How to create Restful CRUD API with Node.js MongoDB and Express.js

In this blog, we are going to learn how to perform CRUD (Create, Read, Update and Delete) operations with the help of Rest API using Node.js, MongoDB as our database, and Expess.

REST

In simple terms, REST stands for Representational State Transfer. It is an architectural style design for distributed hypermedia, or an Application Programming Interface (API). In REST, we use various standard HTTP methods like GET, POST, PUT and DELETE to perform any CRUD operation on resource.

Resource

In REST, everything is Resource. A resource can be an image, document, a temporary service, a collection of other resource, and any other object. Each resource has resource identifier to identify it.

HTTP Methods for CRUD

As per REST guidelines, we should use only HTTP methods to perform CRUD operation on any resource. In this blog, we are going to use 4 HTTP methods like GET, POST, PUT and DELETE to make our REST API.

Let’s have a brief introduction of each http method here.

HTTP GET

The HTTP GET is used to Read or Retrieve any resource. It returns the XML or JSON data with HTTP status code of 200. GET method is considered as safe, because we are just getting or reading the resource data, not doing any changes in the resource data.

HTTP GET

The HTTP POST is used to Create a new resource. On successful creation of resource, it will return HTTP status code of 201, a Location header with a link to the newly created resource.

HTTP GET

The HTTP PUT is used to Update any existing resource. On successful, it will return HTTP status code of 200.

HTTP GET

The HTTP DELETE, as the name suggests, is used to Delete any existing resource. On successful, it will return HTTP status code of 200.

Let’s move forward into the details of other pieces of creating our REST API.

Express.js

We are going to use Express.js or simply Express. It is a web application framework for Node.js. It has been released as free and open source software. You can create web application and APIs using Express. It has support for routing, middleware, view system etc.

Mongoose

Mongoose is Object Document Mapping or ODM tool for Node.js and MongoDB. Mongoose provide a straight-forward, schema based solution to model to your application data. It includes built-in type casting, validation, query building, business logic hooks and many more.

Prerequisites

You must have Node.js and MongoDB installed on your machine. Click the below links, if you don’t have any one of them.

Install Node.js

Install MongoDB

For MongoDB, I am using mLab free account for online MongoDB database. You can try this one as well, instead of installing on your local machine.
Database-as-a-Service for MongoDB

Install Postman – Google Chrome for testing purpose.

After setting up prerequisites, let move forward to build our application.

Application Introduction

In our application, we are going to create a product based application. We will use REST APIs to create, update, get and delete the product. Let’s go to create our application.

1. Create package.json

Let’s create a folder, and start with creating package.json file first. Use this command in your terminal window.

For MongoDB, I am using mLab free account for online MongoDB database. You can try this one as well, instead of installing on your local machine.#### package.json

{
  "name": "product-app",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "This is zepbook product app",
  "main": "server.js",
  "scripts": {
    "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
  },
  "author": "ZeptoBook",
  "license": "MIT"
}

If you notice line 5, we have defined server.js as our main entry point.

2. Install Packages

Let’s install all the express, mongoose and body-parser package dependencies in our app.

For MongoDB, I am using mLab free account for online MongoDB database. You can try this one as well, instead of installing on your local machine.
Once these packages installed successfully, our package.json file will be updated automatically. Our latest file will be like this.

package.json

{
  "name": "product-app",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "This is zepbook product app",
  "main": "server.js",
  "scripts": {
    "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
  },
  "author": "ZeptoBook",
  "license": "MIT",
  "dependencies": {
    "body-parser": "^1.18.3",
    "express": "^4.16.4",
    "mongoose": "^5.4.2"
  }
}

Notice dependencies section of our file, all these packages are mentioned there.

3. Creating Our Server

Let’s create a server.js file in the root directory of the application.

server.js

// get dependencies
const express = require('express');
const bodyParser = require('body-parser');

const app = express();

// parse requests
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({ extended: false }))
app.use(bodyParser.json())

// default route
app.get('/', (req, res) => {
    res.json({"message": "Welcome to ZeptoBook Product app"});
});

// listen on port 3000
app.listen(3000, () => {
    console.log("Server is listening on port 3000");
});

Let’s briefly review our above code. First of all, we imported the required dependencies in our server.js file.

body-parser

It is Node.js body parser middleware. It parse the incoming request bodies in a middleware before your handlers, available under the req.body property.

Learn more about bodyParser.urlencoded([options])

Learn more about bodyParser.json([options])

Then, we define a default route using GET Http method. By default, it will return our message on default url.

Finally, we are going to listen all incoming requests on port 3000.

4. Run the server

Once everything is all set, let’s wake up our server by running this command in our terminal window.

For MongoDB, I am using mLab free account for online MongoDB database. You can try this one as well, instead of installing on your local machine.> For MongoDB, I am using mLab free account for online MongoDB database. You can try this one as well, instead of installing on your local machine.####

5. Create Configuration file

Let’s create a config file in our app, where we can define various constants like dbconnection or port number instead of hard-coded it everywhere. So, create a config.js file in your app folder.

config.js

module.exports = {    url: 'mongodb://<dbUserName>:<dbUserPassword>@ds251002.mlab.com:51002/adeshtestdb',    
serverport: 3000 }

So, here I mentioned two constants in config.js file.

