delphimvcframework/README.md

DelphiMVCFramework 3.1.0-lithium is here!

DelphiMVCFramework is the most popular Delphi project on GitHub!

Daniele is working on the DelphiMVCFramework Handbook! Stay tuned!

How to install DMVCFramework

It is not needed to download the git repository. Just download the latest version as a zip file and you are ok. If you want to participate to the testing phase (which usually contains brand new features) you can get the latest Release Candidate version. Take in mind that, even if RCs are usually very stable, they are still not ready for production utilization.

What users say about DMVCFramework

"DMVCFramework is a great framework. It's very intuitive, fast, easy to use, actually there is nothing more to ask for." -- Samir

"Wow! To do that in J2EE it takes 2 days" -- a training participant after a 5 minutes demo.

"I'm starting with the DMVCFramework and I'm finding it fantastic, congratulations for the project!" -- Rafael

"I'm looking at DMVCFramework project in it works great - for my use case scenarios is much better than 'Similar commercial product'." -- Luka

"It's fantastic! Just define your entities and you are up and running in 5 minutes. Nothing comparable on the market." -- Marco

"The best framework for creating web servers with Delphi! It is very easy to create Delphi servers and publish APIs and Rest resources. Congratulations to Daniele Teti and all the staff for the excellent work!" -- Marcos N.

We started the process of migrating our systems to micro services and are loving the DMVCFramework "DMVCFramework is definitely part of our lives right now". -- E. Costa

DMVCFramework Main Features

• Simple to use, check the "Getting Started: 5 minutes guide" and you will be up and running in 5 minutes or less! (the guide is a bit outdated - a new book is being written by Daniele Teti. Let us know if you are interested in DMVCFramework Handbook)
• Project Roadmap is always public
  • More than 40 samples to learn all the features and be proficient and productive
• RESTful (RMM Level 3) compliant
• JSON-RPC 2.0 Support with automatic objects remotization (check sample)
• Stable and solid, used by small/mid/big projects since 2010
• Very fast! (2.x was pretty fast and now, 3.x is 60% faster than the 2.x!)
• Support group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/delphimvcframework with more than 2600 active members
• Can be used in load balanced environment
• Wizard for the Delphi IDE. It makes DelphiMVCFramework even more simple to use!
• Optional session support
• JSON Web Token Support (JWT) (check sample)
• Extendable using middleware - simple hooks to handle request/response (check sample)
• Flexible yet simple to use, authorization/authentication framework based on industry standards.
  • HTTP Basic Authentication
  • JWT Authentication
  • Custom Authentication
• CORS support
• Controllers inheritance! You can define your own base controller and inherit from it.
• Fancy URL with parameter mappings
• Specialized renders to generate text, HTML, JSON.
• Powerful and customizable mapper to serialize/deserialize data.
• Can be packaged as stand alone server, apache module (XE6 or better) and ISAPI dll
• Integrated RESTClient
• Works with XE7, XE8, Delphi 10 Seattle, Delphi 10.1 Berlin, Delphi 10.2 Tokyo, Delphi 10.3 Rio
• Works on Linux (Delphi 10.2 Tokyo or better)
• Completely unit tested (more than 130 unit tests)
• There is a sample for each functionality (check the dmvcframework_(yourversion)_samples.zip)
• Fully supported by bitTime Professionals (training, consultancy, custom development etc.)
• Server side generated pages using Mustache for Delphi
• Specific trainings are available (email to professionals@bittime.it for a date and a place)
• Messaging extension using ServerSentEvents
• Automatic documentation through /system/describeserver.info
• Driven by its huge community (Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/delphimvcframework)
• Semantic Versioning
• Simple and documented
• Continuously tested for Delphi versions incompatibilities by the proud compatibility maintainers

What's Cooking in the Lab

DelphiMVCFramework 3.2.0-boron (currently in RC phase)

WARNING! Considering the huge amount of features added in 3.1.1-beryllium during its RC phase, the dmvcframework-3.1.1-beryllium has been renamed to dmvcframework-3.2.0-boron

