Build API clients for PHP
In this tutorial, you build a sample app in PHP that calls a REST API that doesn't require authentication.
Required tools
Create a project
Run the following commands in the directory where you want to create a new project.
composer init
Project configuration
In case you're adding a Kiota client to an existing project, the following configuration is required:
- composer.json > require > php set to "php": "^8.0 || ^7.4" or later.
Add dependencies
Before you can compile and run the generated API client, you need to make sure the generated source files are part of a project with the required dependencies. Your project must have a reference to the abstraction package. Additionally, you must either use the Kiota default implementations or provide your own custom implementations of the following packages.
- HTTP (Kiota default Guzzle-based implementation)
- JSON serialization (Kiota default)
- Text serialization (Kiota default)
For this tutorial, use the default implementations.
Run the following commands to get the required dependencies.
composer require microsoft/kiota-abstractions
composer require microsoft/kiota-http-guzzle
composer require microsoft/kiota-serialization-json
composer require microsoft/kiota-serialization-text
Generate the API client
Kiota generates API clients from OpenAPI documents. Create a file named posts-api.yml and add the following.
openapi: '3.0.2'
info:
title: JSONPlaceholder
version: '1.0'
servers:
- url: https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/
components:
schemas:
post:
type: object
properties:
userId:
type: integer
id:
type: integer
title:
type: string
body:
type: string
parameters:
post-id:
name: post-id
in: path
description: 'key: id of post'
required: true
style: simple
schema:
type: integer
paths:
/posts:
get:
description: Get posts
parameters:
- name: userId
in: query
description: Filter results by user ID
required: false
style: form
schema:
type: integer
maxItems: 1
- name: title
in: query
description: Filter results by title
required: false
style: form
schema:
type: string
maxItems: 1
responses:
'200':
description: OK
content:
application/json:
schema:
type: array
items:
$ref: '#/components/schemas/post'
post:
description: 'Create post'
requestBody:
required: true
content:
application/json:
schema:
$ref: '#/components/schemas/post'
responses:
'201':
description: Created
content:
application/json:
schema:
$ref: '#/components/schemas/post'
/posts/{post-id}:
get:
description: 'Get post by ID'
parameters:
- $ref: '#/components/parameters/post-id'
responses:
'200':
description: OK
content:
application/json:
schema:
$ref: '#/components/schemas/post'
patch:
description: 'Update post'
requestBody:
required: true
content:
application/json:
schema:
$ref: '#/components/schemas/post'
parameters:
- $ref: '#/components/parameters/post-id'
responses:
'200':
description: OK
content:
application/json:
schema:
$ref: '#/components/schemas/post'
delete:
description: 'Delete post'
parameters:
- $ref: '#/components/parameters/post-id'
responses:
'200':
description: OK
This file is a minimal OpenAPI description that describes how to call the /posts
endpoint in the JSONPlaceholder REST API.
You can then use the Kiota command line tool to generate the API client classes.
kiota generate -l PHP -d ../posts-api.yml -c PostsApiClient -n KiotaPosts\Client -o ./client
Tip
Add --exclude-backward-compatible
if you want to reduce the size of the generated client and are not concerned about
potentially source breaking changes with future versions of Kiota when updating the client.
Add the following to your composer.json
to set your namespaces correctly:
"autoload": {
"psr-4": {
"KiotaPosts\\Client\\": "client/"
}
}
To ensure the newly generated classes can be imported, update the autoload paths using:
composer dumpautoload
Create the client application
Create a file in the root of the project named main.php and add the following code.
<?php
use KiotaPosts\Client\PostsApiClient;
use KiotaPosts\Client\Models\Post;
use Microsoft\Kiota\Abstractions\ApiException;
use Microsoft\Kiota\Abstractions\Authentication\AnonymousAuthenticationProvider;
use Microsoft\Kiota\Http\GuzzleRequestAdapter;
require __DIR__.'/vendor/autoload.php';
try {
$authProvider = new AnonymousAuthenticationProvider();
$requestAdapter = new GuzzleRequestAdapter($authProvider);
$client = new PostsApiClient($requestAdapter);
// GET /posts
$allPosts = $client->posts()->get()->wait();
$postCount = sizeof($allPosts);
echo "Retrieved {$postCount} posts.\n";
// GET /posts/{id}
$specificPostId = 5;
$specificPost = $client->posts()->byPostId($specificPostId)->get()->wait();
echo "Retrieved post - ID: {$specificPost->getId()}, Title: {$specificPost->getTitle()}, Body: {$specificPost->getBody()}\n";
// POST /posts
$newPost = new Post();
$newPost->setUserId(42);
$newPost->setTitle("Testing Kiota-generated API client");
$newPost->setBody("Hello world!");
$createdPost = $client->posts()->post($newPost)->wait();
echo "Created new post with ID: {$createdPost->getId()}\n";
// PATCH /posts/{id}
$update = new Post();
// Only update title
$update->setTitle("Updated title");
$updatedPost = $client->posts()->byPostId($specificPostId)->patch($update)->wait();
echo "Updated post - ID: {$updatedPost->getId()}, Title: {$updatedPost->getTitle()}, Body: {$updatedPost->getBody()}\n";
// DELETE /posts/{id}
$client->posts()->byPostId($specificPostId)->delete()->wait();
}catch (ApiException $ex) {
echo $ex->getMessage();
}
?>
Note
The JSONPlaceholder REST API doesn't require any authentication, so this sample uses the AnonymousAuthenticationProvider. For APIs that require authentication, use an applicable authentication provider.
Run the application
To start the application, run the following command in your project directory.
php main.php
See also
- kiota-samples repository contains the code from this guide.
- Microsoft Graph sample using Microsoft identity platform authentication
- ToDoItem Sample API implements a sample OpenAPI in ASP.NET Core and sample clients in multiple languages.