Ah, part 2! If you’re looking for part 1, click this link.
Review: In the last blog entry I went through more than a few examples of using cURL to issue GET requests against various end points using Node.js & Restify. I also covered the basics on where to go to find cURL in case it isn’t installed. The last part I covered was a little bit of WebStorm info to boot. In this part of the series I’m now going to dive into the HTTP verbs beyond GET.
POST
The practice around issuing a command via http verb to save data is via a post. When you issue a post via cURL use the -X followed by POST to designate a post verb, then -H to assign the content type parameter. In this particular example I’ve set it to application/json since my payload of data will be JSON format. Then add the final data with a -d option, followed by the actual data.
curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"uuid":"79E5591A-1E54-4562-A276-AFC266F54390","webid":"56E62C3A-D6BC-4F4F-B72A-E6CE081190B6"}' http://localhost:3000/ident
Other data types can be sent, which the content type can be appropriately set for including; html, json, script, text or html. One example of this same command, issued with jQuery on the client side would actually look like this.
var data = {"uuid":"79E5591A-1E54-4562-A276-AFC266F54390","webid":"56E62C3A-D6BC-4F4F-B72A-E6CE081190B6"};
$.post( "http://localhost:3000/ident", function( data ) {
$( ".result" ).html( data );
});
When building post end points via express one of the things you may run into is the following message being displayed in the console.
/usr/local/bin/node app.js connect.multipart() will be removed in connect 3.0 visit https://github.com/senchalabs/connect/wiki/Connect-3.0 for alternatives connect.limit() will be removed in connect 3.0
The immediate fix for this, until the changes are made (which may or may not mean to just alwasy is to replace this line
app.use(express.bodyParser());
with these lines
app.use(express.json()); app.use(express.urlencoded());
So here’s some common examples for use from a great write up on writing basic RESTful APIs with Node.js and Express from the Modulus blog.
var express = require('express');
var app = express();
app.use(express.json());
app.use(express.urlencoded());
var quotes = [
{ author : 'Audrey Hepburn', text : "Nothing is impossible, the word itself says 'I'm possible'!"},
{ author : 'Walt Disney', text : "You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you"},
{ author : 'Unknown', text : "Even the greatest was once a beginner. Don't be afraid to take that first step."},
{ author : 'Neale Donald Walsch', text : "You are afraid to die, and you're afraid to live. What a way to exist."}
];
app.get('/', function(req, res) {
res.json(quotes);
});
app.get('/quote/random', function(req, res) {
var id = Math.floor(Math.random() * quotes.length);
var q = quotes[id];
res.json(q);
});
app.get('/quote/:id', function(req, res) {
if(quotes.length <= req.params.id || req.params.id < 0) {
res.statusCode = 404;
return res.send('Error 404: No quote found');
}
var q = quotes[req.params.id];
res.json(q);
});
app.post('/quote', function(req, res) {
if(!req.body.hasOwnProperty('author') ||
!req.body.hasOwnProperty('text')) {
res.statusCode = 400;
return res.send('Error 400: Post syntax incorrect.');
}
var newQuote = {
author : req.body.author,
text : req.body.text
};
quotes.push(newQuote);
res.json(true);
});
app.listen(process.env.PORT || 3412);
This is a great little snippet of code to use for testing your curling against just to check out.
References:
- I used the “Develop a RESTful API using Node.js with Express and Mongoose” for some key references. I’ve always found the Express.js Docs a little lacking when it comes to examples in building APIs.
- Another great entry is the Modulus entry on the topic of RESTful APIs.
