolas Gruzdys]

Thanks, I haven't actually. After trying it out - looks like this hasn't affected anything. After some debugging, it appears that MatchesIds method match() isn't even executed, so the exception occurs earlier.
For context, I'm sharing my setup:

The routes:

$server->resource('posts', JsonApiController::class)
    ->parameter('post:slug')
    ->only('show');

The Schema:

use LaravelJsonApi\Eloquent\Contracts\Paginator;
use LaravelJsonApi\Eloquent\Fields\ArrayHash;
use LaravelJsonApi\Eloquent\Fields\DateTime;
use LaravelJsonApi\Eloquent\Fields\ID;
use LaravelJsonApi\Eloquent\Fields\Str;
use LaravelJsonApi\Eloquent\Filters\WhereIdIn;
use LaravelJsonApi\Eloquent\Pagination\PagePagination;
use LaravelJsonApi\Eloquent\Schema;

class PostSchema extends Schema
{
    public static string $model = Post::class;

    public function fields(): array
    {
        return [
            ID::make('slug')->matchAs('[A-Z_]+'),
            Str::make('slug'),
            DateTime::make('created_at')->sortable()->readOnly(),
            DateTime::make('updated_at')->sortable()->readOnly(),
        ];
    }

    public function filters(): array
    {
        return [
            WhereIdIn::make($this),
        ];
    }

    public function pagination(): ?Paginator
    {
        return PagePagination::make();
    }
}

P.S. it doesn't matter if I change the Model's getRouteKeyName() method or not.

Are you able to replicate the issue? Maybe it's just me?

[Christopher Gammie]

Ok so what's wrong here is you're messing with the routing implementation, to try and solve a problem that's caused by you not setting a correct ID matching pattern.

The fix is to set a matching pattern on the id that works with the slug. Fix that, then remove any changes you've made to the routing to try and fix the problem - as they are now the problem.

This does all work. It's 100% tested, and used in production applications.

[Christopher Gammie]

This bit:

->parameter('post:slug')

is not in any of the Laravel JSON:API routing docs, so is the bit you need to remove (I believe from glancing over the code).

[Rapolas Gruzdys]

You're right, thanks so much, using the matchAs() method and removing the parameter from my route solved it!

So I was definitely misusing the feature. Would it make sense to mention in the docs that route ID binding is different from Laravel's? I might be the exception here, though.
Either way thanks so much for the help, I'm closing the issue 🙌