FieldExpansion Extension

The FieldExpansion extension provides a Controller#expanded_fields helper for processing :view and/or :fields params to determine the final set of fields necessary to process the request.

Either, or both, of the :view and :fields params may be used, provided they are defined with the proper types:

• :view must be of type Symbol, for example: attribute :view, Symbol.
• :fields must be Praxis::Types::FieldSelector (or a scoped subclass), for example: attribute :fields, Praxis::Types::FieldSelector.for(Person).

Regardless of what attributes are used, any attributes with types that are either a MediaType or a collection of a MediaType will be recursively expanded into a complete set of “leaf” attributes.

Expansion logic

The exact expansion depends upon both the parameters defined on the action in question:

• If neither :view or :fields are defined in the action: the :default view will always be expanded.
• If only :view is defined in the action: the system will expand the view name specified in the incoming request (or will use the :default view if one was not passed in the request).
• If only :fields is defined in the action: the selected attributes from the MediaType are expanded. If no fields were selected in the request, the :default view is expanded .
• If both :view and :fields are defined in the action: the system will expand view name passed in the request (or :default if none was passed), but restricted to the selectable fields that were passed in. In other words, will perform a intersection of the fields from the view and the fields passed in the request parameter.