HTTP GET

6. Connecting to Database

Let’s connect with our MongoDb database. Add these lines of codes in server.js file after the app.use(bodyParser.json());

// Configuring the database
const config = require('./config.js');
const mongoose = require('mongoose');

mongoose.Promise = global.Promise;

// Connecting to the database
mongoose.connect(config.url, {
    useNewUrlParser: true
}).then(() => {
    console.log("Successfully connected to the database");    
}).catch(err => {
    console.log('Could not connect to the database. Exiting now...', err);
    process.exit();
});

Also, we are going to replace our hard-coded server port with our config constant in server.js file

// listen on port 3000
app.listen(config.serverport, () => {
    console.log("Server is listening on port 3000");
});

Here, you can see, we are now using config.serverport in app.listen().

Now, run again the server using this command.

For MongoDB, I am using mLab free account for online MongoDB database. You can try this one as well, instead of installing on your local machine.> For MongoDB, I am using mLab free account for online MongoDB database. You can try this one as well, instead of installing on your local machine.> For MongoDB, I am using mLab free account for online MongoDB database. You can try this one as well, instead of installing on your local machine.####

7. Creating Product Model

Let’s create a product model in our app folder in order to save the data in our db. Create a product.model.js file in your app.

product.model.js

const mongoose = require('mongoose');

const ProductSchema = mongoose.Schema({
    title: String,
    description: String,
    price: Number,
    company: String
}, {
    timestamps: true
});

module.exports = mongoose.model('Products', ProductSchema);

Here, we have defined our ProductSchema with following properties. Along with this, we also set timestampsproperty to true. This property will add two fields automatically to schema. These fields are : createdAt and updatedAt in your schema.

8. Creating our Controller’s functions

We are going to write all functions related to create, retrieve, update and delete products in our controller file. Let’s create a controller file named product.controller.js in your app folder.

product.controller.js

const Product = require('./product.model.js');

//Create new Product
exports.create = (req, res) => {
    // Request validation
    if(!req.body) {
        return res.status(400).send({
            message: "Product content can not be empty"
        });
    }

    // Create a Product
    const product = new Product({
        title: req.body.title || "No product title", 
        description: req.body.description,
        price: req.body.price,
        company: req.body.company
    });

    // Save Product in the database
    product.save()
    .then(data => {
        res.send(data);
    }).catch(err => {
        res.status(500).send({
            message: err.message || "Something wrong while creating the product."
        });
    });
};

// Retrieve all products from the database.
exports.findAll = (req, res) => {
    Product.find()
    .then(products => {
        res.send(products);
    }).catch(err => {
        res.status(500).send({
            message: err.message || "Something wrong while retrieving products."
        });
    });
};

// Find a single product with a productId
exports.findOne = (req, res) => {
    Product.findById(req.params.productId)
    .then(product => {
        if(!product) {
            return res.status(404).send({
                message: "Product not found with id " + req.params.productId
            });            
        }
        res.send(product);
    }).catch(err => {
        if(err.kind === 'ObjectId') {
            return res.status(404).send({
                message: "Product not found with id " + req.params.productId
            });                
        }
        return res.status(500).send({
            message: "Something wrong retrieving product with id " + req.params.productId
        });
    });
};

// Update a product
exports.update = (req, res) => {
    // Validate Request
    if(!req.body) {
        return res.status(400).send({
            message: "Product content can not be empty"
        });
    }

    // Find and update product with the request body
    Product.findByIdAndUpdate(req.params.productId, {
        title: req.body.title || "No product title", 
        description: req.body.description,
        price: req.body.price,
        company: req.body.company
    }, {new: true})
    .then(product => {
        if(!product) {
            return res.status(404).send({
                message: "Product not found with id " + req.params.productId
            });
        }
        res.send(product);
    }).catch(err => {
        if(err.kind === 'ObjectId') {
            return res.status(404).send({
                message: "Product not found with id " + req.params.productId
            });                
        }
        return res.status(500).send({
            message: "Something wrong updating note with id " + req.params.productId
        });
    });
};

// Delete a note with the specified noteId in the request
exports.delete = (req, res) => {
    Product.findByIdAndRemove(req.params.productId)
    .then(product => {
        if(!product) {
            return res.status(404).send({
                message: "Product not found with id " + req.params.productId
            });
        }
        res.send({message: "Product deleted successfully!"});
    }).catch(err => {
        if(err.kind === 'ObjectId' || err.name === 'NotFound') {
            return res.status(404).send({
                message: "Product not found with id " + req.params.productId
            });                
        }
        return res.status(500).send({
            message: "Could not delete product with id " + req.params.productId
        });
    });
};

9. Defining Product API’s Routes

Next step is to create our api routes. Create a product.routes.js file in your app folder.

product.routes.js

module.exports = (app) => {
    const products = require('./product.controller.js');

    // Create a new Product
    app.post('/products', products.create);

    // Retrieve all Products
    app.get('/products', products.findAll);

    // Retrieve a single Product with productId
    app.get('/products/:productId', products.findOne);

    // Update a Note with productId
    app.put('/products/:productId', products.update);

    // Delete a Note with productId
    app.delete('/products/:productId', products.delete);
}

Note: import this route file in our server.js file after these lines. See line 4 in the below code.

