Schema Web

A lightweight web api framework with json-schema validation, following the Convention Over Configuration principle.

Convention

1. An api is... emmmm... well, you know, an api.

   • We define an api in this pattern: model.sub_model.verb, such as school.grade.class.student.get. It is just like a flated restful api. We consider this a more independent way to deal with different logic rather than a restful one. Also, more extensible.
   • For request with session, we provide a http header called Web-State to achieve this. When the http request contains this header, the server will extract it as a part of the request. It is defined in this way: Web-State: sessionid={id}&foo={bar}.

2. An api will be mapped to ONE schema and ONE handler. The schema is used to describe the api, and the handler is to handle and deal with the request.

3. A schema is a module that exports an object with properties request, response, constant and info:

   • request: An instance of semantic-schema describing the request of the api, will be used to validate the request.
   • response: Same as above, will be used to validate the response.
   • constant: Constant values that have been used in the api.
   • info: Base info to make it easily for your patners to understand the api, such as author, title and so on. Feel free to add some other property here because it will not really be used in the framework.

4. A handler is a module that exports an async function, while arguments of the function is the request content, and the return of it will be treated as the response.

   // state is an object extract from the http header 'Web-State'.
   // request is the request from client side, validated by schema.
   // constant is the constant defined in schema.
   module.exports = async({state, request, constant}) {
       let response;
       // your logic here...
       return response;
   }

5. Both of the schema and the handler would be loaded from the file with the same name as the api from their own belonging folder. For example:

   //api name: school.grade.class.student.get
   
   //schema file: 
   ${schema_folder}/school.grade.class.student.get.js
   ${schema_folder}/school.grade.class.student.get/index.js
   
   //handler file:
   ${handler_folder}/school.grade.class.student.get.js
   ${handler_folder}/school.grade.class.student.get/index.js

6. Beside these, there are two less important concepts: middleware & router:

   • middleware: A component that pre-process the request for pattern-matched api before validating the request and passing it to the handler. You can use params apiName, schema and payload here. A common use case of middleware is user authorization. You can pass several middlewares in a sorted array to the framework to make it works.
   • router: A route function to redirect your request to another api, default to apiName => apiName. It can be use for versioning your client.

Usage

Server Side

Create a entry file index.js for the server:

const Server = require('@qtk/schema-web-request-framework');

let server = new Server({
    host: "127.0.0.1",
    port: 3005,
    handlerDir: `${__dirname}/handler`, // your handler folder
    schemaDir: `${__dirname}/schema`, // your schema folder
    //middlewares: [], default to []
    //route: i => i default to i => i,
    //errorMiddleware = undefined //you can response anything when error to replace default error middleware
});

server.on("error", (err) => {
    console.error(err);
});
server.on("started", () => {
    console.log("server start....");
});

server.start();

and run it:

node index.js

done.

To be contine...