ExpressJS - RESTFul APIs

To create mobile applications, single page applications, use AJAX calls and provide data to clients, you'll need an API. An popular architectural style of how to structure and name these APIs and the endpoints is called REST(Representational Transfer State). HTTP 1.1 was designed keeping REST principles in mind. REST was introduced by Roy Fielding in 2000 in his paper Fielding Dissertions.

RESTful URIs and methods provide us with almost all information we need to process a request. The below table summarizes how the various verbs should be used and how URIs should be named. We'll be creating a movies API towards the end, so lets discuss how it'll be structured.

Method	URI	Details	Function
GET	/movies	Safe, cachable	Gets the list of all movies and their details
GET	/movies/1234	Safe, cachable	Gets the details of Movie id 1234
POST	/movies	N/A	Creates a new movie with details provided. Response contains the URI for this newly created resource.
PUT	/movies/1234	Idempotent	Modifies movie id 1234(creates one if it doesn't already exist). Response contains the URI for this newly created resource.
DELETE	/movies/1234	Idempotent	Movie id 1234 should be deleted, if it exists. Response should contain the status of request.
DELETE or PUT	/movies	Invalid	Should be invalid. DELETE and PUT should specify which resource they are working on.

Now lets create this API in Express. We will be using JSON as our transport data format as it is easy to work with in JavaScript and has loads of other benifits. Replace your index.js file with:

index.js

var express = require('express');
var bodyParser = require('body-parser');
var multer = require('multer');
var upload = multer();

var app = express();

app.use(cookieParser());
app.use(bodyParser.json());
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({ extended: true }));
app.use(upload.array());

//Require the Router we defined in movies.js
var movies = require('./movies.js');

//Use the Router on the sub route /movies
app.use('/movies', movies);

app.listen(3000);

Now that we have our application set up, let us concentrate on creating the API. First set up the movies.js file. We are not using a database to store the movies but are storing them in memory, so everytime the server restarts the movies added by us will vanish. This can easily be mimicked using a database or a file(using node fs module).
Import express, create a Router and export it using module.exports:

var express = require('express');
var router = express.Router();
var movies = [
    {id: 101, name: "Fight Club", year: 1999, rating: 8.1},
    {id: 102, name: "Inception", year: 2010, rating: 8.7},
    {id: 103, name: "The Dark Knight", year: 2008, rating: 9},
    {id: 104, name: "12 Angry Men", year: 1957, rating: 8.9}
];

//Routes will go here

module.exports = router;

GET routes

Define the GET route for getting all the movies:

router.get('/', function(req, res){
    res.json(movies);
});

That's it. To test out if this is working fine, run your app, then open your terminal and enter:

curl -i -H "Accept: application/json" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X GET localhost:3000/movies

You'll get the following response:

[{"id":101,"name":"Fight Club","year":1999,"rating":8.1},{"id":102,"name":"Inception","year":2010,"rating":8.7},{"id":103,"name":"The Dark Knight","year":2008,"rating":9},{"id":104,"name":"12 Angry Men","year":1957,"rating":8.9}]

We have a route to get all the movies. Now lets create a route to get a specific movie by its id.

router.get('/:id([0-9]{3,})', function(req, res){
    var currMovie = movies.filter(function(movie){
        if(movie.id == req.params.id){
            return true;
        }
    });
    if(currMovie.length == 1){
        res.json(currMovie[0])
    }
    else{
        res.status(404);//Set status to 404 as movie was not found
        res.json({message: "Not Found"});
    }
});

This will get us the movies according to the id that we provide. To test this out, use the following command in your terminal:

curl -i -H "Accept: application/json" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X GET localhost:3000/movies/101

You'll get the response as:

{"id":101,"name":"Fight Club","year":1999,"rating":8.1}

If you visit an invalid route, it'll produce a cannot GET error while if you visit a valid route with an id that doesnt exist, it'll produce a 404 error.
We are done with the GET routes, Lets move on to POST route.

POST route

Use the following route to handle the POSTed data:

router.post('/', function(req, res){
    //Check if all fields are provided and are valid:
    if(!req.body.name || 
        !req.body.year.toString().match(/^[0-9]{4}$/g) || 
        !req.body.rating.toString().match(/^[0-9]\.[0-9]$/g)){
        res.status(400);
        res.json({message: "Bad Request"});
    }
    else{
        var newId = movies[movies.length-1].id+1;
        movies.push({
            id: newId,
            name: req.body.name,
            year: req.body.year,
            rating: req.body.rating
        });
        res.json({message: "New movie created.", location: "/movies/" + newId});
    }
});

This will create a new movie and store it in the movies variable. To test this route out, enter the following in your terminal:

curl -X POST --data "name=Toy%20story&year=1995&rating=8.5" http://localhost:3000/movies

You'll get the following response:

{"message":"New movie created.","location":"/movies/105"}

To test if this was added to the movies object, Run the get request for /movies/105 again. You'll get the following response:

{"id":105,"name":"Toy story","year":"1995","rating":"8.5"}

Lets move on to create the PUT and DELETE routes.