// Configuring the database
const config = require('./config.js');
const mongoose = require('mongoose');
require('./product.routes.js')(app);  //Add route file here

10. Enable the CORS

If you try to access your api routes through your client-side app, you might face Access-Control-Allow-Originerror messages. So, in order to avoid these message, we are also enabling CORS in our server.js file.

server.js

//Enable CORS for all HTTP methods
app.use(function(req, res, next) {
    res.header("Access-Control-Allow-Origin", "*");
    res.header("Access-Control-Allow-Methods", "GET, PUT, POST, DELETE, OPTIONS");
    res.header("Access-Control-Allow-Headers", "Origin, X-Requested-With, Content-Type, Accept");
    next();
  });

So, this will be our final server.js file.

server.js

// get dependencies
const express = require('express');
const bodyParser = require('body-parser');

const app = express();

// parse requests
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({ extended: true }));
app.use(bodyParser.json());

//Enable CORS for all HTTP methods
app.use(function(req, res, next) {
    res.header("Access-Control-Allow-Origin", "*");
    res.header("Access-Control-Allow-Methods", "GET, PUT, POST, DELETE, OPTIONS");
    res.header("Access-Control-Allow-Headers", "Origin, X-Requested-With, Content-Type, Accept");
    next();
  });

// Configuring the database
const config = require('./config.js');
const mongoose = require('mongoose');
require('./product.routes.js')(app);

mongoose.Promise = global.Promise;

// Connecting to the database
mongoose.connect(config.url, {
    useNewUrlParser: true
}).then(() => {
    console.log("Successfully connected to the database");    
}).catch(err => {
    console.log('Could not connect to the database. Exiting now...', err);
    process.exit();
});

// default route
app.get('/', (req, res) => {
    res.json({"message": "Welcome to ZeptoBook Product app"});
});

// listen on port 3000
app.listen(config.serverport, () => {
    console.log("Server is listening on port 3000");
});

This will be our project structure.

                               ![](https://i2.wp.com/www.zeptobook.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Product-App-folder.png?resize=495%2C395&ssl=1)

Testing our REST APIs

Now, it’s time to test our all REST APIs for CRUD Operation.

HTTP GET

I have added few products in the database. See the below screen shot.

                              ![](https://i0.wp.com/www.zeptobook.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/List-of-Products.png?fit=519%2C1024&ssl=1)

HTTP GET

HTTP GET

HTTP GET

Before Update

After Update

HTTP GET

How to Use Express.js, Node.js and MongoDB.js

In this post, I will show you how to use Express.js, Node.js and MongoDB.js. We will be creating a very simple Node application, that will allow users to input data that they want to store in a MongoDB database. It will also show all items that have been entered into the database.

Creating a Node Application

To get started I would recommend creating a new database that will contain our application. For this demo I am creating a directory called node-demo. After creating the directory you will need to change into that directory.

mkdir node-demo
cd node-demo

Once we are in the directory we will need to create an application and we can do this by running the command
npm init

This will ask you a series of questions. Here are the answers I gave to the prompts.

The first step is to create a file that will contain our code for our Node.js server.

touch app.js

In our app.js we are going to add the following code to build a very simple Node.js Application.

var express = require("express");
var app = express();
var port = 3000;
 
app.get("/", (req, res) => {
&nbsp;&nbsp;res.send("Hello World");
});
 
app.listen(port, () => {
  console.log("Server listening on port " + port);
});

What the code does is require the express.js application. It then creates app by calling express. We define our port to be 3000.

The app.use line will listen to requests from the browser and will return the text “Hello World” back to the browser.

The last line actually starts the server and tells it to listen on port 3000.

Installing Express

Our app.js required the Express.js module. We need to install express in order for this to work properly. Go to your terminal and enter this command.

npm install express --save

This command will install the express module into our package.json. The module is installed as a dependency in our package.json as shown below.

To test our application you can go to the terminal and enter the command

node app.js

Open up a browser and navigate to the url http://localhost:3000

You will see the following in your browser

Creating Website to Save Data to MongoDB Database

Instead of showing the text “Hello World” when people view your application, what we want to do is to show a place for user to save data to the database.

We are going to allow users to enter a first name and a last name that we will be saving in the database.

To do this we will need to create a basic HTML file. In your terminal enter the following command to create an index.html file.

touch index.html

In our index.html file we will be creating an input filed where users can input data that they want to have stored in the database. We will also need a button for users to click on that will add the data to the database.

Here is what our index.html file looks like.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>Intro to Node and MongoDB<title>
  <head>

  <body>
    <h1>Into to Node and MongoDB<&#47;h1>
    <form method="post" action="/addname">
      <label>Enter Your Name<&#47;label><br>
      <input type="text" name="firstName" placeholder="Enter first name..." required>
      <input type="text" name="lastName" placeholder="Enter last name..." required>
      <input type="submit" value="Add Name">
    </form>
  <body>
<html>

If you are familiar with HTML, you will not find anything unusual in our code for our index.html file. We are creating a form where users can input their first name and last name and then click an “Add Name” button.

The form will do a post call to the /addname endpoint. We will be talking about endpoints and post later in this tutorial.

