/BeastRescue.Solution

Epicodus Independent Project, Week 13: Building an API

Primary LanguageC#



Beast Rescue of the Pacific Northwest

Melissa Scmi


This API & companion MVC app allow users to browse, add to, & update the current animals living at Beast Rescue of the Pacific Northwest.




Technologies Used


  • C#
  • NuGet
  • .NET 5
  • MySql
  • ASP.NET Core
  • Entity Framework
  • Swagger


Setup & Use


Prerequisites


Setup/Installation

  • Clone this repository to an empty folder or to your desktop, or download and open the Zip on your machine. Instructions for cloning can be found here.

  • Open the BeastRescue.Solution folder in your preferred text editor

  • Set up a SQL database:

    • Create a new appsettings.json file in BeastRescue.Solution/BeastRescue
    • Copy the following code into that file, replacing YOUR_PASSWORD with your MySQL password:
         "Logging": {
      "LogLevel": {
        "Default": "Warning",
        "System": "Information",
        "Microsoft": "Information"
      }
   },
  {
     "ConnectionStrings": {
        "DefaultConnection": "Server=localhost;Port=3306;database=beast_rescue;uid=root;pwd=YOUR_PASSWORD;"
      }
  }

  • This repo includes database Migrations. To make use of those, simply run dotnet ef database update in your BeastRescue.Solution/BeastRescue directory. This will create a pre-populated database of animals.

  • Restore and build the API project:

    • Navigate to the BeastRescue.Solution/BeastRescue folder in the command line or terminal
      -- Run dotnet restore to restore the project dependencies
      -- Run dotnet build to build and compile the project

  • Use the API:

    • Navigate to the BeastRescue.Solution/BeastRescue folder in the terminal
    • Run dotnet run
    • If you would like to be able to continue viewing results while making changes to content, instead run dotnet watch run

  • Restore and build the MVC project:

    • Navigate to the BeastRescue.Solution/BeastRescueClient folder in the command line or terminal
      -- Run dotnet restore to restore the project dependencies
      -- Run dotnet build to build and compile the project

  • Use the Web App:

    • Navigate to the BeastRescue.Solution/BeastRescueClient folder in the terminal
    • Run dotnet run
    • If you would like to be able to continue viewing the site while making changes, instead run dotnet watch run
    • Access http://localhost:5003 in your web browser
    • Look at the beasts! Imagine their lives! Yay.



Documentation and Routes


Swagger

This project includes Swagger.
Per Epicodus, "Swagger is an open-source standardized and language-agnostic interface for designing and documenting REST APIs. It can be used to design APIs before they’re built or to document APIs after the code has already been implemented." see citation

To access Swagger Documentation for API calls GET, PATCH, and POST:

  • Run the API application, as detailed above
  • Once the application is running, go to http://localhost:5000 -- You can also follow this link while the program is running: Beast Rescue Swagger

Manual Routes

If you'd like to use the API manually, you can append the following routes to http://localhost:5000 in your browser or Postman

  • GET /api/beasts

    • Returns all beasts in database

  • GET /api/beasts/{id}

    • Returns a single beast with the specified ID

  • POST /api/beasts

    • Creates a new beast in the database

  • PUT /api/beasts/{id}

    • Edits the existing beast with the specified id

  • DELETE /api/beasts/{id}

    • Deletes the existing beast with the specified id

Known Issues

  • None, really, but NB: only GET routes are set up for the MVC app.

License

GPL Copyright (c) 2021, Melissa Schatz-Miller


Contact Information

Melissa Schatz-Miller melissa.scmi@gmail.com
Please feel free to reach out to me with suggested changes/improvements, or if you have any questions.