How to determine where a request is coming from in a REST api

Question

I have an RESTful API with controllers that should return a JSON response when is being hit by my android application and a "view" when it's being hit by a web browser. I'm not even sure I'm approaching this the right way. I'm using Laravel and this is what my controller looks like

class TablesController extends BaseController {      public function index()     {         $tables  = Table::all();          return Response::json($tables);     } } 

I need something like this

class TablesController extends BaseController {      public function index()     {         $tables  = Table::all();          if(beingCalledFromWebBrowser){             return View::make('table.index')->with('tables', $tables);         }else{ //Android              return Response::json($tables);         }     } 

See how the responses differ from each other?

Answer 1

Note::This is for future viewers

The approach I found convenient using a prefix api for api calls. In the route file use

Route::group('prefix'=>'api',function(){     //handle requests by assigning controller methods here for example     Route::get('posts', 'Api\Post\PostController@index'); } 

In the above approach, I separate controllers for api call and web users. But if you want to use the same controller then Laravel Request has a convenient way. You can identify the prefix within your controller.

public function index(Request $request) {     if( $request->is('api/*')){         //write your logic for api call         $user = $this->getApiUser();     }else{         //write your logic for web call         $user = $this->getWebUser();     } } 

The is method allows you to verify that the incoming request URI matches a given pattern. You may use the * character as a wildcard when utilizing this method.