REST API for Pratilipi challenge

This API is hosted at API url.

It uses Firestore for storing Data, Firebase Auth for authentication and Firebase Cloud Messaging to send updates to clients.

The use of this API is restricted using an API key, the details of which are in the drive link shared with Pratilipi.

Intended data flow

My laptop broke so I did not have enough time to complete the UI but the intended flow is as followed:

Client app uses Firebase Auth to authenticate
Asynchronously, client app will initialize FCM to listen for notifications
(Depreciated) client app will update notification token using the /notif endpoint
Client app POSTs basic user details to /user endpoint
Client app can POST, GET, PATCH, DELETE /post endpoint for adding/deleting/updating or viewing posts
On opening a post, the client will subscribe to the topic $postId via FCM for realtime view count updates
On closing the app, the client will unsubscribe from the topic $postId to prevent unnecessary bandwidth usage and unnecessary notifications sent from server.

The API part of this can be tested by requesting the endpoints as described below.

Firebase Data Schema

This is a sample representation of the data schema, each collection/document also has some metadata which is not shown here. This is only the data created/manipulated by the api.

Note: Admin collection is depreciated and is no longer used due to reasons explained in the API reference below.

Users:
  uid_0:
    uid: "<UID from firebase auth>",
    name: "<Name of user>",
    mobile: "<Mobile Number>",
    profilePic: "<Link to profile Picture>"
    current: "postId of last viewed post"
  uid_1:
    uid: "<UID from firebase auth>",
    name: "<Name of user>",
    mobile: "<Mobile Number>",
    profilePic: "<Link to profile Picture>"
    current: "postId of last viewed post"
  .
  .
  .
Posts:
  postId_0:
    uid: "<UID of author>",
    author: "<Name of author>",
    title: "<Title of post>",
    content: "<Content of post>",
    visitCount: "<no of total unique users viewing the post>"
    visitors: ["user1","user2",...]
  postId_1:
    uid: "<UID of author>",
    author: "<Name of author>",
    title: "<Title of post>",
    content: "<Content of post>",
    visitCount: "<no of total unique users viewing the post>"
    visitors: ["user1","user2",...]
  .
  .
  .
Admin:
  Notifications:
    notification: {
      uid_0: token_0,
      uid_1: token_1,
      .
      .
      .
    }

API Reference

Note: /notif endpoint has been depreciated because:

This endpoint updated the FCM Token generated for each user. This could then be used to notify a client about changes in reader count.

This was particularly useful as I was saving the storyId currently being viewed by user and therefore only a subset of users would recieve data.

I stoped using selective notification as it was time intensive to check for users reading the post in favour of topics.

So, each user, when opening the post, would automatically subscribed(client side) to the topic $postId on opening it and any changes in that post would be sent to them(server sends). On closing the post, the user will be unsubscribed automatically(client side).

Authentication/Sign In

Authentication is being done using Firebase Auth on the client side and the User Details are then stored in the database using the following endpint

/user

Post

req:

header: {
  "Authorization": "<API-KEY>"
}
body: {
  "uid": "<UID from firebase auth>",
  "name": "<Name of user>",
  "mobile": "<Mobile Number>",
  "profilePic": "<Link to profile Picture>"
}

res:

201 : `Created a new user: ${user_object}`
400 : `User should only contains firstName, lastName and email!`

Patch

req:

header: {
  "Authorization": "<API-KEY>"
}
params: {
  "postId": "<User id to be patched>",
}
body: {
  "uid": "<UID from firebase auth>",
  "name": "<Name of user>",
  "mobile": "<Mobile Number>",
  "profilePic": "<Link to profile Picture>"
}

res:

204 : `Update a new user: ${updatedDoc}`
400 : `Invalid request body!`
403 : `Forbidden request!`

Get

req:

header: {
  "Authorization": "<API-KEY>"
}
params: {
  "postId": "<User id to be patched>",
}

res:

200 :  {
  "uid": "<UID from firebase auth>",
  "name": "<Name of user>",
  "mobile": "<Mobile Number>",
  "profilePic": "<Link to profile Picture>"
}
400 : `Cannot get user: ${error}`

Delete

req:

header: {
  "Authorization": "<API-KEY>"
}
params: {
  "userId": "<UID from firebase auth>"
}

res:

204 : `User is deleted: ${deletedUser}`
400 : `Error: ${error}`

Posts Endpoint

This endpoint is used to add, modify, view or delete posts.

When a new user requests to view a post, all subscribers of the topic $postId are notified about the change in the total count and client updates the page accordingly.

/post

Post

Saves a new post to the database and links it to the author of the post.

req:

header: {
  "Authorization": "<API-KEY>"
}
body: {
  "uid": "<UID from firebase auth>",
  "author": "<Name of user>",
  "title": "<Title of post>",
  "content": "<Content of post>"
}

res:

201 : `Created a new post: ${newDoc.id}, Updated references:${result}`
400 : `Error: ${error}`

Get

req:

header: {
  "Authorization": "<API-KEY>"
}
params: {
  "postId": "<Post id to be fetched>",
  "userId": "<ID of the user requesting the post>"
}

res:

If all params are passed:

200 :  {
  "uid": "<UID of author>",
  "author": "<Name of author>",
  "title": "<Title of post>",
  "content": "<Content of post>",
  "visitCount": "<no of total unique users viewing the post>"
  "visitors": ["user1","user2",...]
}
400 : `Cannot get post: ${error}`

This will also update visitor count on all users reading the story only if a new unique user requests for the post

If some or no parameters are passed:

200 :  [
  {
    "uid": "<UID of author>",
    "author": "<Name of author>",
    "title": "<Title of post>",
    "content": "<Content of post>",
    "visitCount": "<no of total unique users viewing the post>"
    "visitors": ["user1","user2",...]
  },
  {
    "uid": "<UID of author>",
    "author": "<Name of author>",
    "title": "<Title of post>",
    "content": "<Content of post>",
    "visitCount": "<no of total unique users viewing the post>"
    "visitors": ["user1","user2",...]
  },
  .
  .
  .
]
400 : `Cannot get post: ${error}`

Patch

req:

header: {
  "Authorization": "<API-KEY>"
}
params: {
  "postId": "<Post id to be patched>",
}
body: {
  "uid": "<UID from firebase auth>",
  "author": "<Name of user>",
  "title": "<Title of post>",
  "content": "<Content of post>"
}

res:

204 : `Update a new post: ${updatedDoc}`
400 : `Invalid request body!`

Delete

Deletes a post from the database and removes its links from theauthor.

req:

header: {
  "Authorization": "<API-KEY>"
}
params: {
  "postId": "<postID from creation>"
}

res:

204 : `Post is deleted: ${deletedPost}`
400 : `Error: ${error}`

Notification Endpoint (Depreciated)

This endpoint updates the FCM Token generated for each user. This could then be used to notify a client about changes in reader count.

This was particularly useful as I was saving the storyId currently being viewed by user and therefore only a subset of users would recieve data.

/notif

Post

req:

header: {
  "Authorization": "<API-KEY>"
}
body: {
  "uid": "<UID from firebase auth>",
  "token": "<notification token from fcm>"
}

res:

201 : `added a new notification token`
400 : `Error updating token!`

maddyb99/pratilipi_backend

REST API for Pratilipi challenge

Intended data flow

Firebase Data Schema

API Reference

Authentication/Sign In

/user

Post

Patch

Get

Delete

Posts Endpoint

/post

Post

Get

Patch

Delete

Notification Endpoint (Depreciated)

/notif

Post