Responses to the discussion on Github
As a sub-point to the above topic, I would like to bring up the fact that in my opinion until a solid parameter system is implemented Strapi should not go into a stable release. During the Alpha and Beta phase of any project is when core structural changes are happening, this is when major breaking changes are expected to happen. I bring this up as previously in some of the Strapi blog posts they are intending to go into a stable release within Q1 of 2020 (not sure if this date has been moved).
To state that clearly: In my opinion I do not think Strapi is currently ready for a stable release.
I do have other reasons to state this, however those are not part of this discussion.
Ping @Aurelsicoko @alexandrebodin
Thanks for opening up the discussion @derrickmehaffy,
We should start by identifying the features we want and need to include first. Once we have that we can see if a standard already exists for them and go into more details about implementation.
Thanks for opening up the discussion @derrickmehaffy,
We should start by identifying the features we want and need to include first. Once we have that we can see if a standard already exists for them and go into more details about implementation.
Absolutely I 100% agree. Defining the parameters we have currently and what we think we should have vs what we want to see.
So doing a bit more research and comparing current parameters vs some fairly common ones out in the wild, I’ve made a list and some examples
General
- _sort:
?_sort=[email::desc,username:asc]
- _populate:
?_populate=[header.url,tag,comments]
- _q: This is unchanged and is more so a “hidden” parameter that is used by the AdminUI for just global searching
Pagination
- _limit:
?_limit=15
- _start:
?_start=100
- _page:
?_page=5 (uses _limit * _page number to get a _start value to make it easier and cleaner)
Querying
(prefixed by _filter=)
- _eq:
?_filter=[_eq[username]::bob] (we could opt to remove or keep the standard matching also ?_filter=[username::bob])
- _ne:
?_filter=[_ne[username]::jim]
- _lt:
?_filter=[_lt[created_at]::2020-01-10 00:017:00]
- _gt:
?_filter=[_gte[powerLevel]::9000]
- _lte:
?_filter=[_lte[likes]::10]
- _gte:
?_filter=[_gt[created_at]::2020-01-10 00:06:00]
- _in:
?_filter=[_in[id]::[1,2,3,4]]
- _nin:
?_filter=[_nin[tag.name]::[technology,art,science]]
- _ct:
?_filter=[_ct[username]::alex] (previously _contains)
- _cts:
?_filter=[_cts[city]::New] (previously _containss)
- _nct:
?_filter=[_nct[username]::admin] (previously _ncontains)
- _ncts:
?_filter=[_ncts[firstName]::John] (previously _ncontainss)
- _null:
?_filter=[_null[isPublished]::false]
- _regex:
?_filter=[_regex[phoneNumber]::{'((\(\d{3}\) ?)|(\d{3}-))?\d{3}-\d{4}': '123-456-7890'}] (In this example it will match (123) 456-7890 or 123-456-7890)
Logical
- AND Operator:
?_filter=[_gte[powerLevel]::9000, _lte[powerLevel]::9500]
- OR Operator (Single Field):
?_filter=[_nct[firstName,lastname]::miller]
- OR Operator (multiple fields/filters):
?_filter=[_or::[_eq[firstName]::pierre, _eq[lastName]::burgy]]
- OR Operator (multiple values):
?_filter=[_nin[tag.name]::[technology,art,science]]
- _moment:
?_filter=[_gte[updated_at]::$currentYear] or ?_filter=[_gte[updated_at]::$moment.subtract.3.days]
Summery
These were just a few example I created with a similar format I’ve seen in a few places now. The main additions are:
- _populate (has been requested many times in the past to custom populate without needing the controller to have custom code)
- _page to support a more standard pagination system that removes the calculation logic from the client
- Renaming the contains and not contains parameters to be cleaner and match up with other parameters naming system
- Adding regex support to make certain OR based queries easier (say profile information like phone numbers in which you need to handle multiple countries ect)
- Keeping the current $AND based system of just throwing the filters together in a single array for
_filter
- Allowing for $OR operations multiple fields, single value
- Allowing for $OR operations single field, multiple values
- Allowing for $OR operations between an array of other filters
- Adding support for easier Moment.js type queries to make asking for something like greater than or equal to
Last Year or just general moment type stuff. (Since Strapi already uses Moment.js for conversions)
The above examples would fall within the guidelines of OpenAPI specification, will need to look at this for something like GraphQL though. It would now populate the swagger UI with the following options:
- _filter
- _sort
- _populate
- _limit
- _start
- _page
Thank you @derrickmehaffy for these details.
First of all – I’m not a contributor to the Strapi. But I wanted to give my point of view on current implementation vs proposed changes.
First of all we’re already in beta which should mean that there won’t be huge breaking BC changes. Unfortunately for Strapi being a CMS – this kind of change would lead to breaks not only in backend itself but also related frontend clients.
I cannot see a huge improvement here on changing param names. I think it’s arbitrary what syntax should be used, and to be honest, I haven’t also met before with syntax enlisted by @derrickmehaffy. But I may be the only one. What just pops on my mind is that probably every migrating user will have many more changes to be made than simple query params rewrite. On the other hand it really hurts every already-using-Strapi user.
Me and my company decided to trust Strapi when entered beta stage and still I can see a tons of changes that shouldn’t require us to migrate, like we had a version ago with rename of groups to components.
From my perspective (as a CTO, PM and software architect) – you should do more theoretical work before actually starting implementation. I know we’re 2020s agile/scrum, but what I can see is a lack of bigger picture and purpose what Strapi should become. Why am I writing this? Because this issue is “future general discussion” and I think there are way more important topics to talk about with community.
@cadavre thank you for sharing your perspective.
If this wasn’t clear enough from the previous messages this issue is only a starting discussion and is not going to happen anytime soon. It will go through the RFC process before even thinking of implementing it. This would go into an eventual v4.
If you read some of our latest articles you will see that we will go through a rc and have a stable v3 soon. Then we will start the work for future releases and be following semver standards closely.
We are considering breaking changes as much as we can but some of them are unavoidable to make Strapi stable both in term of features and bugs without bumping major version every weeks or waiting for 6months to release 
I can assure you we take time to think about the future of the project and have a clear picture of what we want Strapi to become. We try to share this vision as much as we can when publishing our monthly updates article.
Please share the topcis you feel are way more important with us so we can take them into account.
You can submit ides through product board for example 
Thanks again for sharing. We hope that strapi will continue helping you build great products in the future and make your life easier while doing it 
I have been faced with some issues when trying to use the OpenAPI json file generated by Strapi, with other tools like SwaggerHub, openapi-generator and Postman. Since there is a problem with how the parameters are defined, mostly with. = for equal, it is not possible to use any of those tools :sad:
Related discussions:
#7219
Any suggestion on how to make a quick workaround so that Strapi would work with OpenAPI standard tools?
No workarounds known as of yet, I do think we plan to rework the query parameter system with the database refresh over the rest of Q3 and Q4 but we will provide RFCs before we put anything into effect