Use customtag or wheels model for connection code to external api?

[Thorsten Eilers]

Hi,

what's the better way to connect to an external api?

Use a customtag in the wheels lib folder or put the code in a tableless wheels model?

I will use this code only in one app, so a transfer to another app is not the case.

Thorsten

[Tom King]

I connect to a lot of external APIs, and I tend to try and bunch their logic up into CFCs so they're there in a format I can reuse if needed.

So I'll do something like

/miscellaneous/xero/xero.cfc

then I can do stuff like

    xero = new miscellaneous.xero.xero(

      client_id = application.settings.XERO_CLIENT_ID,

      client_secret = application.settings.XERO_CLIENT_SECRET 

    ); 
     local.token = xero.refreshToken();

wherever I need to.

It just means I can encapsulate that logic in a single place, and standardise the return / get formats etc.

Nothing stopping you doing it in a tableless model I guess, but I tend to want the flexibility of it in a standard CFC incase I need to move it outside of wheels or share the code.

T

[Thorsten Eilers]

Thanks Tom.

This seems to be logical.