Displaying our Website to Users

We were previously displaying the text “Hello World” to users when they visited our website. Now we want to display our html file that we created. To do this we will need to change the app.use line our our app.js file.

We will be using the sendFile command to show the index.html file. We will need to tell the server exactly where to find the index.html file. We can do that by using a node global call __dirname. The __dirname will provide the current directly where the command was run. We will then append the path to our index.html file.

The app.use lines will need to be changed to
app.use("/", (req, res) => { res.sendFile(__dirname + "/index.html"); });

Once you have saved your app.js file, we can test it by going to terminal and running node app.js

Open your browser and navigate to “http://localhost:3000”. You will see the following

Connecting to the Database

Now we need to add our database to the application. We will be connecting to a MongoDB database. I am assuming that you already have MongoDB installed and running on your computer.

To connect to the MongoDB database we are going to use a module called Mongoose. We will need to install mongoose module just like we did with express. Go to your terminal and enter the following command.
npm install mongoose --save

This will install the mongoose model and add it as a dependency in our package.json.

Connecting to the Database

Now that we have the mongoose module installed, we need to connect to the database in our app.js file. MongoDB, by default, runs on port 27017. You connect to the database by telling it the location of the database and the name of the database.

In our app.js file after the line for the port and before the app.use line, enter the following two lines to get access to mongoose and to connect to the database. For the database, I am going to use “node-demo”.

var mongoose = require("mongoose"); mongoose.Promise = global.Promise; mongoose.connect("mongodb://localhost:27017/node-demo");

Creating a Database Schema

Once the user enters data in the input field and clicks the add button, we want the contents of the input field to be stored in the database. In order to know the format of the data in the database, we need to have a Schema.

For this tutorial, we will need a very simple Schema that has only two fields. I am going to call the field firstName and lastName. The data stored in both fields will be a String.

After connecting to the database in our app.js we need to define our Schema. Here are the lines you need to add to the app.js.
var nameSchema = new mongoose.Schema({ firstName: String, lastNameName: String });

Once we have built our Schema, we need to create a model from it. I am going to call my model “DataInput”. Here is the line you will add next to create our mode.
var User = mongoose.model("User", nameSchema);

Creating RESTful API

Now that we have a connection to our database, we need to create the mechanism by which data will be added to the database. This is done through our REST API. We will need to create an endpoint that will be used to send data to our server. Once the server receives this data then it will store the data in the database.

An endpoint is a route that our server will be listening to to get data from the browser. We already have one route that we have created already in the application and that is the route that is listening at the endpoint “/” which is the homepage of our application.

HTTP Verbs in a REST API

The communication between the client(the browser) and the server is done through an HTTP verb. The most common HTTP verbs are
GET, PUT, POST, and DELETE.

The following table explains what each HTTP verb does.

HTTP Verb	Operation
GET	Read
POST	Create
PUT	Update
DELETE	Delete

As you can see from these verbs, they form the basis of CRUD operations that I talked about previously.

Building a CRUD endpoint

If you remember, the form in our index.html file used a post method to call this endpoint. We will now create this endpoint.

In our previous endpoint we used a “GET” http verb to display the index.html file. We are going to do something very similar but instead of using “GET”, we are going to use “POST”. To get started this is what the framework of our endpoint will look like.

app.post("/addname", (req, res) => {
 
});

Express Middleware

To fill out the contents of our endpoint, we want to store the firstName and lastName entered by the user into the database. The values for firstName and lastName are in the body of the request that we send to the server. We want to capture that data, convert it to JSON and store it into the database.

Express.js version 4 removed all middleware. To parse the data in the body we will need to add middleware into our application to provide this functionality. We will be using the body-parser module. We need to install it, so in your terminal window enter the following command.

npm install body-parser --save

Once it is installed, we will need to require this module and configure it. The configuration will allow us to pass the data for firstName and lastName in the body to the server. It can also convert that data into JSON format. This will be handy because we can take this formatted data and save it directly into our database.

To add the body-parser middleware to our application and configure it, we can add the following lines directly after the line that sets our port.

var bodyParser = require('body-parser');
app.use(bodyParser.json());
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({ extended: true }));

Saving data to database

Mongoose provides a save function that will take a JSON object and store it in the database. Our body-parser middleware, will convert the user’s input into the JSON format for us.

To save the data into the database, we need to create a new instance of our model that we created early. We will pass into this instance the user’s input. Once we have it then we just need to enter the command “save”.

Mongoose will return a promise on a save to the database. A promise is what is returned when the save to the database completes. This save will either finish successfully or it will fail. A promise provides two methods that will handle both of these scenarios.

If this save to the database was successful it will return to the .then segment of the promise. In this case we want to send text back the user to let them know the data was saved to the database.

If it fails it will return to the .catch segment of the promise. In this case, we want to send text back to the user telling them the data was not saved to the database. It is best practice to also change the statusCode that is returned from the default 200 to a 400. A 400 statusCode signifies that the operation failed.

Now putting all of this together here is what our final endpoint will look like.

app.post("/addname", (req, res) => {
  var myData = new User(req.body);
  myData.save()
    .then(item => {
      res.send("item saved to database");
    })
    .catch(err => {
      res.status(400).send("unable to save to database");
    });
});

Testing our code

Save your code. Go to your terminal and enter the command node app.js to start our server. Open up your browser and navigate to the URL “http://localhost:3000”. You will see our index.html file displayed to you.