PUT route

The PUT route is almost exactly same as the POST route. We will be specifying the id for the object that'll be updated/created. Create the route in the following way:

router.put('/:id', function(req, res){
    //Check if all fields are provided and are valid:
    if(!req.body.name || 
        !req.body.year.toString().match(/^[0-9]{4}$/g) || 
        !req.body.rating.toString().match(/^[0-9]\.[0-9]$/g) ||
        !req.params.id.toString().match(/^[0-9]{3,}$/g)){
        res.status(400);
        res.json({message: "Bad Request"});
    }
    else{
        //Gets us the index of movie with given id.
        var updateIndex = movies.map(function(movie){
            return movie.id;
        }).indexOf(parseInt(req.params.id));
        if(updateIndex === -1){

            //Movie not found, create new
            movies.push({
                id: req.params.id,
                name: req.body.name,
                year: req.body.year,
                rating: req.body.rating
            });
            res.json({message: "New movie created.", location: "/movies/" + req.params.id});    
        
        }else{
            //Update existing movie
            movies[updateIndex] = {
                id: req.params.id,
                name: req.body.name,
                year: req.body.year,
                rating: req.body.rating
            };
            res.json({message: "Movie id " + req.params.id + " updated.", location: "/movies/" + req.params.id});
        }
    }
});

This route will do the function we specified in the table above. It'll update the object with new details if it exists. If it doesn't exist, it'll create a new object. To test out this route, use the following curl command. This will update an existing movie. To create a new Movie, just change the id to a non existing id.

curl -X PUT --data "name=Toy%20story&year=1995&rating=8.5" http://localhost:3000/movies/101

Response:

{"message":"Movie id 101 updated.","location":"/movies/101"}

DELETE route

Use the following code to create a delete route:

router.delete('/:id', function(req, res){
    var removeIndex = movies.map(function(movie){
        return movie.id;
    }).indexOf(req.params.id); //Gets us the index of movie with given id.
    if(removeIndex === -1){
        res.json({message: "Not found"});
    }else{
        movies.splice(removeIndex, 1);
        res.send({message: "Movie id " + req.params.id + " removed."});
    }
});

Test the route in the same way we did for the others. On successful deletion(for example id 105), you will get:

{message: "Movie id 105 removed."}

Finally our movies.js file looks like:

var express = require('express');
var router = express.Router();
var movies = [
    {id: 101, name: "Fight Club", year: 1999, rating: 8.1},
    {id: 102, name: "Inception", year: 2010, rating: 8.7},
    {id: 103, name: "The Dark Knight", year: 2008, rating: 9},
    {id: 104, name: "12 Angry Men", year: 1957, rating: 8.9}
];

router.get('/:id([0-9]{3,})', function(req, res){
    var currMovie = movies.filter(function(movie){
        if(movie.id == req.params.id){
            return true;
        }
    });
    if(currMovie.length == 1){
        res.json(currMovie[0])
    }
    else{
        res.status(404);//Set status to 404 as movie was not found
        res.json({message: "Not Found"});
    }
});

router.post('/', function(req, res){
    //Check if all fields are provided and are valid:
    if(!req.body.name || 
        !req.body.year.toString().match(/^[0-9]{4}$/g) || 
        !req.body.rating.toString().match(/^[0-9]\.[0-9]$/g)){
        res.status(400);
        res.json({message: "Bad Request"});
    }
    else{
        var newId = movies[movies.length-1].id+1;
        movies.push({
            id: newId,
            name: req.body.name,
            year: req.body.year,
            rating: req.body.rating
        });
        res.json({message: "New movie created.", location: "/movies/" + newId});
    }
});

router.put('/:id', function(req, res){
    //Check if all fields are provided and are valid:
    if(!req.body.name || 
        !req.body.year.toString().match(/^[0-9]{4}$/g) || 
        !req.body.rating.toString().match(/^[0-9]\.[0-9]$/g) ||
        !req.params.id.toString().match(/^[0-9]{3,}$/g)){
        res.status(400);
        res.json({message: "Bad Request"});
    }
    else{
        //Gets us the index of movie with given id.
        var updateIndex = movies.map(function(movie){
            return movie.id;
        }).indexOf(parseInt(req.params.id));
        if(updateIndex === -1){

            //Movie not found, create new
            movies.push({
                id: req.params.id,
                name: req.body.name,
                year: req.body.year,
                rating: req.body.rating
            });
            res.json({message: "New movie created.", location: "/movies/" + req.params.id});    
        
        }else{
            //Update existing movie
            movies[updateIndex] = {
                id: req.params.id,
                name: req.body.name,
                year: req.body.year,
                rating: req.body.rating
            };
            res.json({message: "Movie id " + req.params.id + " updated.", location: "/movies/" + req.params.id});
        }
    }
});

router.delete('/:id', function(req, res){
    var removeIndex = movies.map(function(movie){
        return movie.id;
    }).indexOf(req.params.id); //Gets us the index of movie with given id.
    if(removeIndex === -1){
        res.json({message: "Not found"});
    }else{
        movies.splice(removeIndex, 1);
        res.send({message: "Movie id " + req.params.id + " removed."});
    }
});

module.exports = router;

This completes our REST API. Now you can create much more complex applications using this simple architectural style and Express.