BlogAPI

BlogAPI is a Node.js Application utilizing Express, Mongoose, and MongoDB to demonstrate a RESTful API. DotEnv and a .env file is also included to show the use of a .env file containing environment variables. No important information is stored here such as AWS Keys, Passwords, or any other secrets.

Getting Started

These instructions will get you a copy of the project up and running on your local machine for development and testing purposes. This is not intended to run on a production system.

Prerequisites

To use and run BlogAPI you must have Node.js installed, npm (included with Node.js) or yarn package manager.   MongoDB is also required, installation instructions can be found here.

To begin using BlogAPI clone the repo locally using the command below:

HTTPS:

git clone https://github.com/robbyandrews/blogapi.git

SSH:

git@github.com:robbyandrews/blogapi.git

You can also download the zip file here.   If you choose the zip file method, extract the archive.

Installing

In the folder you have cloned or where you have extracted your zip file, install your dependencies.

Node:

npm i

Yarn:

yarn install

Your dependencies are now installed and you are ready to begin using the application.

Running the Application

We recommend using nodemon to run BlogAPI, nodemon will restart the node service when changes are made and saved. Nodemon can be installed globally with npm.

npm i -g nodemon

Start the application If nodemon is installed:

npm run devStart 
 
 or

nodemon server.js

Using BlogAPI:

Data Model

BlogAPI utilizes Express routes and MongoDB to store and retrieve data. Currently the Model utilized by mongoose and MongoDB to store blog data is the following:

    author:{
type: String,
required: true
    },
    
    content:{
type: String,
required: true
    },
    
    postDate:{
type: Date,
required: true,
default: Date.now
    }

Routes

Currently there are the following routes, all served with Content-Type: application/json which means that a JSON object should always be the expected result, even when an error occurs:

GET All Blogs in the Database:

GET /blogs

This will return all of the objects in the database. If the database is empty and no objects exist, then an empty array will be sent.

GET Blog by id:

GET /blogs/:id

All objects stored in the database are given an id as an attribute. By utilizing the id in the URL you can retrieve a given object specified by its id attribute.

Create a blog entry using POST:

POST /blogs
Content-Type: application/json

{
    "author":"John Doe",
    "content": "This is my first post"
}

To create a blog entry using the POST method, the body must contain a JSON object with the required keys of author: string and content: string. Two other key value pairs will be generated automatically: the id value which is created by MongoDB to identify documents and a postDate which is the value of the JavaScript function Date.now.

Update a blog entry by id using PATCH

PATCH /blogs/:id
Content-Type: application/json

{
    "author":"Updated Name",
    "content": "Updated Content"
}

Using the PATCH method along with a JSON body and the id of the desired post, you can update the post with a new author, and/or new content. A PATCH method was chosen over PUT as the PUT method will replace the entire URI request, and PATCH will only replace the chosen items.

Delete a blog entry by id using DELETE

DELETE /blogs/:id

A post may be deleted using the DELETE method and its corresponding id.

Future work

Authentication, API Limits, adding more routes, expand the schema to allow for more attributes in the documents. Add routes to find posts by an author, or even search content.