REST API permalink queries

[johnhhorton]

Issue:
In an SPA theme build, it's possible to query a post/page by ID or slug. If a user is starting from a single entry point, it's possible to explicitly create routes and menus in the JavaScript framework, and have them point to other views/resources. While the page is setup, the front end already has all the IDs it needs.

In a situation where a user navigates a fresh tab to website.com/blog/2017/06/(or some other structure), the front end framework would have to parse the url to understand what the user is trying to do. This is an issue for things like a search page, archives, cpts, etc. While it's possible to hard code, or even pass routes at load time to the JS framework's routing system and route analysis functions, it would be much better to create an alternate method of querying for urls.

Possible solution
In my setup, I solve this by:
index.php loads for any request
Front-end uses a wildcard for all front-end routing
Front-end Passes the current url to a custom rest-api endpoint before loading content
Custom endpoint runs a query on the url provided (sample code below)
Custom endpoint returns the entire query object back to the front-end
Front-end converts all received content's anchor tags to <router-link>s
Front-end determines which view template should be used based on the query object
Front-end passes posts array to the chosen view template
Front-end displays appropriate template for the content (page, post, custom page template, cpt archive, archive, search, 404, etc)

(repeat for following page requests)

In this scenario, WordPress is given control of ALL routes and template decisions(though templates aren't the baked in controls due to lack of customizability). A simple url querying endpoint returns all needed data to display a view on initial page load, as well as following page loads, using the permalink structure already in WordPress.

//Example query before performing additional rest-api controller modifications
global $wp;
global $wp_query;
$path = $request->get_param('path');
$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] = $path;
$wp->parse_request();
$wp->query_posts();
$posts = $wp_query->posts;
//The query could be condensed into a cleaner format
//Posts are passed through the normal rest-api controller functions

Overall this feature would allow for more simplicity on the front end, while letting WordPress keep all of the administrative power it's used to. Changes to the back-end wouldn't break any hard coded values in the front-end (like I've commonly seen in tutorials).

[rmccue]

During WordCamp Europe 2017 Contributor Day, a few people started on a solution to this: ​https://github.com/worona/permalinks-to-wp-api

For now, there's no immediate need for this ability in WordPress core, but we might add it in the future. In the meantime, try the above plugin.