Working with models and mapping templates - Amazon API Gateway
ModelsMapping templates
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Working with models and mapping templates

In API Gateway, an API's method request can take a payload in a different format from the corresponding integration request payload, as required in the backend. Similarly, the backend may return an integration response payload different from the method response payload, as expected by the frontend. API Gateway lets you use mapping templates to map the payload from a method request to the corresponding integration request and from an integration response to the corresponding method response.

A mapping template is a script expressed in Velocity Template Language (VTL) and applied to the payload using JSONPath expressions.

The payload can have a data model according to the JSON schema draft 4. You must define the model in order to have API Gateway to generate a SDK or to enable basic request validation for your API. You don't have to define any model to create a mapping template. However, a model can help you create a template because API Gateway will generate a template blueprint based on a provided model.

Topics

Models

In API Gateway, a model defines the data structure of a payload. In API Gateway models are defined using the JSON schema draft 4.

The following JSON object describes sample data that describes the fruit or vegetable inventory in the produce department of a likely supermarket.

Suppose we have an API for managing fruit and vegetable inventory in the produce department of a supermarket. When a manager queries the backend for the current inventory, the server sends back the following response payload: 

{
  "department": "produce",
  "categories": [
    "fruit",
    "vegetables"
  ],
  "bins": [
    {
      "category": "fruit",
      "type": "apples",
      "price": 1.99,
      "unit": "pound",
      "quantity": 232
    },
    {
      "category": "fruit",
      "type": "bananas",
      "price": 0.19,
      "unit": "each",
      "quantity": 112
    },
    {
      "category": "vegetables",
      "type": "carrots",
      "price": 1.29,
      "unit": "bag",
      "quantity": 57
    }
  ]
}

The JSON object has three properties:

  • The department property has a string value (produce).

  • The categories property is an array of two strings: fruit and vegetables.

  • The bins property is an array of objects that have the string or number properties of category, type, price, unit, and quantity.

We can use the following JSON schema to define the model for the preceding data: 

{
  "$schema": "http://json-schema.org/draft-04/schema#",
  "title": "GroceryStoreInputModel",
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "department": { "type": "string" },
    "categories": {
      "type": "array",
      "items": { "type": "string" }
    },
    "bins": {
      "type": "array",
      "items": {
        "type": "object",
        "properties": {
          "category": { "type": "string" },
          "type": { "type": "string" },
          "price": { "type": "number" },
          "unit": { "type": "string" },
          "quantity": { "type": "integer" }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

In the preceding example model:

  • The $schema object represents a valid JSON Schema version identifier. In this example, it refers to JSON Schema, draft v4.

  • The title object is a human-readable identifier for the model. In this example, it is GroceryStoreInputModel.

  • The top-level, or root, construct in the JSON data is an object.

  • The root object in the JSON data contains department, categories, and bins properties.

  • The department property is a string object in the JSON data.

  • The categories property is an array in the JSON data. The array contains string values in the JSON data.

  • The bins property is an array in the JSON data. The array contains objects in the JSON data. Each of these objects in the JSON data contains a category string, a type string, a price number, a unit string, and a quantity integer (a number without a fraction or exponent part).

Alternatively, you could include part of this schema (for example, the item definition of the bins array) in a separate section of the same file, and use the $ref primitive to reference this reusable definition in other parts of the schema. Using $ref, the preceding model definition file can be expressed as follows: 

{
  "$schema": "http://json-schema.org/draft-04/schema#",
  "title": "GroceryStoreInputModel",
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "department": { "type": "string" },
    "categories": {
      "type": "array",
      "items": { "type": "string" }
    },
    "bins": {
      "type": "array",
      "items": {
        "$ref": "#/definitions/Bin"
      }
    }
  },
  "definitions": { 
    "Bin" : {
      "type": "object",
      "properties": {
        "category": { "type": "string" },
        "type": { "type": "string" },
        "price": { "type": "number" },
        "unit": { "type": "string" },
        "quantity": { "type": "integer" }
      }
    }
  }
}

The definitions section contains the schema definition of the Bin item that is referenced in the bins array with "$ref": "#/definitions/Bin". Using reusable definitions this way makes your model definition easier to read.

In addition, you can also reference another model schema defined in an external model file by setting that model's URL as the value of the $ref property: "$ref": "https://apigateway.amazonaws.com/restapis/{restapi_id}/models/{model_name}". For example, suppose you have the following full-fledged model named Bin that is created under an API with an identifier of fugvjdxtri: 

{
  "$schema": "http://json-schema.org/draft-04/schema#",
  "title": "GroceryStoreInputModel",
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
      "Bin" : {
        "type": "object",
        "properties": {
            "category": { "type": "string" },
            "type": { "type": "string" },
            "price": { "type": "number" },
            "unit": { "type": "string" },
            "quantity": { "type": "integer" }
        }
      }
   }  
}

You can then reference it from the GroceryStoreInputModel from the same API, as follows: 

{
  "$schema": "http://json-schema.org/draft-04/schema#",
  "title": "GroceryStoreInputModel",
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "department": { "type": "string" },
    "categories": {
      "type": "array",
      "items": { "type": "string" }
    },
    "bins": {
      "type": "array",
      "items": {
        "$ref": "https://apigateway.amazonaws.com/restapis/fugvjdxtri/models/Bin"
      }
    }
  }
}

The referencing and referenced models must be from the same API.