Make sure you have mongo running.

Enter your first name and last name in the input fields and then click the “Add Name” button. You should get back text that says the name has been saved to the database like below.

Access to Code

The final version of the code is available in my Github repo. To access the code click here. Thank you for reading !

Node.js, ExpressJs, MongoDB and Vue.js (MEVN Stack) Application Tutorial

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to integrate Vue.js with Node.js backend (using Express framework) and MongoDB and how to build application with Node.js, ExpressJs, MongoDB and Vue.js

Vue.js is a JavaScript framework with growing number of users. Released 4 years ago, it’s now one of the most populare front-end frameworks. There are some reasons why people like Vue.js. Using Vue.js is very simple if you are already familiar with HTML and JavaScript. They also provide clear documentation and examples, makes it easy for starters to learn the framework. Vue.js can be used for both simple and complex applications. If your application is quite complex, you can use Vuex for state management, which is officially supported. In addition, it’s also very flexible that yu can write template in HTML, JavaScript or JSX.

This tutorial shows you how to integrate Vue.js with Node.js backend (using Express framework) and MongoDB. As for example, we’re going to create a simple application for managing posts which includes list posts, create post, update post and delete post (basic CRUD functionality). I divide this tutorial into two parts. The first part is setting up the Node.js back-end and database. The other part is writing Vue.js code including how to build .vue code using Webpack.

Dependencies

There are some dependencies required for this project. Add the dependencies below to your package.json. Then run npm install to install these dependencies.

  "dependencies": {
    "body-parser": "~1.17.2",
    "dotenv": "~4.0.0",
    "express": "~4.16.3",
    "lodash": "~4.17.10",
    "mongoose": "~5.2.9",
    "morgan": "~1.9.0"
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "axios": "~0.18.0",
    "babel-core": "~6.26.3",
    "babel-loader": "~7.1.5",
    "babel-preset-env": "~1.7.0",
    "babel-preset-stage-3": "~6.24.1",
    "bootstrap-vue": "~2.0.0-rc.11",
    "cross-env": "~5.2.0",
    "css-loader": "~1.0.0",
    "vue": "~2.5.17",
    "vue-loader": "~15.3.0",
    "vue-router": "~3.0.1",
    "vue-style-loader": "~4.1.2",
    "vue-template-compiler": "~2.5.17",
    "webpack": "~4.16.5",
    "webpack-cli": "^3.1.0"
  },

Project Structure

Below is the overview of directory structure for this project.

  app
    config
    controllers
    models
    queries
    routes
    views
  public
    dist
    src

The app directory contains all files related to server-side. The public directory contains two sub-directories: dist and src. dist is used for the output of build result, while src is for front-end code files.

Model

First, we define a model for Post using Mongoose. To make it simple, it only has two properties: title and content.

app/models/Post.js

  const mongoose = require('mongoose');

  const { Schema } = mongoose;

  const PostSchema = new Schema(
    {
      title: { type: String, trim: true, index: true, default: '' },
      content: { type: String },
    },
    {
      collection: 'posts',
      timestamps: true,
    },
  );

  module.exports = mongoose.model('Post', PostSchema);

Queries

After defining the model, we write some queries that will be needed in the controllers.

app/queries/posts.js

  const Post = require('../models/Post');

  /**
   * Save a post.
   *
   * @param {Object} post - Javascript object or Mongoose object
   * @returns {Promise.}
   */
  exports.save = (post) => {
    if (!(post instanceof Post)) {
      post = new Post(post);
    }

    return post.save();
  };

  /**
   * Get post list.
   * @param {object} [criteria] - Filter options
   * @returns {Promise.<Array.>}
   */
  exports.getPostList = (criteria = {}) => Post.find(criteria);

  /**
   * Get post by ID.
   * @param {string} id - Post ID
   * @returns {Promise.}
   */
  exports.getPostById = id => Post.findOne({ _id: id });

  /**
   * Delete a post.
   * @param {string} id - Post ID
   * @returns {Promise}
   */
  exports.deletePost = id => Post.findByIdAndRemove(id);

Controllers

We need API controllers for handling create post, get post listing, get detail of a post, update a post and delete a post.

app/controllers/api/posts/create.js

  const postQueries = require('../../../queries/posts');

  module.exports = (req, res) => postQueries.save(req.body)
    .then((post) => {
      if (!post) {
        return Promise.reject(new Error('Post not created'));
      }

      return res.status(200).send(post);
    })
    .catch((err) => {
      console.error(err);

      return res.status(500).send('Unable to create post');
    });

app/controllers/api/posts/delete.js

  const postQueries = require('../../../queries/posts');

  module.exports = (req, res) => postQueries.deletePost(req.params.id)
    .then(() => res.status(200).send())
    .catch((err) => {
      console.error(err);

      return res.status(500).send('Unable to delete post');
    });

app/controllers/api/posts/details.js

  const postQueries = require('../../../queries/posts');

  module.exports = (req, res) => postQueries.getPostById(req.params.id)
    .then((post) => {
      if (!post) {
        return Promise.reject(new Error('Post not found'));
      }

      return res.status(200).send(post);
    })
    .catch((err) => {
      console.error(err);

      return res.status(500).send('Unable to get post');
    });

app/controllers/api/posts/list.js

  const postQueries = require('../../../queries/posts');

  module.exports = (req, res) => postQueries.getPostList(req.params.id)
    .then(posts => res.status(200).send(posts))
    .catch((err) => {
      console.error(err);

      return res.status(500).send('Unable to get post list');
    });

app/controllers/api/posts/update.js

  const _ = require('lodash');

  const postQueries = require('../../../queries/posts');

  module.exports = (req, res) => postQueries.getPostById(req.params.id)
    .then(async (post) => {
      if (!post) {
        return Promise.reject(new Error('Post not found'));
      }

      const { title, content } = req.body;

