Resty

Build quick and simple RESTfull APIs using Node.js and connect

Description

Resty is a connect middleware which let's you build a simple REST interface for your application. I have found it especially useful when building single page web apps which need a server-side API.

The resources are all laid out in a simple directory structure which helps build a clean perspective of how people can interact with your API.

Installation

npm install resty

Usage

Simply require the middleware and tell connect to use it:

var connect = require('connect');
var resty = require('resty');

var app = connect.createServer();
app.use(resty.middleware('/path/to/resources/folder'));
app.listen(8080);

Remember to add middleware for authentication and file serving, as resty only provides the routing for the API resources.

Resource Folder

Here is what an example resource folder may look like:

├── songs
│   └── songs.js
└── users
    ├── contacts
    │   └── contacts.js
    └── users.js

Where a file with the same name as the parent directory will contain the Resources methods and any subfolders are nested resources.

Resource Method

An over-simplified user resource may look like this:

var Users = {
  Resource: {
    get: function(uid, callback) {
      callback(null, {uid: uid, query: this.query});
    }
  },

  Collection: {
    get: function(callback) {
      callback(null, {all: 'users'});
    }
  }
}

module.exports = Users;