BackBayRider/Stackoverflow-Clone-Backend

Backend code of the Stackoverflow Clone project. Built using Express, Node, MySQL, and Sequelize

🌐 Website | 📹 Demo Video

API Hosted On

• stackoverflow-clone-api.onrender.com (Primary)
• stackoverflow-clone-backend.herokuapp.com

As the name suggests, this project is a clone of a famous Q/A website for professional and enthusiast programmers built solely by me using a completely different stack.

This repo consists of the Backend code of the project, the backend code is in Stackoverflow-Clone-Frontend

My Tech Stack (MERN)

Front-end

• Front-end Framework: React.js (with Redux)
• Styling: SASS and BOOTSTRAP

Back-end

• For handling index requests: Node.js with Express.js Framework
• As Database: MySQL with Sequelize
• API tested using: POSTMAN

Guidelines to setup

There are two ways to setup the project: manually or using the Dockerfile. Read below for more details:

Manual Setup

1. Open your local CLI -

   mkdir Stackoverflow-Clone
   cd Stackoverflow-Clone
   

2. Setup the backend code -

   • Create a .env file and the format should be as given in .env.example.

   • Clone the code & install the modules-

     git clone https://github.com/Mayank0255/Stackoverflow-Clone-Backend.git
     cd Stackoverflow-Clone-Backend
     
     npm install
     

   • Open your MySQL Client -

     CREATE DATABASE stack_overflow;
     

     NOTE: Don't forget to keep the database name same in the .env and here.

   • Run the index npm start.

3. Open a new CLI terminal and goto the root Stackoverflow-Clone folder you created in the first step.

4. Setup the Frontend code -

   • Clone the code & install the modules-

     git clone https://github.com/Mayank0255/Stackoverflow-Clone-Frontend.git
     cd Stackoverflow-Clone-Frontend
     
     npm install
     

   • Run the client index npm start.

Docker Setup

The back-end has support for Docker. So if you want to run the back-end in a container, you need do:

• Setup environment variables in .env file. Note when you use Docker setup and run the database in localhost (host machine), you need to setup the environment variables for use correct IP of MySQL Database. Please, read here and here for more details.

• Build the Docker image:

  docker build -t stackoverflowclone .
  

• Run the container. For example, if you want to run the container in a new terminal, you can do:

  docker run -d -p 5000:5000 stackoverflowclone
  

The default port of api is 5000. After running the container, you can access the api by typing:

http://localhost:5000/api/<endpoint that you request - see next section>

Follow the steps properly (manual or Docker) and you are good to go.

API Endpoints

API is currently hosted on stackoverflow-clone-api.onrender.com and stackoverflow-clone-backend.herokuapp.com.

You can view and read the API endpoints samples here. This is API documentation for the back-end.

But, if you want use Postman to test the API in local machine, you need to follow the steps below:

• Get the Postman app from here.
• Download the Postman collection file in folder "/data/postman_collection"
• Import the collection file in Postman
• Important: will be necessary to setup the enviroment with the "VARIABLE"=urlAPI and "INITIAL VALUE"=http://localhost:5000, for example.
• Remember: keep the Postman collection updated with the latest API endpoints.

Base Url - {API_URL}/api

Users

• GET /auth
• POST /auth
• POST /users/:id
• GET /users
• GET /users/:id

Posts

• GET /posts
• GET /posts/top
• GET /posts/tag/:tagname
• GET /posts/:id
• POST /posts/
• DELETE /posts/:id

Answers

• GET /posts/answers/:id
• POST /posts/answers/:id
• DELETE /posts/answers/:id

Comments

• GET /posts/comments/:id
• POST /posts/comments/:id
• DELETE /posts/comments/:id

Tags

• GET /tags
• GET /tags/:tag_name

Contributing

• Go to Contributing.md

DEMO

VIDEO - Watch the video

Video Last Updated on 7th March, 2022

IMAGES