      _.assign(post, {
        title, content
      });

      await postQueries.save(post);

      return res.status(200).send({
        success: true,
        data: post,
      })
    })
    .catch((err) => {
      console.error(err);

      return res.status(500).send('Unable to update post');
    });

Routes

We need to have some pages for user interaction and some API endpoints for processing HTTP requests. To make the app scalable, it’s better to separate the routes for pages and APIs.

app/routes/index.js

  const express = require('express');

  const routes = express.Router();

  routes.use('/api', require('./api'));
  routes.use('/', require('./pages'));

  module.exports = routes;

Below is the API routes.

app/routes/api/index.js

  const express = require('express');

  const router = express.Router();

  router.get('/posts/', require('../../controllers/api/posts/list'));
  router.get('/posts/:id', require('../../controllers/api/posts/details'));
  router.post('/posts/', require('../../controllers/api/posts/create'));
  router.patch('/posts/:id', require('../../controllers/api/posts/update'));
  router.delete('/posts/:id', require('../../controllers/api/posts/delete'));

  module.exports = router;

For the pages, in this tutorial, we use plain HTML file. You can easily replace it with any HTML template engine if you want. The HTML file contains a div whose id is app. Later, in Vue.js application, it will use the element with id app for rendering the content. What will be rendered on each pages is configured on Vue.js route on part 2 of this tutorial.

app/routes/pages/index.js

  const express = require('express');

  const router = express.Router();

  router.get('/posts/', (req, res) => {
    res.sendFile(`${__basedir}/views/index.html`);
  });

  router.get('/posts/create', (req, res) => {
    res.sendFile(`${__basedir}/views/index.html`);
  });

  router.get('/posts/:id', (req, res) => {
    res.sendFile(`${__basedir}/views/index.html`);
  });

  module.exports = router;

Below is the HTML file

app/views/index.html

  <!DOCTYPE html>
  <html>
    <head>
      <meta charset="utf-8">
      <title>VueJS Tutorial by Woolha.com</title>
      <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/font-awesome/4.4.0/css/font-awesome.min.css" type="text/css" media="all" />
      <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.0.0/css/bootstrap.min.css" integrity="sha384-Gn5384xqQ1aoWXA+058RXPxPg6fy4IWvTNh0E263XmFcJlSAwiGgFAW/dAiS6JXm" crossorigin="anonymous">
      <script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.2.1.slim.min.js" integrity="sha384-KJ3o2DKtIkvYIK3UENzmM7KCkRr/rE9/Qpg6aAZGJwFDMVNA/GpGFF93hXpG5KkN" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>
    </head>
    <body>
      <div id="app"></div>
      <script src="/dist/js/main.js"></script>
    </body>
  </html>

Below is the main script of the application, you need to run this for starting the server-side application.

app/index.js

  require('dotenv').config();

  const bodyParser = require('body-parser');
  const express = require('express');
  const http = require('http');
  const mongoose = require('mongoose');
  const morgan = require('morgan');
  const path = require('path');

  const dbConfig = require('./config/database');
  const routes = require('./routes');

  const app = express();
  const port = process.env.PORT || 4000;

  global.__basedir = __dirname;

  mongoose.Promise = global.Promise;

  mongoose.connect(dbConfig.url, dbConfig.options, (err) => {
    if (err) {
      console.error(err.stack || err);
    }
  });

  /* General setup */
  app.use(morgan('dev'));
  app.use(bodyParser.json());
  app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({ extended: true }));
  app.use(morgan('dev'));

  app.use('/', routes);

  const MAX_AGE = 86400000;

  // Select which directories or files under public can be served to users
  app.use('/', express.static(path.join(__dirname, '../public'), { maxAge: MAX_AGE }));

  // Error handler
  app.use((err, req, res, next) => { // eslint-disable-line no-unused-vars
    res.status(err.status || 500);

    if (err.status === 404) {
      res.locals.page = {
        title: 'Not Found',
        noIndex: true,
      };

      console.error(`Not found: ${req.url}`);

      return res.status(404).send();
    }

    console.error(err.stack || err);

    return res.status(500).send();
  });

  http
    .createServer(app)
    .listen(port, () => {
      console.info(`HTTP server started on port ${port}`);
    })
    .on('error', (err) => {
      console.error(err.stack || err);
    });

  process.on('uncaughtException', (err) => {
    if (err.name === 'MongoError') {
      mongoose.connection.emit('error', err);
    } else {
      console.error(err.stack || err);
    }
  });

  module.exports = app;

That’s all for the server side preparation. On the next part, we’re going to set up the Vue.js client-side application and build the code into a single JavaScript file ready to be loaded from HTML.

