State Providers

To retrieve data exposed by the API, API Platform uses classes called state providers. A state provider using Doctrine ORM to retrieve data from a database, a state provider using Doctrine MongoDB ODM to retrieve data from a document database, and a state provider using Elasticsearch-PHP to retrieve data from an Elasticsearch cluster are included with the library. The first one is enabled by default. These state providers natively support paged collections and filters. They can be used as-is and are perfectly suited to common uses.

However, you sometimes want to retrieve data from other sources such as another persistence layer or a webservice. Custom state providers can be used to do so. A project can include as many state providers as needed. The first able to retrieve data for a given resource will be used.

To do so you need to implement the ApiPlatform\State\ProviderInterface.

In the following examples we will create custom state providers for an entity class called App\Entity\BlogPost. Note, that if your entity is not Doctrine-related, you need to flag the identifier property by using #[ApiProperty(identifier: true) for things to work properly (see also Entity Identifier Case).

Creating a Custom State Provider

If the Symfony MakerBundle is installed in your project, you can use the following command to generate a custom state provider easily:

bin/console make:state-provider

Let's start with a State Provider for the URI: /blog_posts/{id}.

First, your BlogPostProvider has to implement the ProviderInterface:

<?php

namespace App\State;

use App\Entity\BlogPost;
use ApiPlatform\Metadata\Operation;
use ApiPlatform\State\ProviderInterface;

final class BlogPostProvider implements ProviderInterface
{
    /**
     * {@inheritDoc}
     */
    public function provide(Operation $operation, array $uriVariables = [], array $context = [])
    {
        return new BlogPost($uriVariables['id']);
    }
}

As this operation expects a BlogPost we return an instance of the BlogPost in the provide method. The uriVariables parameter is an array with the values of the URI variables.

To use this provider we need to configure the provider on the operation:

<?php

namespace App\Entity;

use ApiPlatform\Metadata\Get;
use App\State\BlogPostProvider;

#[Get(provider: BlogPostProvider::class)]
class BlogPost {}

If you use the default configuration, the corresponding service will be automatically registered thanks to autowiring. To declare the service explicitly, you can use the following snippet:

# api/config/services.yaml
services:
    # ...
    App\State\BlogPostProvider: ~
        # Uncomment only if autoconfiguration is disabled
        #tags: [ 'api_platform.state_provider' ]

Now let's say that we also want to handle the /blog_posts URI which returns a collection. We can change the Provider into supporting a wider range of operations. Then we can provide a collection of blog posts when the operation is a CollectionOperationInterface:

<?php

namespace App\State;

use App\Entity\BlogPost;
use ApiPlatform\Metadata\Operation;
use ApiPlatform\State\ProviderInterface;
use ApiPlatform\Metadata\CollectionOperationInterface;

final class BlogPostProvider implements ProviderInterface
{
    /**
     * {@inheritDoc}
     */
    public function provide(Operation $operation, array $uriVariables = [], array $context = [])
    {
        if ($operation instanceof CollectionOperationInterface) {
            return [new BlogPost(), new BlogPost()];
        }

        return new BlogPost($uriVariables['id']);
    }
}

We then need to configure this same provider on the BlogPost GetCollection operation, or for every operations via the ApiResource attribute:

<?php

namespace App\Entity;

use ApiPlatform\Metadata\ApiResource;
use App\State\BlogPostProvider;

#[ApiResource(provider: BlogPostProvider::class)]
class BlogPost {}

Hooking into the Built-In State Provider

If you want to execute custom business logic before or after retrieving data, this can be achieved by decorating the built-in state providers or using composition.

The next example uses a DTO to change the presentation for data originally retrieved by the default state provider.

<?php

namespace App\State;

use App\Dto\AnotherRepresentation;
use App\Model\Book;
use ApiPlatform\Metadata\Operation;
use ApiPlatform\State\ProviderInterface;

final class BookRepresentationProvider implements ProviderInterface
{
    public function __construct(private ProviderInterface $itemProvider)
    {
    }

    public function provide(Operation $operation, array $uriVariables = [], array $context = []): object|array|null
    {
        $book = $this->itemProvider->provide($operation, $uriVariables, $context);

        return new AnotherRepresentation(
            // Add DTO constructor params here.
            // $book->getTitle(),
        );
    }
}

Even with service autowiring and autoconfiguration enabled, you must still configure the decoration:

# api/config/services.yaml
services:
    # ...
    App\State\BookRepresentationProvider:
        bind:
            $itemProvider: '@api_platform.doctrine.orm.state.item_provider'
        # Uncomment only if autoconfiguration is disabled
        #tags: [ 'api_platform.state_provider' ]

And configure that you want to use this provider on the Book resource:

<?php

namespace App\Entity;

use ApiPlatform\Metadata\Get;
use App\Dto\AnotherRepresentation;
use App\State\BookRepresentationProvider;

#[Get(output: AnotherRepresentation::class, provider: BookRepresentationProvider::class)]
class Book {}