reinhardliess / rest-api-school

JavaScript techdegree project #9 - A REST API with Express to administer a database of courses and users for a fictional school

REST API for a school database

In this project for the Treehouse techdegree, I created a REST API using Express. The API provides a way for users to administer a school database containing information about courses: users can interact with the database by retrieving a list of courses, as well as adding, updating and deleting courses in the database.

In addition, users are required to create an account and log-in to make changes to the database.

Technologies Used

• Node.js
• Express
• Sequelize ORM
• SQL
• REST API design
• JavaScript

Installation

• Download or clone from Github
• Run npm install
• Run npm run seed
• Run npm run start to run the app

Available npm scripts

The environment variable RESTAPI_DB must be set to the SQLITE database ./fsjstd-restapi.db. This is already configured in nodemon.json for nodemon setups.

npm run seed

• Seeds the SQLITE database

npm start

• Runs app via nodemon

npm run debug

• Runs app via nodemon in inspect mode for debugging in Visual Studio Code or Google Chrome

REST API Endpoints

User

• GET /api/users 200 - Returns the currently authenticated user
• POST /api/users 201 - Creates a user, sets the Location header to "/", and returns no content

Course

• GET /api/courses 200 - Returns a list of courses (including the user that owns each course)
• GET /api/courses/:id 200 - Returns the course (including the user that owns the course) for the provided course ID
• POST /api/courses 201 - Creates a course, sets the Location header to the URI for the course, and returns no content (Authentication required)
• PUT /api/courses/:id 204 - Updates a course and returns no content (Authentication required)
• DELETE /api/courses/:id 204 - Deletes a course and returns no content (Authentication required)
• The PUT /api/courses/:id and DELETE /api/courses/:id routes return a 403 status code if the current user doesn't own the requested course

General remarks

• The following properties are filtered out: password, createdAt, updatedAt
• If a course or a route isn't found a 404 status is returned and no content

Tests

• The RESTAPI.postman_collection.json file is a collection of Postman requests that can be used to test the REST API.
• The api.http file serves the same purpose and can be used with the Visual Studio Code REST Client extension. It uses variables, so it can also be used to test a deployed version.
• The gen-data.js tool in ./helpers can be used to generate test data.

Error Messages

• Error messages are always returned in an array of error objects

Validation

• User: firstName, lastName, emailAddress, password are required
• Course: title, description, userId are required
• emailAddress must be unique and a valid email address
• password must be at least 8 characters long

Validation Errors

• Validation errors are routed through from Sequelize and return the properties: message, type, path, value. This enables a client application to create their own error messages if required.

Example:

{
  "errors": [
    {
      "message": "User.password cannot be null",
      "type": "notNull Violation",
      "path": "password",
      "value": null
    }
  ]
}

Other Errors

• Other errors return the properties: message, type

Example:

{
  "errors": [
    {
      "message": "Unexpected token f in JSON at position 5",
      "type": "SyntaxError"
    }
  ]
}