• New! Added Swagger support (thanks to João Antônio Duarte and Geoffrey Smith)
• New! Added SQLGenerator and RQL compiler for PostgreSQL, SQLite and MSSQLServer (in addition to MySQL, MariaDB, Firebird and Interbase)
• New! Added support for interfaces serialization - now it is possible to serialize Spring4D collections (thanks to João Antônio Duarte)
• New! Added support for Spring4D Nullable Types - check (thanks to João Antônio Duarte)
• Added TMVCJSONRPCExecutor.ConfigHTTPClient to fully customize the inner THTTPClient (e.g. ConnectionTimeout, ResponseTimeout and so on)
• Improved! Greatly improved support for HATEOAS in renders. Check TRenderSampleController.GetPeople_AsObjectList_HATEOS and all the others actions end with HATEOS in renders.dproj sample)

//Now is really easy to add "_links" property automatically for each collection element while rendering
Render<TPerson>(People, True,
    procedure(const APerson: TPerson; const Links: IMVCLinks)
    begin
      Links.AddRefLink
        .Add(HATEOAS.HREF, '/people/' + APerson.ID.ToString)
        .Add(HATEOAS.REL, 'self')
        .Add(HATEOAS._TYPE, 'application/json')
        .Add('title', 'Details for ' + APerson.FullName);
      Links.AddRefLink
        .Add(HATEOAS.HREF, '/people')
        .Add(HATEOAS.REL, 'people')
        .Add(HATEOAS._TYPE, 'application/json');
    end);

		
//Datasets have a similar anon method to do the same thing
Render(lDM.qryCustomers, False,
  procedure(const DS: TDataset; const Links: IMVCLinks)
  begin
	Links.AddRefLink
	  .Add(HATEOAS.HREF, '/customers/' + DS.FieldByName('cust_no').AsString)
	  .Add(HATEOAS.REL, 'self')
	  .Add(HATEOAS._TYPE, 'application/json');
	Links.AddRefLink
	  .Add(HATEOAS.HREF, '/customers/' + DS.FieldByName('cust_no').AsString + '/orders')
	  .Add(HATEOAS.REL, 'orders')
	  .Add(HATEOAS._TYPE, 'application/json');
  end);

//Single object rendering allows HATEOAS too!
Render(lPerson, False,
  procedure(const AObject: TObject; const Links: IMVCLinks)
  begin
	Links.AddRefLink
	  .Add(HATEOAS.HREF, '/people/' + TPerson(AObject).ID.ToString)
	  .Add(HATEOAS.REL, 'self')
	  .Add(HATEOAS._TYPE, TMVCMediaType.APPLICATION_JSON);
	Links.AddRefLink
	  .Add(HATEOAS.HREF, '/people')
	  .Add(HATEOAS.REL, 'people')
	  .Add(HATEOAS._TYPE, TMVCMediaType.APPLICATION_JSON);
  end);
	

• Better packages organization (check packages folder)
• New! TMVCActiveRecord.Count method (e.g. TMVCActiveRecord.Count(TCustomer) returns the number of records for the entity mapped by the class TCustomer)
• Change! TMVCACtiveRecord.GetByPK<T> raises an exception if the record is not found
• New! contains clause has been added in the RQL compiler for Firebird and Interbase
• New! TMVCAnalyticsMiddleware to do automatic analytics on the API (generates a CSV file). Based on an idea by Nirav Kaku (https://www.facebook.com/nirav.kaku). Check the sample in \samples\middleware_analytics\
• New! TMVCActiveRecord.DeleteAll deletes all the records from a table
• New! TMVCActiveRecord.DeleteRQL deletes records using an RQL expression as where clause.
• New! Microsoft SQLServer Support in MVCActiveRecord and RQL (thanks to one of the biggest Delphi based company in Italy which heavily uses DMVCFramework and DMSContainer)
• New! SQLite support in MVCActiveRecord and RQL, so that MVCActiveRecord can be used also for Delphi mobile projects!
• Default JSON Serializer can verbatim pass properties with type JsonDataObjects.TJSONObject without using string as carrier of JSON
• Improved! ActiveRecordShowCase sample is much better now.
• Improved! In case of unhandled exception TMVCEngine is compliant with the default response content-type (usually it did would reply using text/plain).
• Breaking Change! In MVCActiveRecord attribute MVCPrimaryKey has been removed and merged with MVCTableField, so now TMVCActiveRecordFieldOption is a set of foPrimaryKey, foAutoGenerated, foTransient (check activerecord_showcase.dproj sample).
• Breaking Change! TDataSetHolder doesn't renders dataset in a property called items but in a property named data (to be more standard)
• Added! New overloads for all the Log* calls. Now it is possible to call LogD(lMyObject) to get logged lMyObject as JSON (custom type serializers not supported in log).
• New! StrDict(array of string, array of string) function allows to render a dictionary of strings in a really simple way. See the following action sample.

