controllers

couscous.yml

@@ -47,6 +47,9 @@ menu:
                 guide-views:
                     text: Views
                     relativeUrl: guide/views.html
+                guide-controllers:
+                    text: Controllers
+                    relativeUrl: guide/controllers.html
                 guide-middleware:
                     text: Middleware
                     relativeUrl: guide/middleware.html

guide/controllers.md

@@ -0,0 +1,139 @@
+---
+currentMenu: guide-controllers
+---
+
+# Controllers
+
+Controllers help you organize related functionality into a single place. They can also be used to create RESTful resources.
+
+## Basic
+
+A basic controller looks like the following:
+
+```swift
+final class HelloController {
+	func sayHello(_ req: Request) throws -> ResponseRepresentable {
+		guard let name = req.data["name"] else { 
+			throw Abort.badRequest 
+		}
+		return "Hello, \(name)"
+	}
+}
+```
+
+Simple controllers don't need to conform to any protocols. You are free to design them however you see fit.
+
+### Registering
+
+The only required structure is the signature of each method in the controller. In order to register this method into the router, it must have a signature like `(Request) throws -> ResponseRepresentable`.
+
+```swift
+let hc = HelloController()
+drop.get("hello", hc.sayHello)
+```
+
+Since the signature of our `sayHello` method matches the signature of the closure for the `drop.get` method, we can pass it directly.
+
+### Type Safe
+
+You can also use controller methods with type-safe routing.
+
+```swift
+final class HelloController {
+	...
+
+	func sayHelloAlternate(_ req: Request, _ name: String) -> ResponseRepresentable {
+		return "Hello, \(name)"
+	}
+}
+```
+
+We add a new method called `sayHelloAlternate` to the `HelloController` that accepts a second parameter `name: String`.
+
+```swift
+let hc = HelloController()
+drop.get("hello", String.self, hc.sayHelloAlternate)
+```
+
+Since this type-safe `drop.get` accepts a signature `(Request, String) throws -> ResponseRepresentable`, our method can now be used as the closure for this route. 
+
+## Resources
+
+Controllers that conform to `ResourceRepresentable` can be easily registered into a router as a RESTful resource. Let's look at an example of a `UserController`.
+
+```swift
+final class UserController {
+    func index(_ request: Request) throws -> ResponseRepresentable {
+        return try User.all().makeNode().converted(to: JSON.self)
+    }
+
+    func show(_ request: Request, _ user: User) -> ResponseRepresentable {
+        return user
+    }
+}
+```
+
+Here is a typical user controller with an `index` and `show` route. Indexing returns a JSON list of all users and showing returns a JSON representation of a single user.
+
+We _could_ register the controller like so:
+
+```swift
+let users = UserController()
+drop.get("users", users.index)
+drop.get("users", User.self, users.show)
+```
+
+But `ResourceRepresentable` makes this standard RESTful structure easy.
+
+```swift
+extension UserController: ResourceRepresentable {
+    func makeResource() -> Resource<User> {
+        return Resource(
+            index: index,
+            show: show
+        )
+    }
+}
+```
+
+Conforming `UserController` to `ResourceRepresentable` requires that the signatures of the `index` and `show` methods match what the `Resource<User>` is expecting.
+
+Here is a peak into the `Resource` class.
+
+```swift
+final class Resource<Model: StringInitializable> {
+    typealias Multiple = (Request) throws -> ResponseRepresentable
+    typealias Item = (Request, Model) throws -> ResponseRepresentable
+
+    var index: Multiple?
+    var store: Multiple?
+    var show: Item?
+    var replace: Item?
+    var modify: Item?
+    var destroy: Item?
+    var clear: Multiple?
+    var aboutItem: Item?
+    var aboutMultiple: Multiple?
+
+    ...
+}
+```
+
+Now that `UserController` conforms to `ResourceRepresentable`, registering the routes is easy.
+
+```swift
+let users = UserController()
+drop.resource("users", users)
+```
+
+ `drop.resource` will take care of registering only the routes that have been supplied by the call to `makeResource()`. In this case, only the `index` and `show` routes will be supplied.
+
+> Note: `drop.resource` also adds useful defaults for OPTIONS requests. These can be overriden.  
+
+## Folder
+
+Controllers can go anywhere in your application, but they are most often stored in the `Controllers/*` directory. 
+
+### Modules
+
+If you are building a large application, you may want to create your controllers in a separate module. This will allow you to perform unit tests on your controllers. For more information on creating modules, visit the documentation for the [Swift Package Manager](https://swift.org/package-manager/)