The examples don't use advanced JSON schema features, such as specifying required items, minimums and maximums (for allowed string lengths, numeric values, and array item lengths), and regular expressions. For more information, see Introducing JSON and JSON schema draft 4.

For more complex JSON data formats and their models, see the following examples:

To experiment with models in API Gateway, follow the instructions in Map response payload, specifically Step 1: Create models.

Mapping templates

When the backend returns the query results (shown in the Models section), the manager of the produce department might be interested in reading them, as follows: 

{
  "choices": [
    {
      "kind": "apples",
      "suggestedPrice": "1.99 per pound",
      "available": 232
    },
    {
      "kind": "bananas",
      "suggestedPrice": "0.19 per each",
      "available": 112
    },
    {
      "kind": "carrots",
      "suggestedPrice": "1.29 per bag",
      "available": 57
    }
  ]
}

To enable this, we need to provide API Gateway with a mapping template to translate the data from the backend format. The following mapping template does that. 

#set($inputRoot = $input.path('$'))
{
  "choices": [
#foreach($elem in $inputRoot.bins)
    {
      "kind": "$elem.type",
      "suggestedPrice": "$elem.price per $elem.unit",
      "available": $elem.quantity
    }#if($foreach.hasNext),#end
            
#end
  ]
}

Let us now examine some details of the preceding output mapping template:

  • The $inputRoot variable represents the root object in the original JSON data from the previous section. The variables in an output mapping template map to the original JSON data, not the desired transformed JSON data schema.

  • The choices array in the output mapping template is mapped from the bins array with the root object in the original JSON data ($inputRoot.bins).

  • In the output mapping template, each of the objects in the choices array (represented by $elem) are mapped from the corresponding objects in the bins array within the root object in the original JSON data.

  • In the output mapping template, for each of objects in the choices object, the values of the kind and available objects (represented by $elem.type and $elem.quantity) are mapped from the corresponding values of the type and value objects in each of the objects in the original JSON data's bins array, respectively.

  • In the output mapping template, for each of objects in the choices object, the value of the suggestedPrice object is a concatenation of the corresponding value of the price and unit objects in each of the objects in the original JSON data, respectively, with each value separated by the word per.

For more information about the Velocity Template Language, see Apache Velocity - VTL Reference. For more information about JSONPath, see JSONPath - XPath for JSON.

The mapping template assumes that the underlying data is of a JSON object. It does not require that a model be defined for the data. As an API developer, you know the data formats at both the front and backends. That knowledge can guide you to define the necessary mappings without ambiguity.

To have an SDK generated for the API, the preceding data is returned as a language-specific object. For strongly typed languages, such as Java, Objective-C, or Swift, the object corresponds to a user-defined data type (UDT). API Gateway creates such a UDT if you provide it with a data model. For the preceding method response example, you can define the following payload model in the integration response: 

{
  "$schema": "http://json-schema.org/draft-04/schema#",
  "title": "GroceryStoreOutputModel",
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "choices": {
      "type": "array",
      "items": {
        "type": "object",
        "properties": {
          "kind": { "type": "string" },
          "suggestedPrice": { "type": "string" },
          "available": { "type": "integer" }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

In this model, the JSON schema is expressed as follows:

  • The $schema object represents a valid JSON schema version identifier. In this example, it refers to JSON schema, draft v4.

  • The title object is a human-readable identifier for the model. In this example, it is GroceryStoreOutputModel.

  • The top-level, or root, construct in the JSON data is an object.

  • The root object in the JSON data contains an array of objects.

  • Each object in the array of objects contains a kind string, a suggestedPrice string, and an available integer (a number without a fraction or exponent part).

With this model, you can call an SDK to retrieve the kind, suggestedPrice, and available property values by reading the GroceryStoreOutputModel[i].kind, GroceryStoreOutputModel[i].suggestedPrice, and GroceryStoreOutputModel[i].available properties, respectively. If no model is provided, API Gateway uses the empty model to create a default UDT. In this case, you aren't able to read these properties using a strongly-typed SDK.

To explore more complex mapping templates, see the following examples:

To experiment with mapping templates in API Gateway, follow the instructions in Map response payload, specifically Step 5: Set up and test the methods.