Handle the API Post request contents in r3, before creating or updating a record

rfernandez

Hi guys,
I hope you are doing great!

I receive a POST request to an API I have defined in r3. It comes with some information.
The default behavior in r3 seems to be to create or update a record of a relation with that information, as by definition for a POST request you associate the API to a relation either to create a new record or to update an existing one. (at least I found no other way to define which information is the API able to expect)

I would need to do some validation and processing with this data before saving the record, and also trigger many other operations based on the data received.
Is there a way to define/access that information before it arrives to the table. (in fact I don't need to save that information to the associated table, I'm just using a temp table because I found no other way to create the API and specify the expected payload)

Thank you!!

gabriel

Right now, the r3 API can only handle reading, creating or deleting records from existing relations.

Though a workaround, you can address your need in multiple ways:

You can use an API to write to any of the relations that you ultimately need to store things in - and, by using a trigger function, apply business logic, cleanup data and create/update data in other relations.
You can use a temp relation (similar to what you are already doing) that expects just a single text attribute. This text attribute could then be a JSON value, which you parse in a trigger function. This JSON can contain whatever you like, in whatever structure you need. Then, after processing the JSON, you can either delete the created record on the API relation - or keep it as a log for what was processed and when.
- I have not tested it, but if you use a BEFORE trigger here and return NULL at the end, the record on the API relation can be processed without any record being created. You would still have temp relation, but at least you would not have to delete any record after processing the API request.