procedure TMy.GetPeople(const Value: Integer);
begin
  if Value mod 2 <> 0 then
  begin
    raise EMVCException.Create(HTTP_STATUS.NotAcceptable, 'We don''t like odd numbers');
  end;
  Render(
    StrDict(
      ['id', 'message'],
      ['123', 'We like even numbers, thank you for your ' + Value.ToString]
    ));
end;

• New! Custom Exception Handling (Based on work of David Moorhouse). Sample "custom_exception_handling" show how to use it.
• Improved! Exceptions rendering while using MIME types different to application/json.
• Improved! JSONRPC Automatic Object Publishing can not invoke inherited methods if not explicitly defined with MVCInheritable attribute.
• Improved! Datasets serialization speed improvement. In some case the performance improves of 2 order of magnitude. (Thanks to https://github.com/pedrooliveira01)
• New! Added in operator in RQL parser (Thank you to João Antônio Duarte for his initial work on this)
• New! Added TMVCActiveRecord.Count<T>(RQL) to count record based on RQL criteria
• New! Calling <jsonrpcendpoint>/describe returns the methods list available for that endpoint.
• New! Experimental (alpha stage) support for Android servers!
• New! Added support for X-HTTP-Method-Override to work behind corporate firewalls.
• New Sample! Server in DLL
• Added new method in the dataset helper to load data into a dataset from a specific JSONArray property of a JSONObject procedure TDataSetHelper.LoadJSONArrayFromJSONObjectProperty(const AJSONObjectString: string; const aPropertyName: String);
• Improved! New constants defined in HTTP_STATUS to better describe the http status response.
• Improved! Now Firebird RQL' SQLGenerator can include primary key in CreateInsert if not autogenerated.
• New! Added support for TArray<String>, TArray<Integer> and TArray<Double> in default JSON serializer (Thank you Pedro Oliveira)
• Improved JWT Standard Compliance! Thanks to Vinicius Sanchez for his work on issue #241
• Improved! DMVCFramework now has 130+ unit tests that checks its functionalities at each build!
• New! StrToJSONObject function to safely parse a string into a JSON object.
• New! Serialization callback for custom TDataSet descendants serialization in TMVCJsonDataObjectsSerializer.

procedure TMainForm.btnDataSetToJSONArrayClick(Sender: TObject);
var
  lSer: TMVCJsonDataObjectsSerializer;
  lJArray: TJSONArray;
begin
  FDQuery1.Open();
  lSer := TMVCJsonDataObjectsSerializer.Create;
  try
    lJArray := TJSONArray.Create;
    try
      lSer.DataSetToJsonArray(FDQuery1, lJArray, TMVCNameCase.ncLowerCase, [],
        procedure(const aField: TField; const aJsonObject: TJSONObject; var Handled: Boolean)
        begin
          if SameText(aField.FieldName, 'created_at') then
          begin
            aJsonObject.S['year_and_month'] := FormatDateTime('yyyy-mm', TDateTimeField(aField).Value);
            Handled := True;
          end;
        end);
	  //The json objects will not contains "created_at" anymore, but only "year_and_month".
      Memo1.Lines.Text := lJArray.ToJSON(false);
    finally
      lJArray.Free;
    end;
  finally
    lSer.Free;
  end;
end;

• New! Shortcut render' methods which simplify RESTful API development

  • procedure ResponseCreated(const Location: String = ''; const Reason: String = 'Created'); virtual;
  • procedure ResponseAccepted(const HREF: String; const ID: String; const Reason: String = 'Accepted'); virtual;
  • procedure ResponseNoContent(const Reason: String = 'No Content'); virtual;

• Added de/serializing iterables (e.g. generic lists) support without MVCListOf attribute (Thank you to João Antônio Duarte).

