Laravel - How to consume and refresh external api into db using Guzzle - laravel

Question

I am having this model in my Laravel-5.8 project:
Employee
class Employee extends Model
{
protected $table = 'employees';
protected $primaryKey = 'id';
protected $fillable = [
'staff_code',
'first_name',
'last_name',
'department_id',
];
public function department()
{
return $this->belongsTo('App\Department','department_id');
}
}
That is,:
App\Employee
Also I have an external api that comes in form of JSON get request.
https://api.employees.net/allemployees
I have viewed it with postman get request and I have something like this:
{
"ID": "1",
"StaffCode": "STC001",
"FirstName": "Japheth",
"LastName": "Shalom",
"DepartmentCode": "dep2",
},
{
"ID": "2",
"StaffCode": "STC002",
"FirstName": "Ahitophel",
"last_name": "Nedum",
"DepartmentCode": "dep1",
},
{
"ID": "3",
"StaffCode": "STC003",
"FirstName": "Joash",
"FirstName": "Nathan",
"DepartmentCode": "dep2",
},
and so on... this continues
Already I have created this function:
use App\Employee;
use App\Department;
public function index()
{
$client = new GuzzleHttp\Client();
$res = $client->request('GET','https://api.employees.net/allemployees');
$clientdatas = json_decode($res, true);
...
}
Apart from the id and staff_code that are UNIQUE, any of the others fields too can change from the source.
Since any of the fields can change at any time. How do I refresh the entire db, save new data and update changes?
Thank you

Answer 1

I could do something like this:
use App\Employee;
use App\Department;
public function index()
{
$client = new GuzzleHttp\Client();
$res = $client->request('GET','https://api.employees.net/allemployees');
$clientdatas = json_decode($res->getBody()->getContents(), true);
foreach($clientdatas as $clientdata)
{
$employee = Employee::firstOrNew(['id' => $clientdata['ID']]);
$employee->staff_code = $clientdata['StaffCode'];
$employee->first_name = $clientdata['FirstName'];
$employee->last_name = $clientdata['LastName'];
$employee->save();
}
}
Every time you will make an API call, create an instance of the employee model, or get the associated model if the ID exists. Then assign the new values and save your model. This way, you will be able to either create or update the models in a single loop without any complexities.

Answer 2

Don't know will it work or not but the logic you can keep.. In the other answer he is querying under a loop which is bad!
Hope It will Help you a little bit
public function index() {
$client = new GuzzleHttp\Client();
$res = $client->request('GET','https://api.employees.net/allemployees');
$clientdatas = json_decode($res->getBody()->getContents(), true);
// create a blank array for insert
$insert_arr = [];
foreach($clientdatas as $clientdata) {
$make_array = [
'id' => $clientdata['ID'],
'staff_code' => $clientdata['StaffCode'],
'first_name' => $clientdata['FirstName'],
.
.
];
array_push($insert_arr, $make_array);
// Now the the $insert_arr will ready for insert
}
// Here you have to check its duplicate or not
$exist_in_db = Employee::all('id')->toArray(); // get the id array from db
// do the stuff for unset the duplicate
$final_id = array_map(function($value) {
return $value['id'];
}, $team_id);
unset($exist_in_db);
if(count($final_id) > 0){
foreach ($insert_arr as $key => $value) {
if (in_array($value['id'], $final_id)) {
unset($insert_arr[$key]);
} else {
array_push($final_id, $value['id']);
}
}
}
// finally insert it here
if (count($insert_arr) > 0) {
Employee::insert($insert_arr);
}
}
Let me know its helpful or not!