{"id":22261,"date":"2021-01-06T17:40:49","date_gmt":"2021-01-06T17:40:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/how_to_build_an_enhanced_gravatar_service_part_2"},"modified":"2021-01-06T17:40:49","modified_gmt":"2021-01-06T17:40:49","slug":"how_to_build_an_enhanced_gravatar_service_part_2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cloudinary.com\/blog\/how_to_build_an_enhanced_gravatar_service_part_2","title":{"rendered":"How to Build an Enhanced Gravatar Service, Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Part 1<\/a> of this post defines the capabilities of an enhanced Gravatar service, which I named Clavatar, and describes the following initial steps for building it:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Set up the database.<\/li>\n
  2. Establish the user-registration process.<\/li>\n
  3. Install the Cloudinary PHP Library, version 2.0.0-Beta.<\/li>\n
  4. Implement the image-upload operation.<\/li>\n
  5. Associate images with user accounts.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    This post, part 2 of the series, explains how to make Clavatar work like Gravatar and to develop Clavatar\u2019s capabilities of enabling requests for various versions of the images related to user accounts.<\/p>\n

    Image Retrieval Through User Hashes<\/h2>\n

    Recall that Gravatar retrieves user images through their hash in a URL, as in this example:<\/p>\n

    https:\/\/www.gravatar.com\/avatar\/205e460b479e2e5b48aec07710c08d50<\/code><\/p>\n

    To enable Clavatar to do the same, set up the API endpoint, as follows:<\/p>\n

    1.<\/strong> Add the following to the routes\/web.php<\/code> file:<\/p>\n

    $router->get('avatar\/{hash}'<\/span>, 'AvatarController@retrieveAvatar'<\/span>);\n<\/code><\/span>Code language:<\/span> PHP<\/span> (<\/span>php<\/span>)<\/span><\/small><\/pre>\n
    2.<\/strong> Add the following retrieveAvatar<\/code> function to the app\/Http\/Controllers\/AvatarController.php<\/code> file:<\/p>\n
    public<\/span> function<\/span> retrieveAvatar<\/span>(Request $request, $hash)<\/span>\n    <\/span>{\n        $defaultImageTag = $this<\/span>->cloudinary->imageTag('default'<\/span>)->serialize();\n        $defaultImageUrl = $this<\/span>->cloudinary->image('default'<\/span>)->toUrl();\n\n        $user = User::where('hash'<\/span>, $hash)->first();\n\n        if<\/span>(is_null($user)) {\n            return<\/span> $defaultImageTag;\n        }\n\n        $publicId = $user->avatar_id;\n\n        $imageUrl = $this<\/span>->cloudinary->image($publicId);\n        $imageTag = $this<\/span>->cloudinary->imageTag($publicId);\n\n        return<\/span> $imageTag->serialize();\n    }\n<\/code><\/span>Code language:<\/span> PHP<\/span> (<\/span>php<\/span>)<\/span><\/small><\/pre>\n
    The code above does the following:<\/p>\n