How to handle sub-resources without an ORM object?

[Mike Lovely]

I have a settings column in my users table which is just a string representing a json object. eg

{"foo":"bar","bin":"baz"}

I want an endpoint like /users/{user_id}/settings which will return an array of all the settings for that user.

How should this look so it's valid json api? I thought maybe something like this:

{
  "data": [
    {
      "type": "settings",
      "id": "1",
      "attributes": {
        "foo": "bar"
      }
    },
    {
      "type": "settings",
      "id": "2",
      "attributes": {
        "bin": "baz"
      }
    }
  ]
}

That doesn't feel quite right to me because, this way, attributes will only have one key/value pair.

I want to do it this way because I'm also planning to introduce: GET /users/{user_id}/settings/foo and hope to re-use most of the code.

Part two of this issue... How do I actually parse the settings attribute using Neomerx Api? All the examples I've seen start off working from a defined ORM object eg:

$encoder = Encoder::instance([
    '\Author' => '\AuthorSchema',
], new EncoderOptions(JSON_PRETTY_PRINT, 'http://example.com/api/v1'));

echo $encoder->encodeData($author) . PHP_EOL;

For me I don't know what I'm supposed to do here. Something like:

$encoder = Encoder::instance([
    \User::settings(???) => '\UserSettingSchema',
], new EncoderOptions(JSON_PRETTY_PRINT, 'http://example.com/api/v1'));

echo $encoder->encodeData($user->settings) . PHP_EOL;

Whenever I try and set the key (\User::settings(???)) I get back:

Schema is not registered for a resource at path ''."

[neomerx]

You've got a few questions )

I have a settings column in my users table which is just a string representing a json object.

Then you are working with it like they are resources (have type, OK let it be settings and id, well, it seems they don't have ID). If you think 'Hold on a sec, I can assign 1,2,3 as array indexes, can't I?' Such identities will not be unique between users.

Within a given API, each resource object’s type and id pair MUST identify a single, unique resource.

from here