dyson

Node server for dynamic, fake JSON.

npm install dyson

See installation notes. Check out some demo services.

Introduction

Dyson allows you to define JSON endpoints based on a simple template object:

When developing client-side applications, for data usually either static JSON files are used, or an actual server, backend, datastore, API, you name it. Sometimes static files are too static, and sometimes an actual server is not available, not accessible, or too tedious to setup.

This is where dyson comes in. Get a full fake server for your application up and running in minutes.

Overview

Easy configuration, extensive options
Dynamic responses
- Responses can use request data (e.g. to simulate different login scenarios based on username):
  - Request path
  - GET/POST parameters
  - Cookies
- Respond with different status code for specific requests (e.g. 404 for ?id=999)
- Includes random data generators
Supports to proxy non-configured endpoints to actual services
Supports GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, PATCH (and OPTIONS)
Supports CORS
Includes dummy image generator
- Use any external or local image service (included)
- Supports base64 encoded image strings
Supports required parameter validation

Endpoint Configuration

Configure endpoints using simple objects:

{
    path: '/user/:id',
    method: 'GET',
    template: {
        id: function(params, query, body) {
            return params.id;
        },
        name: g.name,
        address: {
            zip: g.zipUS,
            city: g.city
        }
    }
}

The path string is the usual argument provided to Express, as in app.get(path, callback);.

The template object may contain properties of the following types:

function: the function will be invoked with arguments (params, query, body, cookies)
string, boolean, number, array: returned as-is
object: will be recursively iterated
promise: if the function is a promise, it will be replaced with the resolving value

Note: the template can also be a function returning the actual data. The template function itself is also invoked with arguments (params, query, body, cookies).

Images

In addition to configured endpoints, dyson registers a dummy image service at /image. E.g. requesting /image/300x200 serves an image with given dimensions.

This service is a proxy to Dynamic Dummy Image Generator by Russell Heimlich.

Defaults

The default values for the configuration objects:

{
    cache: true,
    proxy: false,
    size: function() {
        return _.random(2,10);
    },
    collection: false,
    callback: response.generate,
    render: response.render
};

cache:true means that multiple requests to the same path will result in the same response
proxy:false means that requests to this file can be skipped and sent to the configured proxy
size:function is the number of objects in the collection
collection:true will return a collection
callback:function
- the provided default function is doing the hard work (but can be overridden)
- used as middleware in Express
- must set res.body and call next() to render response
render:function
- the default function to render the response (basically res.send(200, res.body);)
- used as middleware in Express

Fake data generators

You can use anything to generate data. Here are some suggestions:

Just install the generator(s) in your project to use them in your templates:

npm install dyson-generators --save-dev

Please refer to the project pages for usage and examples (here's one using dyson-generators).

Containers

Containers can help if you need to send along some meta data, or wrap the response data in a specific way. Just use the container object, and return the data where you want it. Functions in the container object are invoked with arguments (params, query, data):

{
    path: '/users',
    template: user.template,
    container: {
        meta: function(params, query, data) {
            userCount: data.length
        },
        data: {
            all: [],
            the: {
                way: {
                    here: function(params, query, data) {
                        return data;
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

And an example response:

{
    "meta": {
        "userCount": 2
    },
    data: {
        all: [],
        the: {
            way: {
                here: [
                    {
                        "id": 412,
                        "name": "John"
                    },
                    {
                        "id": 218,
                        "name": "Olivia"
                    }
                ]
            }
        }
    }
}

Combined requests

Basic support for "combined" requests is available, by means of a comma separated path fragment.

For example, a request to /user/5,13 will result in an array of the responses from /user/5 and /user/13.

The , delimiter can be configured (or disabled).

Status codes

By default, all responses are sent with a status code 200 (and the Content-Type: application/json header).

This can be completely overridden with the status property, e.g.:

{
    path: '/feature/:foo?',
    status: function(req, res) {
        if(req.params.foo === '999') {
            res.send(404).body('Feature not found');
        }
    }
}

Would result in a 404 when requesting /feature/999.

Installation

The recommended way to install dyson is to install it locally and put it in your package.json:

npm install dyson

Then you can use it from an npm-script in package.json using e.g. npm run mocks:

"scripts": {
    "mocks": "dyson stubs"
}

You can also install dyson globally to start it from anywhere:

npm install -g dyson

Project

You can put your configuration files anywhere, but either the configuration must have the method property set or the configuration file must be inside a directory representing the method (e.g. stubs/get/sub/endpoint.js). Then start the server:

dyson [dir]

This starts the services configured in [dir] at localhost:3000.

You can also provide an alternative port number by just adding it as a second argument (e.g. dyson path/ 8181).

`dyson init`

For convenience, you could generate some dummy templates to get started inside a project directory:

dyson init [dir]

This script copies dummy config files to [dir]/get/, [dir]/post/, [dir]/put/, and [dir]/delete/.

Demo

For a demo project, see webpro/dyson-demo. This demo is also running at nodejitsu.

Project Configuration

Optionally, you can put a dyson.json file next to the configuration folders (inside [dir]). It enables to configure some behavior of dyson:

{
	"multiRequest": ",",
	"proxy": true,
	"proxyHost": "http://dyson.jit.su",
	"proxyPort": 8080
}

Setting multiRequest to false disables the combined requests feature.
By default, the proxy is set to false

Development & run tests

git clone git@github.com:webpro/dyson.git
cd dyson
npm install
npm test

Articles about dyson

License

MIT

rixo/dyson