todo_list_explanation.md

JSON Todo List Exercise

• Quick Reference
• Setup
• Overview
• GET Requests
• POST Requests
• Examples

Quick Reference

GET

Parameters	Description
none	returns all todos
complete=?	returns all todos that are completed or not
order_by=?[direction=asc|desc]	sort items by a property of the todo, optionally in ascending or descending order
id=?	returns the todo with the given id

---

POST

Parameters	Description
content=?[&priority=?][&due_date=?]	create a new todo
id=?&action=update&content=?[&priority=?][&due_date=?]	update a todo
id=?&action=delete	delete a todo
id=?&action=complete[&state=true|false]	mark a todo as completed or remove the completed status

See more detailed instructions below

The Todo Object

Each todo is represented as an object that has several properties

property	type	description
content	string	title or content of the todo
id	number	this will be unique for each item
created_at	Date	automatically generated date
priority	number	must be an integer >= 0
due_date	Date	optional
completed	Date	date completed, defaults to null

GET Requests

Used for retrieving data

• a get with no parameters will return all the todos
• sending the parameter complete with a value of true or false will give all todo items that are completed or not, respectively
• sending the parameter id with a value of a todo item's id will return just that one todo item
• sending the parameter order_by with a value of one of the todo item's properties will sort the results by that property
  • you can also send a direction parameter for the direction of the sort that takes values asc or desc
  • defaults to ascending order if no direction is passed

POST Requests

Used for creating and modifying data

Creating a Record

Sending only content, priority, and due_date parameters will create a new todo item, content is required, priority will default to 0, and due_date will default to null if nothing is passed.

The server's response will be the object that was newly created or an error message if something went wrong.

Modifying a Record

To modify a record you must pass two parameters:

• id, the id of the record to be modified
• action one of update, delete, or complete
  • update: will also take three additional parameters, content, which is required, priority and due_date are optional. All properties will be updated accordingly.
  • delete: as the name implies will delete the todo item
  • complete: optionally takes a state parameter with values true or false
    • if no state parameter is passed, or if state is set to true, the completed property of the todo will be set to the time when the server receives your ajax request
    • if state is set to false, the complete property of the todo will be set to null

The server's response will be the object that was modified, or an error message if something went wrong.

Examples

Update a todo's information

$.post('/todo-json.php',{
    "id": 3,
    "action": "update",
    "content": "updated todo item"
});

Get all completed todos and sort them by descending priority

$.ajax({
    "url": "/todo-json.php",
    "type": "GET",
    "data": {
        "complete": "true",
        "order_by": "priority",
        "direction": "desc"
    }
});

Great documentation! It's missing the $GET parameters for sorting and setting the sort direction though.

$.get('/todo-json.php', {
  order_by: "priority",
  direction: "asc"   // Sort in ascending order
  direction: "desc"  // Sort in descending order
});

Thanks Rick, it's now updated!