Lodata is an implementation of the OData v4.01 Producer protocol, designed for use with the Laravel framework.
OData (Open Data Protocol) is an ISO/IEC approved, OASIS standard that defines a set of best practices for building and consuming RESTful APIs.
OData helps you focus on your business logic while building RESTful APIs without having to worry about the various approaches to define request and response headers, status codes, HTTP methods, URL conventions, media types, payload formats, query options, etc. OData also provides guidance for tracking changes, defining functions/actions for reusable procedures, and sending asynchronous/batch requests.
OData RESTful APIs are easy to consume. The OData metadata, a machine-readable description of the data model of the APIs, enables the creation of powerful generic client proxies and tools. The metadata is available in OData-specific XML and JSON formats, as well as an OpenAPI v3 document.
There are many tools and techniques for exposing APIs from Laravel and there are some specific use cases where Lodata could be a great fit for your application:
- Developing single page applications and mobile applications with OData-supporting enterprise UI frameworks such as Sencha ExtJS, DevExtreme, Kendo UI and Syncfusion.
- Making live connections to business intelligence tools such as Excel, PowerBI, and Tableau, avoiding clunky CSX/XLSX exports.
- Publishing an out-of-the-box discoverable OpenAPI document for tools like Postman to help third parties interact with your application.
- Developing microservices in Laravel. With all OData services having the same request syntax, as your team develops many services you can guarantee API consistency.
- Create real simple integrations with enterprise applications from SAP, SalesForce and Microsoft. Present forms, tabular data and search interfaces in these applications without writing a single line of code.
You can construct OData requests using any HTTP client, but there are also many developer-friendly OData libraries for different programming languages.
Now go check out the five-minute getting started guide!
Flat3 now provides commercial support for Lodata. If you need help integrating Lodata into your application, want to build a Lodata-powered service or need new features then get in touch.