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2 - APIs in Node

Learning Objectives

By the end of this lesson students should be able to:

  • Define what each part of CRUD is and what it does

  • Process a GET request using Express and Node to retrieve data from memory

  • Process a POST request using Express and Node and store data in memory

  • Process a PUT request using Express and Node and update existing data in memory

  • Process a DELETE request using Express and Node to remove data from memory

  • Install a third party library using npm

  • What is a middleware

CRUD Continued

We will now build a CRUD API. CRUD stands for Create, Retrieve, Update, Delete. If you think about it, this is what most applications do:

  • Create some "resources"

  • Retrieve them (GET them)This step will require you to use POSTMAN because our project does not have client interface (front-end part) with a HTML form for creating new quotes.

  • Update them

  • Delete them

Below are three in-class exercises that can be used to demonstrate parts of the API workshop below.

(1) Get Exercise

This is an instructor-led exercise that can be used to show how we can retrieve an element by ID using a GET request.

Objective

Change a quote API server to allow GETting a quote according to the given ID.

The id should be given in the URL structure like this:

/quotes/2

You should use the starting project: node-quotes-api. This is because this project has quotes with IDs.

When you fork and clone the starting project, run npm install to install required dependencies.

(2) Post Exercise

This is an instructor-led exercise that can be used to show how we can add an element to an array

Objective

Change a quote API server to allow POSTs of new quotes.

The new quotes should be added to your quotes list, which is just an array in memory.

You can assume the POSTed quotes are all in the correct JSON format.

The route should use the HTTP method POST and should use the URL:

/quotes

(3) Put Exercise

This is an instructor-led exercise that can be used to show how we can update existing data in memory using a PUT request.

Objective

Change the quote API server to allow updating a quote according to the given ID.

The route should use the HTTP method PUT and ID should be given in the URL structure like this:

/quotes/2

This step will require you to use POSTMAN because our project does not have client interface (front-end part) with a HTML form for updating quotes.

(4) Delete Exercise

This is an instructor-led exercise that can be used to show how we can remove an element to an array

Objective

Change a quote API server to allow updating a quote according to the given ID.

The id should be given in the URL structure like this:

/quotes/2

You should use the delete HTTP method.

Workshop

You can use this Express Cheatsheet to help you.

API stands for Application Programming Interface.

Read this description of what an API does from How To Geek.

Think of an API like a menu in a restaurant. The menu provides a list of dishes you can order, along with a description of each dish. When you specify what menu items you want, the restaurant’s kitchen does the work and provides you with some finished dishes. You don’t know exactly how the restaurant prepares that food, and you don’t really need to. Similarly, an API lists a bunch of operations that developers can use, along with a description of what they do. The developer doesn’t necessarily need to know how, for example, an operating system builds and presents a “Save As” dialog box. They just need to know that it’s available for use in their app.

An API does not have to be web-based. But in our work, since we are doing web development, we will work only with web-based APIs (also referred to as Web Services), and we will communicate with those services using the protocol for the Web: HTTP.

Checkpoint: Let us recap what we know about HTTP before continuing.

Objective

Our API will manage Beyoncé albums:

  • Create a new album,

  • Retrieve a list of albums or a single album,

  • Update an existing album's information

  • Delete an album

We will build these endpoints:

GET /albums should return all the albums GET /albums/:albumId should return a single album (that matches the passed albumId) POST /albums should save a new album PUT /albums/:albumId should update the album (that matches the passed albumId) DELETE /albums/:albumId should delete the album (that matches the passed albumId).

GET /Albums

  1. In server.js Add the endpoint for GET /albums.

const albumsData = [
  {
    albumId: "10",
    artistName: "Beyoncé",
    collectionName: "Lemonade",
    artworkUrl100:
      "http://is1.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Music20/v4/23/c1/9e/23c19e53-783f-ae47-7212-03cc9998bd84/source/100x100bb.jpg",
    releaseDate: "2016-04-25T07:00:00Z",
    primaryGenreName: "Pop",
    url:
      "https://www.youtube.com/embed/PeonBmeFR8o?rel=0&controls=0&showinfo=0",
  },
  {
    albumId: "11",
    artistName: "Beyoncé",
    collectionName: "Dangerously In Love",
    artworkUrl100:
      "http://is1.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Music/v4/18/93/6d/18936d85-8f6b-7597-87ef-62c4c5211298/source/100x100bb.jpg",
    releaseDate: "2003-06-24T07:00:00Z",
    primaryGenreName: "Pop",
    url:
      "https://www.youtube.com/embed/ViwtNLUqkMY?rel=0&controls=0&showinfo=0",
  },
];

app.get("/albums", function (req, res) {
  res.send(albumsData);
});

  1. Test the endpoint with Postman. GET /albums should return a JSON reply with the array we specified.

  2. Add another item to the array and test that the GET /albums returns three items.

Step 1: GET /albums/:albumId

Complete in-class (1) GET Exercise at this point

Sometimes, we do not want to list all the information in one request, maybe we only want to get the information related to a single album. Imagine if we have a page to display the details of one album, we could call the server and get all albums then filter the one we need client-side. Would it not be more effective to tell the server to just return the one album we are interested in?

