Our database connector will now function as a full fledged REST API server. We need only add a HTTP server to it.
HTTP servers. Feathers is currently tied into the popular HTTP server framework Express. Future versions will support multiple frameworks, starting with koa.
- Source code: examples/step/01/rest/1.js. and common/
- Run it:
node ./examples/step/01/rest/1.js - Compare with last page's examples/step/01/db-connector/1.js: Unified | Split
This is our previous example with the database method calls removed, and with an Express server added. import
The Express server common/expressServerConfig.js is configured as follows. import
The Express middleware common/expressMiddleware/index.js handles logging, pages not found, and general errors. import
Boilerplate. The server configuration and middleware are standard Express. They have little to do with Feathers other than to feed REST requests to it.
We can now make REST API calls to the server.
In the previous example we created 3 user items and then printed the user file. We can now do the same thing, but using REST, with curl commands: import
First, start the server by running node ./examples/step/01/rest/1.js on one terminal.
Then run the curl commands with ./examples/step/01/rest/curl-requests.sh
on another terminal.
That console displays:
feathers-guide$ ./examples/step/01/rest/curl-requests.sh
POST Jane Doe
{"email":"jane.doe@gmail.com","password":"X2y6","role":"admin","_id":"sbkXV7LVkMhx1NyY"}
POST John Doe
{"email":"john.doe@gmail.com","password":"i6He","role":"user","_id":"uKhqOp4R4hABw9oO"}
POST Judy Doe
{"email":"judy.doe@gmail.com","password":"7jHw","role":"user","_id":"pvcmh9X2i9VZgqWJ"}
GET all users
[
{"email":"judy.doe@gmail.com","password":"7jHw","role":"user","_id":"pvcmh9X2i9VZgqWJ"},
{"email":"jane.doe@gmail.com","password":"X2y6","role":"admin","_id":"sbkXV7LVkMhx1NyY"},
{"email":"john.doe@gmail.com","password":"i6He","role":"user","_id":"uKhqOp4R4hABw9oO"}
]
Feathers. REST API calls are automatically converted into Feathers database method calls like the
users.create()andusers.find()methods we used in the previous example. How's that for convenience?