Bunq Chat

A chat application API implementation written for the Bunq interview process using Laravel.

Deployment

This app has been deployed to Heroku. You can view the demo here.

Requirements

There are a few things needed in order to setup this project.

PHP
Apache / Nginx
SQLite
Composer
Laravel

Installation

First, clone this repository and navigate to the directory where it has been downloaded. Follow the instructions below:

Run the Composer installation

$ composer install

Create a .env file

$ cp .env.example .env

Update the .env file with all needed information.
Generate a key to your .env file

$ php artisan key:generate

Create a file called database.sqlite in the storage folder.
Migrate the database. You can add --seed if you would like to seed the database with dummy data.

$ php artisan migrate --seed

If you want to seed the database after you have already migrated, run the following

$ php artisan db:seed

Implementation

Summary

Laravel, which is a MVC (Model View Controller) framework is used in this implementation, alongside a Service and Repository design pattern.

Communication through the API happens over a simple JSON based protocol over HTTP.

The implementation is using a simple SQLite database.

Models

Using the Eloquent ORM, models can be created that map directly to database tables. Thus, we have two Models called User and Message. Models can have relationships specified that map to database relationships. In the Message model you can see two relationships from and to which link to the User model. These relationships make is easier to make queries through Eloquent and load data from the related models.

Controllers

Controllers are responsible for controlling the flow of the application over the HTTP requests. A request will link to a function within a specified controller, which will then be passed along to a Service. We have two Controllers called UserController and MessageController.

Services

The logic is written within the Services. Incoming requests, validation and responses are all handled by a Service. The services are written in such a way that the Eloquent ORM is never used, making it available for other resources to work with. We have two Services called UserService and MessageService.

Repositories

A Repository is an abstraction of the data layer and a centralised way of handling our models. The idea with this pattern is to have a generic abstract way for the app to work with the data layer without being bothered with if the implementation is towards a local database or towards an online API. We have two Repositories called UserRepository and MessageRepository.

Factories

Factories give us an easy way to create dummy data for testing purposes. A factory can create random data for your models and store them to the database. To view the factories visit the database/factories folder. We have two factories called UserFactory and MessageFactory.

API

These are the current API routes that are available. You can view them in the api.php file in the routes folder.

To access these routes, simply use the /api/ prefix on the url. Some examples:

http://rhaarhoff-bunq-chat.herokuapp.com/api/users
http://rhaarhoff-bunq-chat.herokuapp.com/api/messages

 METHOD         URI                             Description
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 GET            users                           Get all users
 POST           users                           Create a user
 PUT            users                           Update a user
 GET            users/:id                       Get user by id
 DELETE         users/:id                       Delete user by id
 GET            users/:id/messages              Get all messages of user
 GET            users/:id/messages/inc          Get all incoming messages of user
 GET            users/:id/messages/inc/:from    Get all incoming messages of user from another user
 GET            users/:id/messages/out          Get all outgoing messages of user
 GET            users/:id/messages/out/:to      Get all outgoing messages of user to another user
 GET            users/:id/messages/all/:user    Get all messages between two users (in order)
 
 GET            messages                        Get all messages
 POST           messages                        Create a message
 PUT            messages                        Update a message
 GET            messages/:id                    Get message by id
 DELETE         messages/:id                    Delete message by id

Testing

A range of test cases has been created. You can view them in the tests/Feature folder. If you have installed the project correctly and ran composer install you should be able to run these tests. Simply run the following command to run the tests:

./vendor/bin/phpunit

Collection

A Postman collection has been created in order to test the API easily.

Simply import the following to your postman collections:

https://www.getpostman.com/collections/7a7ed1622f99c3f6b122

Also, import the following environment:

{
    "id": "c43550d0-900b-4466-9077-389a9f08fb60",
    "name": "BUNQ CHAT PRODUCTION",
    "values": [
        {
            "key": "url",
            "value": "https://rhaarhoff-bunq-chat.herokuapp.com/",
            "description": "",
            "enabled": true
        }
    ],
    "_postman_variable_scope": "environment",
    "_postman_exported_at": "2019-04-21T23:44:38.080Z",
    "_postman_exported_using": "Postman/7.0.7"
}

After these have been imported, select the correct environment and start testing.

Flame1994 / message-chat