  It is now possible to deserialize a generic class like this:

    TGenericEntity<T: class> = class
    private
      FCode: Integer;
      FItems: TObjectList<T>;
      FDescription: string;
    public
      constructor Create;
      destructor Destroy; override;
      property Code: Integer read FCode write FCode;
      property Description: string read FDescription write FDescription;
      // MVCListOf(T) <- No need
      property Items: TObjectList<T> read FItems write FItems;
    end;
  

  Before it was not possible because you should add the MVCListOf attribute to the TObjectList type property.

• New! The MVCAREntitiesGenerator can optionally register all the generated entities also in the ActiveRecordMappingRegistry (Thanks to Fabrizio Bitti from bit Time Software)

• Fixed! issue184

• Fixed! issue278

• Fixed! issue164

• Fixed! issue182

• Fixed! issue232 (Thanks to João Antônio Duarte)

• New Installation procedure!

  • Open the project group (select the correct one from the following table)
  • Build all
  • Install the design-time package (dmvcframeworkDT)
  • Add the following paths in the Delphi Library Path (here, C:\DEV\dmvcframework is the dmvcframework main folder)
    • C:\DEV\dmvcframework\sources
    • C:\DEV\dmvcframework\lib\loggerpro
    • C:\DEV\dmvcframework\lib\swagdoc\Source
    • C:\DEV\dmvcframework\lib\dmustache

Delphi Version	Project Group
Delphi 10.3 Rio	packages\d103\dmvcframework_group.groupproj
Delphi 10.2 Tokyo	packages\d102\dmvcframework_group.groupproj
Delphi 10.1 Berlin	packages\d101\dmvcframework_group.groupproj
Delphi 10.0 Seattle	packages\d100\dmvcframework_group.groupproj
Delphi XE8	packages\dxe8\dmvcframework_group.groupproj
Delphi XE7	packages\dxe7\dmvcframework_group.groupproj

DelphiMVCFramework 3.1.0-lithium (Current Release)

• New! Added TMVCActiveRecord framework (check sample activerecord_showcase and activerecord_crud)
• New! Added TMVCActiveRecordController (check sample activerecord_crud)
• Automatic permissions handling for TMVCActiveRecordController (check sample activerecord_crud)
• EntityProcessor for TMVCActiveRecordController (check sample activerecord_crud)
• Config[TMVCConfigKey.FallbackResource] is served only if request path is empty or /.
• New! Now the JSON-RPC executor provides methods to handle HTTP headers for JSON-RPC requests and notifications.
• TDataSetHolder is a new render able to render a dataset with a set of custom metadata (eg count,page etc). Check issue #137
• 404 and 500 status code returns always a text/plain content-type
• Refactored ISAPI sample
• Speed improvement! Removed enhanced visibility for action methods. Now only public and published methods can be used as actions.
• TMVCController.Create is virtual! Now on your base controllers can be even more powerful!
• New! Added MAX_REQUEST_SIZE for limiting the size of the incoming HTTP requests. IDE Expert is updated too!
• New! Added method TMVCJsonDataObjectsSerializer.ListToJsonArray
• New! TMVCResponse for handle generic (non error) response
• New! TMVCErrorResponse for handle generic error response
• New! Added class TMVCActiveRecordList used in the manual TMVCActiveRecord programming
• New! Added gzip compression support in addition to deflate in TCompressionMiddleware
• FIX for issue #143
• FIX for issue #141
• Removed deprecated methods in IRESTResponse
• FIX misspelled header name in IRESTResponse
• New! Added gzip and deflate support in TRestClient when reading responses
• TCompressionMiddleware has been renamed in TMVCCompressionMiddleware
• New! TMVCCompressionMiddleware is added by IDE Expert by default
• Removed the old JSON serializer based on `System.JSON.pas', now the only available JSON serializer is based on JsonDataObjects parser (Thank you Andreas Hausladen).
• Changed! Custom Types Serializer must be registered by media-type only, without charset definition (e.g. just application/json and not application/json;charset=utf-8)
• Changed! IMVCTypeSerializer is more powerful and simple to use!
• Sending wrongly formatted JSON now returns a more correctly 400 Bad Request and not 500 Internal Server Error as in the previous versions
• New! Support for Spring4d nullable types (check samples\renders_spring4d_nullables)
• New! TMVCJSONRPCPublisher allows to easily expose plain Delphi objects (and even datamodules) through a JSON-RPC 2.0 interface!
• Breaking Change! The JSON RPC Client layer is now interface based.

