Before we begin, we first need to install the command line tool that will be used to upload and manage your application. Cloud Foundry uses a tool called cf. This tool is written in Ruby, so you must have Ruby installed. If you are running on Windows, you can install Ruby from this website.
For Linux systems, consult your documentation for how to install the ruby package - for Ubuntu the command:
apt-get install ruby
should work for you.
Once Ruby is installed, cf can be installed by using the gem install command:
gem install cf
The source for this app is at GitHub so, for example, if you are using the command line you can clone the repository like this:
git clone https://github.com/ibmjstart/bluemix-node-sample-twitter-search-analyzer-app.git
This is a NodeJS app that uses the following cloud services:
- Company Text Analytics Service
- Name Text Analytics Service
This app uses some external APIs. You need to register the app with Twitter to get the keys and tokens.
To access the Twitter API you need the consumer keys and access tokens, so you must register the app with Twitter. You can register your app here.
More information on how to register the app with Twitter
The graph is generated using the Chart.js library, which is under MIT license. The Chart.js library has been included with the app. The library is located in the public/javascripts folder under the node-app directory.
Now that you have included the twitter keys and tokens, you are all set to deploy the app. In the terminal, go in the directory of the app. You can directly deploy/push the app using push command:
cf push --command="node app.js"
(Note that you must add the flag --command="node app.js" in order for the app to start correctly)
Just follow the instructions on the screen. You can select the default settings for deploying the app, i.e. for URL, memory reservations (512 Recommended), number of instances. You need to bind the Company Text Analytics Service and Name Text Analytics Service to your application.
For the app to function correctly, you must create the service instance and bind the service instance while deploying the app. The cf push command will ask, "Create services for application?" Answer yes, then you will be presented with a list of services. Choose Company Text analytics service and Names Text Analytics Service from this list. Below, you can see some screenshots of what this should look like when deploying from the command line.
Here are some snapshots of how to deploy the app and create services required for the app:
(These are to be added)
After the application is deployed using cf push, you can check the status of the app using the following command: cf apps. If the status is RUNNING, you can hit the URL in the browser and see the application is running.
- Sometimes your app may not work as expected and debugging needs to be done. The cf command line tool can be used to assist with debugging. With the cf you can check your app's logs by typing the command cf logs [app_name]
- When you first start using the cf tool, you may potentially have trouble logging in due to no target being set. To view the target that is set, type cf target and if you want to set a new target type cf target [target_url]. Note: The target URL will usually be in the form of http://api.xxx.tld
- From time to time your app may stop working, this means it could require a restart. To do this you must first stop it by typing cf stop. Once the app has been stopped, you can type cf start and if there are no other problems your app should start.
Here are some screenshots of what the app will look like when it is running and functioning correctly.
