Node.js and Express

Topics:

• Client and server
• Node.js and Express
• HTTP requests and responses
• HTTP headers and status codes
• Request parameters
• API design and development

Description

You've been focusing on client-side JavaScript thus far, but now you'll make the transition to server-side. The goal here is to handle requests from the client and deliver back responses. You'll develop an API to allow you to create, read, update, and delete posts, as if you were making an application like Facebook or Twitter.

Running the Project

• Run npm install to download the dependencies.
• Run npm test to run the tests. If you'd like, you can run npm test:watch to automatically re-reun the tests when you make modifications.
• To test your application in your browser, or by using Postman, make sure you've installed nodemon via npm install -g nodemon and then run nodemon src/app.js. nodemon will keep the server running and automatically restart it if you change anything. You can now make requests to http://localhost:3000 in your browser or Postman!
• Make modifications to src/server.js to make the tests pass.
• If you'd like, feel free to reference the tests in tests/server.test.js as you're developing.
• Once all tests have passed, you're done! Send us a pull request.

Instructions

You'll create an API that allows the client to create, read, update, and delete posts. The posts will be maintained in memory as a JavaScript array. Each post is an object in the array of the following form:

{
  title: "The post title",
  contents: "The post contents"
}

title is the title of the post, as a String. contents contains the body contents of the post, also as a String.

There are five main route handlers that will allow the client to read/modify the array.

GET /posts

When the client makes a GET request to /posts:

• If the client provides the query-string parameter term, filter the posts to those that have the term in their title or contents (or both), and send down those posts in a JSON response.

• Otherwise, send down the full array of posts as a JSON response.

POST /posts

When the client makes a POST request to /posts:

• Ensure that the client provides both title and contents in the request body. If any of these don't exist, send an object of the form { error: "Error message" } as a JSON response. Make sure to respond with an appropriate status code.

• If all fields are provided, create a new post object. Assign the post a unique, numeric id property that will act as its identifier, and add it to the posts array. Return the newly created post object, with its assigned id, to the client in a JSON response.

PUT /posts

When the client makes a PUT request to /posts:

• Ensure that the client provides id, title, and contents in the request body. If any of these don't exist, send an object of the form { error: "Error message" } as a JSON response. Make sure to respond with an appropriate status code.

• If the id doesn't correspond to a valid post, respond with an error in the same form as above.

• Modify the post with the given id, updating its title and contents. Respond with the newly updated post object in a JSON response.

DELETE /posts

When the client makes a DELETE request to /posts:

• Ensure that the client provides an id in the request body, and that the id corresponds to a valid post. If there's an error, send an object of the form { error: "Error message" } as a JSON response. Make sure to respond with an appropriate status code.

• Remove the post with the given id from the array of posts. Return the object { success: true } in a JSON response.