From b39e004d48bccffcc83843b2ee4e1ebdc5cf489a Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: colin <colin@cicadas.surf>
Date: Sat, 11 May 2024 13:31:47 -0700
Subject: Add: readme discussion about route defining

---
 README.org | 82 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 82 insertions(+)

diff --git a/README.org b/README.org
index 940f192..6321006 100644
--- a/README.org
+++ b/README.org
@@ -56,3 +56,85 @@ OOPyness is an advantage. Object orientation allows one to:
 - Similarly, you can automatically generate API client code for your
   langauge of choice.
 
+
+** Defining Routes
+
+All routes are defined by supplying route parts.
+
+Each route part is a string and these strings are combined into a
+regular expression.
+
+Match groups inside the regular expression are extracted and parsed
+according to the value of the ~:extractors~ slot.
+
+If there are N match groups in a route, then there must be N extractors.
+
+E.g
+
+#+begin_src lisp
+(defclass example ()
+  ((foo-id
+    :type integer
+    :reader foo-id
+    :initarg :foo-id)
+   (bar-val
+    :type string
+    :reader bar-val
+    :initarg :bar-val))
+  (:metaclass weekend:endpoint)
+  (:method . :get)
+  (:route-groups "foo" "([0-9]+)" "bar" "(blah|nah)")
+  (:extractors (:foo-id parse-integer) :bar-val))
+
+#+end_src
+
+
+In ~:route-groups~ there are four parts, two match groups, and two
+extractors.
+
+The parts will be combined into a regular expression:
+="^/foo/([0-9]+)/bar/(blah|nah)$"=
+
+The first match group matches a string of digits. That string is
+parsed by ~parse-integer~ and then supplied to the ~:foo-id~ initarg.
+
+The second match group matches either ~"blah"~ or ~"nah"~ and is
+passed as-is tot he ~:bar-val~ initarg.
+
+This class would handle the route =GET /foo/322/bar/nah= for example.
+
+You might be asking yourself "why not just write the regex as a
+string?"  Well thats a good question. You can actually do that (dig
+into the ~endpoint~ metaclass yourself to see how), but the reason I
+prefer ~:route-parts~ is to allow for defining your regex pattern
+groups outside of the route as module parameters. See
+examples/dice-roller.lisp.
+
+** Passing Values in Query Params
+
+Here we modify the above example by only passing one argument in the
+route, leaving the other to be a query parameter.
+
+#+begin_src lisp
+(defclass example2 ()
+  ((foo-id
+    :type integer
+    :reader foo-id
+    :initarg :foo-id)
+   (bar-val
+    :type string
+    :reader bar-val
+    :initarg :bar-val
+    :initform (weekend:slot-required 'bar-val 'example2))
+  (:metaclass weekend:endpoint)
+  (:method . :get)
+  (:route-groups "foo" "([0-9]+)" "bar")
+  (:extractors (:foo-id parse-integer)))
+
+#+end_src
+
+This would handle routes like =GET /foo/323/bar?bar-val=moo=
+
+If ~bar-val~ had not been supplied in the query parameters, the
+~slot-required~ error would be signalled and the client would receive
+a 400 HTTP response code.
-- 
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