Then, we build the code using Webpack, so that it can be loaded from HTML. In this tutorial, we’re building a simple application with basic CRUD functionality for managing posts.

Create Vue.js Components

For managing posts, there are three components we’re going to create. The first one is for creating a new post. The second is for editing a post. The other is for managing posts (displaying list of posts and allow post deletion)

First, this is the component for creating a new post. It has one method createPost which validate data and send HTTP request to the server. We use axios for sending HTTP request.

public/src/components/Posts/Create.vue

  <template>
    <b-container>
      <h1 class="d-flex justify-content-center">Create a Post</h1>
      <p v-if="errors.length">
        <b>Please correct the following error(s):</b>
        <ul>
          <li v-for="error in errors">{{ error }}</li>
        </ul>
      </p>
      <b-form @submit.prevent>
        <b-form-group>
          <b-form-input type="text" class="form-control" placeholder="Title of the post" v-model="post.title"></b-form-input>
        </b-form-group>
        <b-form-group>
          <b-form-textarea class="form-control" placeholder="Write the content here" v-model="post.content"></b-form-textarea>
        </b-form-group>
        <b-button variant="primary" v-on:click="createPost">Create Post</b-button>
      </b-form>
    </b-container>
  </template>

  <script>
    import axios from 'axios';

    export default {
      data: () => ({
        errors: [],
        post: {
          title: '',
          content: '',
        },
      }),
      methods: {
        createPost(event) {
          if (event) {
            event.preventDefault();
          }

          if (!this.post.title) {
            this.errors = [];

            if (!this.post.title) {
              this.errors.push('Title required.');
            }

            return;
          }

          const url = 'http://localhost:4000/api/posts';
          const param = this.post;

          axios
            .post(url, param)
            .then((response) => {
              console.log(response);
              window.location.href = 'http://localhost:4000/posts';
            }).catch((error) => {
              console.log(error);
            });
        },
      }
    }
  </script>

Below is the component for editing a post. Of course, we need the current data of the post before editing it. Therefore, there’s fetchPost method called when the component is created. There’s also updatePost method which validate data and call the API for updating post.

public/src/components/Posts/Edit.vue

  <template>
    <b-container>
      <h1 class="d-flex justify-content-center">Edit a Post</h1>
      <p v-if="errors.length">
        <b>Please correct the following error(s):</b>
        <ul>
          <li v-for="error in errors">{{ error }}</li>
        </ul>
      </p>
      <b-form @submit.prevent>
        <b-form-group>
          <b-form-input type="text" class="form-control" placeholder="Title of the post" v-model="post.title"></b-form-input>
        </b-form-group>
        <b-form-group>
          <b-form-textarea class="form-control" placeholder="Write the content here" v-model="post.content"></b-form-textarea>
        </b-form-group>
        <b-button variant="primary" v-on:click="updatePost">Update Post</b-button>
      </b-form>
    </b-container>
  </template>

  <script>
    import axios from 'axios';

    export default {
      data: () => ({
        errors: [],
        post: {
          _id: '',
          title: '',
          content: '',
        },
      }),
      created: function() {
        this.fetchPost();
      },
      methods: {
        fetchPost() {
          const postId = this.$route.params.id;
          const url = `http://localhost:4000/api/posts/${postId}`;

          axios
            .get(url)
            .then((response) => {
              this.post = response.data;
              console.log('this.post;');
              console.log(this.post);
          });
        },
        updatePost(event) {
          if (event) {
            event.preventDefault();
          }

          if (!this.post.title) {
            this.errors = [];

            if (!this.post.title) {
              this.errors.push('Title required.');
            }

            return;
          }

          const url = `http://localhost:4000/api/posts/${this.post._id}`;
          const param = this.post;

          axios
            .patch(url, param)
            .then((response) => {
                console.log(response);
              window.alert('Post successfully saved');
            }).catch((error) => {
              console.log(error);
            });
        },
      }
    }
  </script>

For managing posts, we need to fetch the list of post first. Similar to the edit component, in this component, we have fetchPosts method called when the component is created. For deleting a post, there’s also a method deletePost. If post successfully deleted, the fetchPosts method is called again to refresh the post list.

public/src/components/Posts/List.vue

  <template>
    <b-container>
      <h1 class="d-flex justify-content-center">Post List</h1>
      <b-button variant="primary" style="color: #ffffff; margin: 20px;"><a href="/posts/create" style="color: #ffffff;">Create New Post</a></b-button>
      <b-container-fluid v-if="posts.length">
        <table class="table">
          <thead>
            <tr class="d-flex">
              <td class="col-8">Titleqqqqqqqqq</td>
              <td class="col-4">Actions</td>
            </tr>
          </thead>
          <tbody>
            <tr v-for="post in posts" class="d-flex">
              <td class="col-8">{{ post.title }}</td>
              <td class="col-2"><a v-bind:href="'http://localhost:4000/posts/' + post._id"><button type="button" class="btn btn-primary"><i class="fa fa-edit" aria-hidden="true"></i></button></a></td>
              <td class="col-2"><button type="button" class="btn btn-danger" v-on:click="deletePost(post._id)"><i class="fa fa-remove" aria-hidden="true"></i></button></td>
            </tr>
          </tbody>
        </table>
      </b-container-fluid>
    </b-container>
  </template>

