GurbaniDB API

Version: 2.2

Welcome to the GurbaniDB API for the Sikh Scriptures developed using the popular Laravel PHP Framework. We decided to take advantage of Laravel's fantastic ORM to rapidly develop this API.

We decided to keep this API version (2.x) and the GurbaniDB database version (2.x) the same because they were developed together and are compatible with one another.

GurbaniDB API Version 1.0, as used formerly in the GurbaniDB search engine, is now deprecated and we will no longer be supporting or documenting it.

Demo

The latest version of this repo is live at: http://api.sikher.com

Pre-requisites

Before installing the GurbaniDB API, please ensure you have the following packages installed on your local machine or server.

You may choose to use a software like WAMPP or XAMPP, or a package manager like Brew for Mac or APT for Linux, to install most of these dependencies for you:

• Git
• Apache v2.2+ (with actions, rewrite & php5 modules enabled)
• MySQL 5.5+
• PHP 5.3.7+ (with mcrypt, mysql, mysqli, pdo, pdo_mysql & json extensions enabled - check with phpinfo(); command)
• Composer
• PhpMyAdmin

As well as this, you will need to know how to setup name-based Virtual Hosts or vhosts in Apache and how to edit your system's hosts file.

Finally, you will need to know some basics of how to use Terminal or the command-line.

Installation

Step 1: Download the Repository

Just use git to clone the ssh version:

git clone git@github.com:sikher/gurbanidb.git

Or use git to clone the https version:

git clone https://github.com/sikher/gurbanidb.git

Or download the .zip archive and unzip it:

https://github.com/sikher/gurbanidb/archive/master.zip

Step 2: Setup a Virtual Host & Install Laravel

1. Please setup a vhost called api.dev (or a name of your choosing) to point to the directory where you just downloaded the GurbaniDB repository
2. Now open Terminal or the command-line and use cd to navigate to the GurbaniDB repository. Then run the command php composer.phar install to install all the dependencies of the Laravel PHP framework
3. Open a browser and navigate to api.dev/ to see if it loads the homepage. If not, check your Apache error log and double-check you installed all the pre-requisites properly.

Step 3: Install Local GurbaniDB Database & Setup Production Database

1. Download the GurbaniDB 2.x database here: http://www.sikher.com/sql/2.x/
2. Follow the installation instructions here: https://github.com/sikher/docs/blob/master/2.x.md
3. Go to ./app/config/ in your repository and mkdir 'production'. Then cp the file database.php into the new production folder. Now update the database settings inside the following files:
   • app/config/database.php - Default Database
   • app/config/local/database.php - Local Database
   • app/config/production/database.php - Production Database

The local and production environments are determined by the bootstrap/start.php file, so you will also have to modify this to your local and production server HTTP host names.

Running Tests

To run the unit tests simply navigate to the root of the directory in Terminal and use the command:

$ phpunit

If everything is setup right, you should see something like:

PHPUnit 3.7.28 by Sebastian Bergmann.

Configuration read from {/dir/to/application}/phpunit.xml

....................................

Time: 2.57 seconds, Memory: 53.75Mb

OK (60 tests, 60 assertions)

API Routes

Below is a list of all the API routes supported in this application, which you can also find in app/routes.php:

• /search/{query?}/{translation?}/{transliteration?}/{offset?} - Gives back the first 10 search results by first letters from start for the scripture, defaults to (empty string)/13 (English)/69 (Latin)/0
• /search/1/{query?}/{translation?}/{transliteration?}/{offset?} - Gives back the first 10 search results by first letters anywhere for the scripture, defaults to (empty string)/13 (English)/69 (Latin)/0
• /search/2/{query?}/{translation?}/{transliteration?}/{offset?} - Gives back the first 10 search results by words anywhere for the scripture, defaults to (empty string)/13 (English)/69 (Latin)/0
• /search/3/{query?}/{translation?}/{transliteration?}/{offset?} - Gives back the first 10 search results by words anywhere for the translation, defaults to (empty string)/13 (English)/0
• /search/4/{query?}/{translation?}/{transliteration?}/{offset?} - Gives back the first 10 search results by words anywhere for the transliteration, defaults to (empty string)/69 (Latin)/0
• /page/{page_id?}/{translation?}/{transliteration?} - Gives back the scripture, translation and transliteration of a page in the language specified, defaults to 1/13 (English)/69 (Latin)
• /hymn/{hymn_id?}/{translation?}/{transliteration?} - Gives back the scripture, translation and transliteration of a hymn in the language specified, defaults to 1/13 (English)/69 (Latin)
• /{scripture_id?}/{translation?}/{transliteration?} - Gives back the scripture, translation and transliteration of a line in the language specified, defaults to 1/13 (English)/69 (Latin)
• • /random/{type?}/{translation?}/{transliteration?} - Gives back either a page (type 1) or a hymn (type 2) with the scripture, translation and transliteration in the language specified, defaults to 1 (Page)/13 (English)/69 (Latin)
• /melody - Gives back a list of all the melodies
• /melody/{id?} - Gives back the melody specified, defaults to 1
• /author - Gives back a list of all the authors
• /author/{id?} - Gives back the author specified, defaults to 1
• /language - Gives back a list of all the languages
• /language/{id?} - Gives back the language specified, defaults to 1
• /about - Gives version number of API

Please Note: Some entries in our database contain two lines in the same entry and therefore will not show up in search by first letters from start (/search/). To find these you may search by first letters anywhere (/search/1/)

Version History

2.2

• Database: Changed column scripture in table scriptures to text, for better consistency
• Database: Correcting English translation for scripture_id 9897, from "...his is what I have seen..." to "...this is what I have seen..."
• Standardized Search API for better consistency

2.1

• Database: Added a search column in Scriptures to enable first letter search
• Database: Changed all the table names to better follow the Laravel convention of pluralized table names
• Database: Fixed - hymn/3607 was wrongly attributed to Poet Balh when it should have been Poet Kirat
• Totally re-designed the API with the user and developer in mind
• Now combined results from all the tables including scripture, translation and transliteration are given
• Added a whole new Search API which gives results based upon first letter or word search from scriptures, translations or transliterations
• Added random search for page and hymn (also called Hukamnama)
• Changed the default translation to English and transliteration to Latin
• Updated all the test coverage
• Generally cleaned up the code base to be more maintainable and understandable for the future

2.0

• Database: Getting rid of old columns which are no longer required
• Database: Standardizing and simplifying the table and column names
• Database: Moving to just one language table
• Giving access to individual tables through a simple API e.g. /scripture/page/{page_id?} and /translation/hymn/{hymn_id?}/{language_id?}

To Do

• Database: Fix Unicode issues with special characters
• Add in some logic to track the usage of each endpoint