FAC19 week 7 project

At Founders and Coders coding bootcamp we are tasked every week with a different project. A MVP is built in 1.5 days by 4 developers that follow the Agile methodology.

Week 7 topic: REST API

See week 7 schedule.

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week7-BGJK

Project brief

To build a REST API that delivers FAC19 icebreakers(?), inspired by the morning check-ins and afternoon checkouts. We thought it would be a great idea to build something on this.

What our API does

API allows users to access a database of icebreaker questions and answers. Users will be able to add their own questions and answers.

User stories

• As a FAC19 student I want to be able to see all the icebreakers and everyone's answers so that I can add my own.
• As a FAC19 mentor I want to see what icebreakers and questions have already been asked so I don't duplicate.

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How to set up the project

Instructions to install Node and run the server

1. Clone this repo
2. Type npm install in the terminal to install all the dependencies associated with this project
3. Once you have installed node, enter npm run dev to kickstart the server

Instructions to set up database

• Start Posgres by typing on your terminal: psql
• CREATE USER myuser WITH PASSWORD 'mypassword'
• then ALTER USER myuser WITH SUPERUSER
• then CREATE DATABASE mydatabase WITH OWNER myuser
• then connect to the database you created: \c mydatabase
• and finally initialise the database: \i database/init.sql
• Create a .env file in the root folder to save your credential details as follow:

  PGDATABASE=mydatabase
  PGUSER=myuser
  PGPASSWORD=mypassword
  JWT_SECRET=a_string 
  

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Running tests

No tests as of Thursday 5pm

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API functions

Users

• Method POST /users: allows user to sign up

  {
    "username":"your_username",
    "password":"your_password"
  }
  

• Method POST /login: allows user to login and creates token

  {
    "username":"your_username",
    "password":"your_password"
  }
  

• Method GET /users: lists all users

Questions

• Method GET /questions: lists all questions in the database
• Method GET /question/:id: gets specific question
• Method POST /questions: allows logged in users to create new question

  {
    "question":"your_new_question"
  }
  

• Method PUT /questions/:id: allows logged in users to edit their questions

  {
   "question":"your_edited_question"
  }
  

• Method DEL /questions/:id: allows logged in users to delete their questions

Answers

• Method GET /answers: lists all answers, with question ID and users ID
• Method GET /answers/:userId: lists user's answers
• Method POST /answers/:id: allows logged in users to add answers (id referes to the question id)

  {
    "answer": "your_new_answer"
  }
  

• Method PUT /answers/:id: allows logged in users to edit their answers

  {
    "answer": "your_edited_answer"
  }
  

• Method DEL /answers/:id: allows logged in users to delete their answers

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Acceptance Criteria

• An Express server that only returns JSON
• A Postgres database to store the data
• Endpoints for creating, reading, updating & deleting resources
• Token-based authentication so only the owner of a resource can change it
• Correct headers and response metadata
• Error-handling to make it easy to use the API to build something
• Tests for server routes and database access
• Not process user input as SQL commands
• Hidden environment variables (i.e. not on GitHub)

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What we learned

• 418 http error code: 'I'm a teapot'
• Arrays are still JSON
• Utilising the UNIQUE keyword in our database schema to prevent multiple users with the same username

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What we struggled with

• Understanding the concept of a REST API (project without a client side)
• Deploy database to Heroku
• Time to write tests

Contributors

• Lizzy-j
• Giovanna
• CampbellDocherty
• Vatskan