  <script>
    import axios from 'axios';

    export default {
      data: () => ({
        posts: [],
      }),
      created: () => {
        this.fetchPosts();
      },
      methods: {
        fetchPosts() {
          const url = 'http://localhost:4000/api/posts/';

          axios
            .get(url)
            .then((response) => {
              console.log(response.data);
              this.posts = response.data;
          });
        },
        deletePost(id) {
          if (event) {
            event.preventDefault();
          }

          const url = `http://localhost:4000/api/posts/${id}`;
          const param = this.post;

          axios
            .delete(url, param)
            .then((response) => {
              console.log(response);
              console.log('Post successfully deleted');

              this.fetchPosts();
            }).catch((error) => {
              console.log(error);
            });
        },
      }
    }
  </script>

All of the components above are wrapped into a root component which roles as the basic template. The root component renders the navbar which is same across all components. The component for each routes will be rendered on router-view.

public/src/App.vue

  <template>
    <div>
      <b-navbar toggleable="md" type="dark" variant="dark">
        <b-navbar-toggle target="nav_collapse"></b-navbar-toggle>
        <b-navbar-brand to="/">My Vue App</b-navbar-brand>
        <b-collapse is-nav id="nav_collapse">
          <b-navbar-nav>
            <b-nav-item to="/">Home</b-nav-item>
            <b-nav-item to="/posts">Manage Posts</b-nav-item>
          </b-navbar-nav>
        </b-collapse>
      </b-navbar>
      <!-- routes will be rendered here -->
      <router-view />
    </div>
  </template>

  <script>

  export default {
    name: 'app',
    data () {},
    methods: {}
  }
  </script>

For determining which component should be rendered, we use Vue.js’ router. For each routes, we need to define the path, component name and the component itself. A component will be rendered if the current URL matches the path.

public/src/router/index.js

  import Vue from 'vue'
  import Router from 'vue-router'

  import CreatePost from '../components/Posts/Create.vue';
  import EditPost from '../components/Posts/Edit.vue';
  import ListPost from '../components/Posts/List.vue';

  Vue.use(Router);

  let router = new Router({
    mode: 'history',
    routes: [
      {
        path: '/posts',
        name: 'ListPost',
        component: ListPost,
      },
      {
        path: '/posts/create',
        name: 'CreatePost',
        component: CreatePost,
      },
      {
        path: '/posts/:id',
        name: 'EditPost',
        component: EditPost,
      },
    ]
  });

  export default router;

Lastly, we need a main script as the entry point which imports the main App component and the router. Inside, it creates a new Vue instance

webpack.config.js

  import BootstrapVue from 'bootstrap-vue';
  import Vue from 'vue';

  import App from './App.vue';
  import router from './router';

  Vue.use(BootstrapVue);
  Vue.config.productionTip = false;
  new Vue({
    el: '#app',
    router,
    render: h => h(App),
  });

Configure Webpack

For building the code into a single JavaSript file. Below is the basic configuration for Webpack 4.

webpack.config.js

  const { VueLoaderPlugin } = require('vue-loader');

  module.exports = {
    entry: './public/src/main.js',
    output: {
      path: `${__dirname}/public/dist/js/`,
      filename: '[name].js',
    },
    resolve: {
      modules: [
        'node_modules',
      ],
      alias: {
        // vue: './vue.js'
      }
    },
    module: {
      rules: [
        {
          test: /\.css$/,
          use: [
            'vue-style-loader',
            'css-loader'
          ]
        },
        {
          test: /\.vue$/,
          loader: 'vue-loader',
          options: {
            loaders: {
            }
            // other vue-loader options go here
          }
        },
        {
          test: /\.js$/,
          loader: 'babel-loader',
          exclude: /node_modules/
        },
      ]
    },
    plugins: [
      new VueLoaderPlugin(),
    ]

After that, run ./node_modules/webpack/bin/webpack.js. You can add the command to the scripts section of package.json, so you can run Webpack with a shorter command npm run build, as examplified below.

  "dependencies": {
    ...
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    ...
  },
  "scripts": {
    "build": "./node_modules/webpack/bin/webpack.js",
    "start": "node app/index.js"
  },

Finally, you can start to try the application. This code is also available on Woolha.com’s Github.

Build a REST API using Node.js, Express.js, Mongoose.js and MongoDB

Node.js, Express.js, Mongoose.js, and MongoDB is a great combination for building easy and fast REST API. You will see how fast that combination than other existing frameworks because of Node.js is a packaged compilation of Google’s V8 JavaScript engine and it works on non-blocking and event-driven I/O. Express.js is a Javascript web server that has a complete function of web development including REST API.

This tutorial divided into several steps:

Step #1. Create Express.js Application and Install Required Modules
Step #2. Add Mongoose.js Module as ORM for MongoDB
Step #3. Create Product Mongoose Model
Step #4. Create Routes for the REST API endpoint
Step #5. Test REST API Endpoints

Source codes here:
https://github.com/didinj/NodeRestApi...