/blogapi

Primary LanguageJavaScript

A Blog API

About the app

A Blog API, with full CRUD using NodeJS, Express, Mongoose, and MongoDB. Allows user to register though the auth route, where the user receives a token. With the token the user can view and create blogs. The user can update and create the user's own blogs. The user can also add comments and like a blog. This app is deployed on Heroku at BlogAPI

Technologies Used

Server

  • Node.js - an open source asynchronous event-driven server environment that executes JavaScript code outside a web browser.
  • Express - a back end web application framework for Node.js
  • Nodemon - a tool that automatically restarts a node application when file changes in the directory are detected.

Database

  • MongoDB - a non-relational document database that stores data in a format similar to Javascript Object Notation.
  • Mongoose - a JavaScript library that creates a connection between MongoDB and the Express web application framework.

Middleware

  • MORGAN - an Express middleware to log HTTP requests and errors, and simplifies the process.
  • HELMET - an Express middleware that helps secure HTTP headers returned by an Express apps.
  • Express-Validator - an express middleware that provides validation and sanitization functions

Encryption

  • Bcrypt - a library to help you hash passwords.

Tokens

  • jsonwebtoken - an implementation of JSON Web Token (JWT), which is a standard for sharing security information between a client and a server. Each JWT contains encoded data that is cryptographically signed with a secret value that can act like a "key". It can be sent to a client as proof of authenticity and sent back to the server on subsequent requests as proof of the client's authenticity.

Loading Environmental Variables

  • dotenv - module that loads environment variables from a .env file into process.env

Testing the API

  • Postman - an API platform for developers to design, build, test and iterate their APIs.

Environmental Variables

These variables are needed in the .env file

  • MONGODB_URI
  • SECRET_KEY

Installation Instructions to Run Locally

Clone the project

  1. Create a folder for project on your local machine.
  2. Open a bash shell.
  3. cd into folder that was created in step 1
  4. In the terminal type: git clone https://github.com/jsnmui/blogapi.git

Node.js

  1. Go to https://nodejs.org/en/download/
  2. Download the correct installer for your system.
  3. Run the installer.

MongoDB

  1. Create account on https://www.mongodb.com/
  2. Create a new cluster.
  3. Click connect to get connection string,
  4. Add connection string to MONGODB_URI in .env file.

Install dependencies

  1. In Git Bash terminal, type npm init -y
  2. Type 'npm install' before each of the following:
  • express
  • mongoose
  • bcrypt
  • dotenv
  • jsonwebtoken
  • morgan
  • helmet
  • express-validator

Endpoints, Parameters, Schema

Routes

In server.js, root route for app.get(/) returns "Welcome to my API"

auth route for login and registration

  • post('/registration') - Register new users. userSchema is used. Password hasehd with bcrypt.hash. Token generated with jwt.sign.
  • post('/login') - Login with user's email and password. Token generated with jwt.sign

users route

  • get('/') - Must be a registered user with a valid token to get all users.
  • get('/:id') - Get a user by setting parameter id to the user's id. Must be a registered user with a valid token.
  • put('/:id') - Updates a user. Must be a registered user with a valid token. Check id parameter to see if the user is owner of the account and updates user information.
  • delete('/:id') - Deletes a user. Protected with token. Check id parameter to see if the user is owner of the account and deletes user account.

blogs route

  • get('/') - Retrieves all blogs. User must be registered and have a valid token. Sorted by date in descending order.
  • get('/nonprivate') - Gets public blogs. Doesn't require registration token.
  • post('/') - Creates a new blog post. User needs to be registered and have a valid token.
  • get('/:id') - Get a blogs by sending the blog id as the parameter. User needs to be registered and have a valid token.
  • put('/:id') - Update a blog by sending the blog id as the parameter. User needs to be registered and have a valid token.
  • delete('/:id') - Delete a blog by sending the blog id as the parameter. User needs to be registered and have a valid token.
  • put('/like/:blogid') - Allows a registered user to like a blog post and increase the like counter for a post. Each user can like a post only once. Takes the blog id as the parameter. A user can like a post by sending the id. A user can remove the same like by sending the id again.
  • get('/likedby/:userid') - Allows a registered user to find all blog posts liked by another user. Takes a user id as a parameter.
  • put('/addcomment/:id') - Allows a registered user to add a comment to a post. Needs a blog id as a parameter.

Schemas

userSchema

  • username: type: String, required: true
  • email: type: String, required: true, unique: true
  • birthday: type: Date, required: true
  • age: type: Number
  • password: type: String, required: true

blogSchema

  • creator_id: type: mongoose.Schema.Types.ObjectId, ref: 'user', required: true
  • created_by: type: String, required: true
  • created_at: type: Date, required: true, default: Date.now()
  • blog_title: type: String,required: true
  • blog_content: type: String,required: true
  • comments: [creator_id: type: mongoose.Schema.Types.ObjectId, ref:'user', created_at: type: Date, default: Date.now(), comment: type: String]
  • likesHistory:[user_id: type: mongoose.Schema.Types.ObjectId, ref: 'user', like: type: Boolean]
  • likes: type: Number, default: 0
  • private: type: Boolean, required: true

authMiddleware

  • Token taken from req.header('x-auth-token'). In Postman, x-auth-token was set to the token generated at users/login or users/registration routes.
  • Token is verified using the jwt.verify method and the unique SECRET_KEY.
  • Decoded data that is returned from jwt.verify is saved in req.user to be used in other routes.