Intro to REST

Lesson Objectives

1. Describe REST and list the various routes
2. Create an Index route
3. Install JSONView to make viewing JSON easier
4. Create a Show route
5. Enhance the data in your data array

Describe REST and list the various routes

• REST stands for Representational state transfer
• It's just a set of principles that describe how networked resources are accessed and manipulated
• We have 7 RESTful routes that allow us basic operations for reading and manipulating a collection of data:

Create an Index route

Setup our app

1. Create a directory called fruits
2. npm init
3. Create a server.js file.
4. install express
5. require express and set up a basic server that logs listening when you start the app
6. start the app with nodemon and make sure it is working

Let's have a set of resources which is just a javascript array. To create an index route, we'd do the following:

const express = require('express');
const app = express();

const fruits = ['apple', 'banana', 'pear'];

app.get('/fruits/', (req, res) => {
    res.send(fruits);
});

app.listen(3000, () => {
    console.log('listening');
});

Now go to http://localhost:3000/fruits/

Install JSON Formatter to make viewing JSON easier

• JSON stands for Javascript Object Notation
• It's just a way to represent data that looks like a Javascript object or array
• JSON Formatter extension just makes it easier to view JSON data.

If you don't have it already, let's make sure we install it:

1. Click here
2. Click on "Add To Chrome"

Create a Show route

To create a show route, we'd do this:

const express = require('express');
const app = express();

const fruits = ['apple', 'banana', 'pear'];

app.get('/fruits/', (req, res) => {
    res.send(fruits);
});

//add show route
app.get('/fruits/:indexOfFruitsArray', (req, res) => {
    res.send(fruits[req.params.indexOfFruitsArray]);
});

app.listen(3000, () => {
    console.log('listening');
});

Now go to http://localhost:3000/fruits/1

Enhance the data in your data array

• Right now are data array fruits is just an array of strings
• We can store anything in the array, though.
• Let's enhance our data a bit:

const express = require('express');
const app = express();

const fruits = [
    {
        name:'apple',
        color: 'red',
        readyToEat: true
    },
    {
        name:'pear',
        color: 'green',
        readyToEat: false
    },
    {
        name:'banana',
        color: 'yellow',
        readyToEat: true
    }
];

app.get('/fruits/', (req, res) => {
    res.send(fruits);
});

app.get('/fruits/:indexOfFruitsArray', (req, res) => {
    res.send(fruits[req.params.indexOfFruitsArray]);
});

app.listen(3000, () => {
    console.log('listening');
});

References

• REST
• ExpressJS Application API Reference