Library Manager – WordPress Plugin (Custom Table + REST API + React Admin)

A fully functional WordPress plugin that manages a library of books using:

• A custom database table
• Secure and validated REST API endpoints
• Modern React-based single-page admin interface

Author: Akash Kumar Bhowmik
Version: 1.0.0

Features

• Custom table wp_library_books created on activation using dbDelta()
• Full CRUD REST API under /wp-json/library/v1
• Secure: nonce verification, capability checks (edit_posts), input sanitization/validation
• React SPA admin dashboard (no external CDN dependencies)
• Production-ready React build bundled with the plugin
• Clean, modular, and WordPress coding standards compliant PHP code
• Bonus features implemented:
  • Pagination & filtering in GET /books
  • WP-CLI command: wp library import sample.json

Installation Steps

1. Download or clone the repository

   git clone https://github.com/akashbhowmik54/library-manager.git

• Option A – Install via ZIP Zip the library-manager folder In WordPress Admin → Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin → Choose the ZIP → Install & Activate

• Option B – Manual install Copy the library-manager folder into /wp-content/plugins/ Activate the plugin from the WordPress Plugins page

Upon activation, the plugin automatically creates the wp_library_books table. Go to 'Library Manager' in the WordPress admin menu to access the React admin app.

How to Build the React App (Development) The React source code is located in admin/build/. Bashcd library-manager/admin/build

Install dependencies

npm install

Start development server (hot reload)

npm start

Build for production (outputs to admin/build/assets)

npm run build The production build is automatically enqueued by the plugin. After rebuilding, simply refresh the Dashboard page. No external CDN scripts are used – fully compliant with assignment requirements.

REST API Documentation Base URL: /wp-json/library/v1

status – available | borrowed | unavailable author – string filter year – publication year (integer) page – pagination page (default: 1) per_page – items per page (default: 20)

Example Responses

JSON[ { "id": 5, "title": "1984", "author": "George Orwell", "publication_year": 1949, "status": "available", "description": "Dystopian social science fiction...", "created_at": "2025-12-05T10:00:00", "updated_at": "2025-12-05T12:30:00" } ] All endpoints return proper HTTP status codes (200, 201, 204, 400, 403, 404, 500) and structured JSON.

Database Table Schema

CREATE TABLE {$wpdb->prefix}library_books ( id BIGINT UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, title VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL, description LONGTEXT, author VARCHAR(255), publication_year INT, status ENUM('available','borrowed','unavailable') DEFAULT 'available', created_at DATETIME DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP, updated_at DATETIME DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP, PRIMARY KEY (id) ) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8mb4 COLLATE=utf8mb4_unicode_ci;

Table name: wp_library_books (or with custom prefix) All queries use $wpdb->prepare() and prepared statements.

Bonus Features Implemented

• Filtering on book list
• Search bar in React admin
• Status color coding
• WP-CLI command:Bashwp library import sample.json