Roadmap

DelphiMVCFramework roadmap is always updated as-soon-as the features planned are implemented. Check the roadmap here.

Trainings, consultancy or custom development service

As you know, good support on open source software is a must for professional users. If you need trainings, consultancy or custom developments on DelphiMVCFramework, send an email to dmvcframework at bittime dot it. Alternatively you can send a request using the contacts forms on bittimeprofessionals website. bit Time Professionals is the company behind DelphiMVCFramework, al the main developers works there.

Release Notes

3.0.0 (hydrogen)

• First release of the 3.0.0 version

2.1.3 (lithium)

• FIX https://github.com/danieleteti/delphimvcframework/issues/64
• Added unit tests to avoid regressions

2.1.2 (helium)

• FIX for Delphi versions who don't have TJSONBool (Delphi XE8 or older)
• Added new conditional define in dmvcframework.inc: JSONBOOL (defined for Delphi Seattle+)

2.1.1 (hydrogen)

• Updated the IDE Expert to show the current version of the framework
• FIX to the mapper about the datasets null values (needs to be checked in old Delphi versions)
• ADDED support for Boolean values in datasets serialization
• ADDED unit tests about Mapper and dataset fields nullability
• The current version is available in constant DMVCFRAMEWORK_VERSION defined in MVCFramework.Commons.pas

Samples and documentation

DMVCFramework is provided with a lot of examples focused on specific functionality. All samples are in Samples folder. Check the DMVCFramework Developer Guide (work in progress).

Getting Started

Below the is a basic sample of a DMVCFramework server wich can be deployed as standa-alone application, as an Apache module or as ISAPI dll. This flexibility is provided by the Delphi WebBroker framework (built-in in Delphi since Delphi 4). The project contains an IDE Expert which make creating DMVCFramework project a breeze. However not all the Delphi version are supported, so here's the manual version (which is not complicated at all).

To create this server, you have to create a new Delphi Projects -> WebBroker -> WebServerApplication. Then add the following changes to the webmodule.

unit WebModuleUnit1;

interface

uses System.SysUtils, System.Classes, Web.HTTPApp, MVCFramework {this unit contains TMVCEngine class};

type
  TWebModule1 = class(TWebModule)
    procedure WebModuleCreate(Sender: TObject);
    procedure WebModuleDestroy(Sender: TObject);

  private
    MVC: TMVCEngine;

  public
    { Public declarations }
  end;

var
  WebModuleClass: TComponentClass = TWebModule1;

implementation

{$R *.dfm}

uses UsersControllerU; //this is the unit where is defined the controller

procedure TWebModule1.WebModuleCreate(Sender: TObject);
begin
  MVC := TMVCEngine.Create(Self);
  MVC.Config[TMVCConfigKey.DocumentRoot] := 'public_html'; //if you need some static html, javascript, etc (optional)
  MVC.AddController(TUsersController); //see next section to know how to create a controller
end;

procedure TWebModule1.WebModuleDestroy(Sender: TObject);
begin
  MVC.Free;
end;

end.

That's it! You have just created your first DelphiMVCFramework. Now you have to add a controller to respond to the http request.

Sample Controller

Below a basic sample of a DMVCFramework controller with 2 action

unit UsersControllerU;
  
interface
  
uses 
  MVCFramework;
 
type 
   [MVCPath('/users')]
   TUsersController = class(TMVCController)
   public

    //The following action will be with a GET request like the following
    //http://myserver.com/users/3
    [MVCPath('/($id)')]
    [MVCProduces('application/json')]
    [MVCHTTPMethod([httpGET])]
    [MVCDoc('Returns a user as a JSON object')]
    procedure GetUser(id: Integer);

    
    //The following action will be with a GET request like the following
    //http://myserver.com/users
    [MVCPath('/')]
    [MVCProduces('application/json')]
    [MVCHTTPMethod([httpGET])]
    [MVCDoc('Returns the users list as a JSON Array of JSON Objects')]
    procedure GetUsers;