Let us add a new endpoint to return only a single album GET /albums/:albumId. In this case, albumId will tell us what album we can return so the call will be something like GET /albums/10 and that will return the album with that has albumId 10.

This endpoint has something different. The endpoint /albums/:albumId has a dynamic part, because the albumId will vary depending on what the client sends. If we call /albums/12 then albumId is 12, and if we call /albums/10 then we will return the album with albumId 10, and so on.

How can we achieve that using express - req.params

These are properties attached to the URL named route parameters. You prefix the parameter name with a colon (:) when writing your routes.

For instance,

  app.get("/albums/:albumId", (req, res) => {
   console.log(req.params.albumId)
  })

To send the parameter from the client, just replace its name with the value

  GET  http://localhost:3000/albums/123456
app.get("/albums/:albumId", function (req, res) {
  // req.params.albumId will match the value in the url after /albums/
  console.log(req.params.albumId);
  // now we can use the value for req.params.albumId to find the album requested
  // how do we "find" something in an array

  // finish the code yourself - it should end with res.send(album) where album is the single album you found  based on the id
});

Tip :- Install nodemon following previous week's guide

Step 2: Add a new album

Complete in-class (2) Post Exercise at this point

Our analogy with the Restaurant menu is somewhat incomplete. In a restaurant, we only GET items from the menu. In the world of APIs, we also have the possibility to create items, we can provide ingredients to create a new dish. In this case, we provide some data (a payload) and we use a different verb POST (Create) as opposed to GET.

POST /albums should save a new album and return 200 with JSON { success: true } to the user.

// notice .post (not .get)
app.post("/albums", function (req, res) {
  console.log("POST /albums route");
});

Let's start by testing using Postman. Do a POST request to the endpoint and make sure it prints the console.log message we have added.

In Postman, change the request method to POST instead of GET and test our endpoint. It should log the message to the terminal but the request will hang because we did not end it, i.e. we did not say res.send(something)

So what format does the client send the data with? It is up to us, but since we already are familiar with json, let us use it.

In order for our server-side to receive and use the data sent by the client. We will need to use a middleware. Lets take a pause to learn about middleware and then we will come back to this exercise.

What is a Middleware

Middleware is just a function which gives you access to req and res in the apps request-> response cycle.

What does a middleware function look like?

There are several important things to point out here:

  1. Middleware functions usually have 3 standard params req, res, and next. The first two are objects, the last is a function that will call the next middleware function, if there is one.

  2. Usually there is a middleware chain, meaning a chain of functions that are called one after the other, with the last function sending the response back to the browser. So we get the request from the browser, make any modifications and data additions, and then send a response back.

  3. You must call next() (unless it’s the last function in the chain) or the request will just hang and eventually timeout. In the browser this will manifest as a really long spinner before a message of “connection timed out” or similar.

  4. Any changes you make to req or res will be available in the next middleware function.

  5. req and res are unique for each request. Meaning that the changes you make to req or res in one request will not be reflected in a new request.

How do I write my own middleware for certain routes?

This is where middleware is the most useful.

When we run the above code, and request the /user/someName route, the server will check to see if the user is already logged in. If they are not, the server tells the browser to redirect to the /login route.

Now that we know what is a middleware function, lets continue with the exercise.

The express.json() function is a built-in middleware function in Express. It parses incoming requests with JSON payloads and is based on body-parser. It makes it easier for our endpoints to receive and understand different formats of data.

app.use(express.json()); // before our routes definition

Now we will receive the data as req.body.

app.post("/albums", function (req, res) {
  console.log("POST /albums route");
  console.log(req.body);
});

Exercise: Use Postman to POST this data to /albums endpoint.

{
  "albumId": "13",
  "artistName": "Beyoncé",
  "collectionName": "B'Day (Deluxe Edition)",
  "artworkUrl100": "http://is5.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Music/v4/6c/fc/6a/6cfc6a13-0633-f96b-9d72-cf56774beb4b/source/100x100bb.jpg",
  "releaseDate": "2007-05-29T07:00:00Z",
  "primaryGenreName": "Pop",
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/embed/RQ9BWndKEgs?rel=0&controls=0&showinfo=0"
}

Finish the code for the route POST /albums to add the album data to the albums list (how to amend an array?).

Step 3: Delete an album

Complete in-class (3) DELETE Exercise at this point

Lets look back at our original objectives.

DELETE /albums/:albumId should delete the album that matches the passed albumId.

This means that DELETE /albums/2 should delete an album with the id 2 and return 200 with JSON { success: true } to the user.

The code will look like this:

// notice .delete
app.delete("/albums/:albumID", function (req, res) {
  console.log("DELETE /albums route");
});

Can you work out how to remove an album using this code?

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