The CMD Project Tech Data API

What does it do?

This API allows you to store and find data in a database, using API calls from your front-end code, without worrying (too much) about what happens in the back-end.

Installation

1. Clone this repository to a suitable folder on your own computer using the git clone command.
2. In this folder, run npm install from the command line to install the neccesary node modules.
3. Rename the file .env-sample to .env and in this file, add the correct values for DB_HOST, DB_NAME, DB_USERNAME and DB_PASS
4. run node server.js from the command line to start the API

You can now make API requests to the server running on http://localhost:3000/.

Data objects

The API allows you to store different types of objects in the database and search for them. It is up to you to determine what kinds of objects you want to use, what the name for each type of object is, and what data is contained in each object.

For example, one type of object might be a person. A person might have the following data, specified in JSON:

{ "name": "John", "age": 28, "nationality": "Dutch" }

Another person could look like this:

{ "name": "Marie", "age": 42, "nationality": "French" }

You can use different object types, so for example you could also store information about eggs in an egg object type:

{ "bird": "chicken", "color": "white" , "weight": 60, "edible": true }

Requests

You can use a number of different HTTP requests to interact with the data. These are described below. Each HTTP request returns a result as well as a status in JSON format.

GET

Get requests allow you to retrieve information from the database. You can either list all results for a certain object type, or search for specific instances.

list all results

• HTTP request method: GET
• URL: /objectType
• Request body: empty
• Returns: all objects of the specified objectType

Example: GET localhost:3000/person
Response:

{
    "records": [
        {
            "_id": "655de960bc9df3867465dd81",
            "objectType": "person",
            "data": {
                "name": "John",
                "age": 28,
                "nationality": "Dutch"
            }
        },
        {
            "_id": "655deea270274f53ebf00c93",
            "objectType": "person",
            "data": {
                "name": "Marie",
                "age": 42,
                "nationality": "French"
            }
        }
    ],
    "statusCode": 0,
    "statusText": "OK"
}

search by id

• HTTP request method: GET
• URL: /objectType?id=objectID
• Request body: empty
• Returns: the requested object

Example: GET localhost:3000/person?id=655de960bc9df3867465dd81
Response:

{
    "records": [
        {
            "_id": "655de960bc9df3867465dd81",
            "objectType": "person",
            "data": {
                "name": "John",
                "age": 28,
                "nationality": "Dutch"
            }
        }
    ],
    "statusCode": 0,
    "statusText": "OK"
}

search by value

• HTTP request method: GET
• URL: /objectType?key=value
• Request body: empty
• Returns: one or more objects, matching your search criteria

Example: localhost:3000/person?nationality=French
Response:

{
    "records": [
        {
            "_id": "655deea270274f53ebf00c93",
            "objectType": "person",
            "data": {
                "name": "Marie",
                "age": 42,
                "nationality": "French"
            }
        }
    ],
    "statusCode": 0,
    "statusText": "OK"
}

Note: you can search for one value at a time. It's not possible to combine multiple search criteria.

POST

A POST request allows you to store data in the database

• HTTP request method: POST
• URL: /objectType
• Request body: contains data for the object in JSON format
• Returns: id of the inserted object

Example: POST localhost:3000/person
Request body: { "name": "John", "age": 28, "nationality": "Dutch" }
Response: { "_id": "655de960bc9df3867465dd81", "statusCode": 0, "statusText": "OK" }

PATCH

A PATCH request allows you to update the information for an object that is already in the database. You will need to provide the object id in the query string. You can change the value of existing fields and also add new fields.

• HTTP request method: PATCH
• URL: /objectType?id=objectID
• Request body: contains new data for the object in JSON format
• Returns: number of modified objects (note that this number can be 0 if the data you provided in the request body was no different from what was already in the database)

Example: PATCH localhost:3000/person?id=655de960bc9df3867465dd81
Request body: { "age": 30, "hometown": "Amsterdam" }
Response: { "itemsModified": 1, "statusCode": 0, "statusText": "OK" }

DELETE

A DELETE request allows you to remove an object from the database. You will need to provide the object id in the query string.

• HTTP request method: DELETE
• URL: /objectType?id=objectID
• Request body: empty
• Returns: number of deleted objects

Example: DELETE localhost:3000/person?id=655de960bc9df3867465dd81
Response: { "itemsDeleted": 1, "statusCode": 0, "statusText": "OK" }

Maintenance

There are a few special requests you can make to help you out. These all use the HTTP GET method.

Request: GET localhost:3000/maintenance/status
Description: Returns a status code. A quick way to check if the API is running and has a working database connection

Request: GET localhost:3000/maintenance/cleardatabase
Description: Does what it says - permanently removes all data from your database. Good to use when you want to make a fresh start, but handle with care!

Request: GET localhost:3000/maintenance/generatetestdata
Description: Fills your database with some testdata. Any previously existing testdata will be overwritten. The testdata will be of the objectType test, so to see the results you can use GET localhost:3000/test

Statuses

Every request returns a statusCode and a descriptive statusText in JSON format. A status code of 0 means the request was succesful, everything else indicates a problem.

0: OK
1: Database connection failed - doublecheck your .env file to see if you entered all values correctly
2: No match found in database
3: Invalid object type - allowed characters are: A-Z, a-z, 0-9, - and _
4: Please provide a valid id in the querystring, consisting of 24 characters
5: The API received invalid JSON in the request body. Please check your JSON syntax

Example response: { "statusCode": 0, "statusText": "OK" }

License

This project is provided under the GNU GPLv3 License.