    //The following action will be with a PUT request like the following
    //http://myserver.com/users/3
    //and in the request body there should be a serialized TUser
    [MVCPath('/($id)')]
    [MVCProduce('application/json')]
    [MVCHTTPMethod([httpPUT])]
    [MVCDoc('Update a user')]    
    procedure UpdateUser(id: Integer);

    //The following action will respond to a POST request like the following
    //http://myserver.com/users
    //and in the request body there should be the new user to create as json
    [MVCPath]
    [MVCProduce('application/json')]
    [MVCHTTPMethod([httpPOST])]
    [MVCDoc('Create a new user, returns the id of the new user')]
    procedure CreateUser;

  end;
 
implementation

uses
  MyTransactionScript; //contains actual data access code
  
{ TUsersController }

procedure TUsersController.GetUsers;
var
  Users: TObjectList<TUser>;
begin
  Users := GetUsers;
  Render(Users);
end;
 
procedure TUsersController.GetUser(id: Integer);
var
  User: TUser;
begin
  User := GetUserById(id);
  Render(User);
end;

procedure TUsersController.UpdateUser(id: Integer);
var
  User: TUser;
begin
  User := Context.Request.BodyAs<TUser>;
  UpdateUser(id, User);
  Render(User);
end;	
  
procedure TUsersController.CreateUser;
var
  User: TUser;
begin
  User := Context.Request.BodyAs<TUser>;
  CreateUser(User);
  Render(User);
end;	
  
end.

Now you have a performant RESTful server wich respond to the following URLs:

• GET /users/($id) (eg. /users/1, /users/45 etc)
• PUT /users/($id) (eg. /users/1, /users/45 etc with the JSON data in the request body)
• POST /users (the JSON data must be in the request body)

Quick Creation of DelphiMVCFramework Server

If you dont plan to deploy your DMVCFramework server behind a webserver (apache or IIS) you can also pack more than one listener application server into one single executable. In this case, the process is a bit different and involves the creation of a listener context. However, create a new server is a simple task:

uses
  MVCFramework.Server,
  MVCFramework.Server.Impl;

var
  LServerListener: IMVCListener;
begin
  LServerListener := TMVCListener.Create(TMVCListenerProperties.New
	 .SetName('Listener1')
	 .SetPort(5000)
	 .SetMaxConnections(1024)
	 .SetWebModuleClass(YourServerWebModuleClass)
   );  

  LServerListener.Start;
  LServerListener.Stop;
end;

If you want to add a layer of security (in its WebModule you should add the security middleware):

uses
  MVCFramework.Server,
  MVCFramework.Server.Impl,
  MVCFramework.Middleware.Authentication;

procedure TTestWebModule.WebModuleCreate(Sender: TObject);
begin
  FMVCEngine := TMVCEngine.Create(Self);
	
  // Add Yours Controllers
  FMVCEngine.AddController(TYourController);
	
  // Add Security Middleware
  FMVCEngine.AddMiddleware(TMVCBasicAuthenticationMiddleware.Create(
    TMVCDefaultAuthenticationHandler.New
    .SetOnAuthentication(
		procedure(const AUserName, APassword: string;
		  AUserRoles: TList<string>; var IsValid: Boolean; 
		  const ASessionData: TDictionary<String, String>)
		begin
		  IsValid := AUserName.Equals('dmvc') and APassword.Equals('123');
		end
		)
    ));
end;  

In stand alone mode you can work with a context that supports multiple listeners servers:

uses
  MVCFramework.Server,
  MVCFramework.Server.Impl;

var
  LServerListenerCtx: IMVCListenersContext;

begin
  LServerListenerCtx := TMVCListenersContext.Create;

  LServerListenerCtx.Add(TMVCListenerProperties.New
    .SetName('Listener1')
    .SetPort(6000)
    .SetMaxConnections(1024)
    .SetWebModuleClass(WebModuleClass1)
    );

  LServerListenerCtx.Add(TMVCListenerProperties.New
    .SetName('Listener2')
    .SetPort(7000)
    .SetMaxConnections(1024)
    .SetWebModuleClass(WebModuleClass2)
    );

  LServerListenerCtx.StartAll;
end;  

Links

Feel free to ask questions on the "Delphi MVC Framework" facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/delphimvcframework).