# strapi-plugin-populate

## 🚀   _Overview_

This plugin implements a simple way to populate data relations from the strapi through http requests preventing the needed to create a new controller just to implement this necessity.

**THIS PLUGIN WAS IMPLEMENTED BASED ON STRAPI V3.1.3 AND WAS NOT TESTED FOR OTHER VERSIONS!!!**

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## ⏳   _Installation_

With npm:
```bash
npm install strapi-plugin-populate
```

With yarn:
```bash
yarn add strapi-plugin-populate
```

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### ✨   _**POPULATE** Feature_

Now you can pass another type of filter in your query parameters, `_populate`, allowing you to select which field you want to populate from the API.

```bash
GET http://localhost:1337/articles?_populate=author,author.picture
```

Also you can pass it configured in your routes as a `populate` config option, populating the selected fields mandatorily:
```json
{
  "routes": [
    {
      "method": "GET",
      "path": "/articles",
      "handler": "Article.find",
      "config": {
        "policies": [],
        "populate": ["author", "author.picture"]
      }
    }
  ]
}
```

_If you want to avoid default first level populating from strapi core, you can set a `_populate` for an unexistent model relation, like `null`:_

```bash
GET http://localhost:1337/articles?_populate=null
```
_It will return your data with no populate for default first level relations, preventing data overfetchings._

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## ❗    _Cautions_
This plugin overrides the strapi core crontroller creator for content-types, and disable the `find` and `findOne` custom functions on your api controllers, so if you want to customize the `find` or `findOne` controller, please create a function with a different name for your self purposes. 

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## 🎉    _Congradulations, You're done._

I hope this plugin helps you in your strapi projects and save a lot of time and code.

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## 📜   _License_

This project is under the MIT license. See the [LICENSE](./LICENSE) for details.

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💻   Developed by André Ciornavei - [Get in touch!](https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreciornavei/)