Unified Fetch API for HTTP and files

✨ New (2023-08): The version 1.0.0 requiring Dart 3. When Dart 2 is required, please use the older version datatools 0.8.2 supporting Dart 2.

Key features:

• Fetch data from HTTP and file resources and other data sources.
• Fetch API abstraction (content, control data, exceptions, fetch interface).
• Fetch API binding to HTTP and HTTPS resources (using http).
• Fetch API binding to file resources (based on dart:io).
• Metadata structures to handle links.

Usage

Please, see more detailed examples on sample code.

Imports when using Fetch API for HTTP:

import 'package:datatools/fetch_http.dart';

Setting up a HTTP fetcher, fetching JSON, and also handling errors:

  // create a simple fetcher with an endpoint and headers
  final fetcher = HttpFetcher.simple(
          endpoints: [Uri.parse('https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/')])
      .headers({'user-agent': 'myapp'});

  // fetch by a relative path, get content as JSON and handle errors
  try {
    final json = 
        await fetcher.fetchJson(Uri(path: 'posts/1')) as Map<String, dynamic>;
    // do something with JSON data...
  } on OriginException catch (e) {
    // handle exceptions ("not found" etc.) issued by origin server
  } catch (e) {
    // handle other exceptions, like caused by client code 
  }

The package supports using the same Fetch API interface also for reading files:

  // create a file fetcher with a directory as a base path
  final fetcher = FileFetcher.basePath('test');

  // fetch json from a file resource
  try {
    final json = await fetcher.fetchJson(Uri(path: 'file_test_data.json'))
        as Map<String, dynamic>;
    // do something with JSON data...
  } on OriginException catch (e) {
    // handle exceptions ("not found" etc.) issued by file system
  } catch (e) {
    // handle other exceptions, like caused by client code 
  }

Both data source bindings share the same Fetch API interface as described below:

/// An interface to fetch data from a resource like Web API, a cache or a file.
abstract class FetchApi<C extends Content> {
  const FetchApi();

  /// Fetch (read fully) content body from a resource identified by [reference].
  ///
  /// Depending on the API the [reference] can be a relative path, an absolute
  /// URL, a key, or other identifier relevant on a context of an API.
  ///
  /// Throws an `ApiException` if fetching fails. Implementations like HTTP
  /// fetcher may also throw other status codes than codes for success as
  /// exceptions.
  Future<C> fetch(Uri reference);

  /// Fetch content as a stream from a resource identified by [reference].
  Future<C> fetchStream(Uri reference);

  /// Fetch content body as text from a resource identified by [reference].
  Future<String> fetchText(Uri reference);

  /// Fetch content body as bytes from a resource identified by [reference].
  Future<Uint8List> fetchBytes(Uri reference);

  /// Fetch content body as JSON data from a resource identified by [reference].
  ///
  /// An optional [reviver] function is applied when decoding json string data.
  /// See `JsonCodec` of the `dart:convert` package for more information.
  Future<dynamic> fetchJson(Uri reference,
      {Object? Function(Object? key, Object? value)? reviver});
}

Key methods and properties available on the Content interface are:

  /// The URI `reference` to a resource this content is referring.
  Uri get reference;

  /// The expected media type.
  MediaType get mediaType;

  /// The expected charset `encoding`.
  Encoding get encoding;

  /// An optional content length as number of bytes.
  int? get contentLength;

  /// Reads content body as text and returns a future of String.
  Future<String> get text;

  /// Reads content body as bytes and returns a future of Uint8List.
  Future<Uint8List> get bytes;

  /// Reads content body as bytes and returns a future of ByteData.
  ///
  /// Optional `start` and `end` parameters define a range to be read. It's
  /// required that `0 ≤ start ≤ end ≤ contentLength`. See also
  /// `ByteData.sublistView` for reference.
  Future<ByteData> byteData([int start = 0, int? end]);

  /// Returns content body as a single-subscription byte stream.
  Stream<List<int>> byteStream();

  /// Reads and decodes content body as a JSON object, returned in a future.
   Future<dynamic> decodeJson();

Installing

The package requires at least Dart 3 from the stable channel.

In the pubspec.yaml of your project add the dependency:

dependencies:
  datatools: ^1.0.0

If you are not ready to use Dart 3, then you should check the older version datatools 0.8.2 supporting Dart 2.

Libraries

The package contains following mini-libraries:

Library	Description
base_api	Generic API abstractions (addresses, content, control data, exceptions).
fetch_api	Fetch API abstraction (addresses, content, control data, exceptions, fetch).
fetch_http	Fetch API binding to HTTP and HTTPS resources (using http).
fetch_file	Fetch API binding to file resources (based on dart:io).
meta_link	Metadata structures to handle links.

The fetch_file mini library works on all platforms except web. Other libraries should work on all Dart platforms.

For example to access a mini library you should use an import like:

import 'package:datatools/fetch_http.dart';

To use all (expect fetch_file that must be imported separately) libraries of the package:

import 'package:datatools/datatools.dart';

Authors

This project is authored by Navibyte.

More information and other links are available at the dataflow repository from GitHub.

License

This project is licensed under the "BSD-3-Clause"-style license.

Please see the LICENSE.