api-builder

Build API's in Node.

Load controllers, models and structures into optionally namespaced target(s).
Initialize routes from config/routes.js.
Easily add Redis backed sessions and gzipped Redis response caching.

Getting Started

Install the module with: npm install api-builder

Building your server.js

var apiBuilder = require('api-builder');
var express = require('express');
app = express();
app.use(express.cookieParser());

Use Redis for sessions
Requires a config/redis-session.yml, something like :

defaults: &defaults
  db: 2
  host: localhost
  port: 6379

development:
  <<: *defaults
  secret: qwertyuiop-dev:-)

production:
  <<: *defaults
  secret: qwertyuiop-prod:-)

then in your server.js

apiBuilder.redisSession(app, express);

Optionally cache responses in Redis, to be defined per controller function.
See sample controllers below for usage.
Requires a config/redis-cache.yml, something like :

defaults: &defaults
  host: localhost
  port: 6379

development:
  <<: *defaults
  password: redis

production:
  <<: *defaults
  password: hard-password

then in your server.js say

apiBuilder.cache.init(app, express);

Now some default Express stuff

app.use(express.bodyParser());
app.use(express.methodOverride());
app.use(app.router);
app.use(express.errorHandler({ showStack: true, dumpExceptions: true }));

Make models available from the top level global namespace

apiBuilder.models.load('app/models', global);

Controllers namespaced by "controllers", eg. controllers.blah.blah

apiBuilder.controllers.load('app/controllers', global.controllers = {});

Now you can connect some defined routes to your controller functions

apiBuilder.routes.load(app, 'config/routes.yml', global.controllers);

Routes (config/routes.yml) might look like this :

- { path: '/',                            method: get,    action: Home.index }
- { path: '/:slug/:id/blogs',             method: get,    action: Blogs.show }
- { path: '/users/details',               method: get,    action: Users.details }
- { path: '/contact-us',                  method: post,   action: Messages.contactUs }

/app/controllers/home.js might look like :

module.exports = {
  index: function (req, res) {
    res.cache = 3600; // Cache this in Redis for one hour
    res.json({
      cheese: 'camembert'
    });
  },
  foo: function(req, res) {
    // This won't cache because we haven't defined a res.cache lifetime
    res.render('some/template', { cheese: 'edam' });
  }
};

Given :
/app/models/user.js
/app/models/user/roles.js
/app/models/user/profile.js

loaded as :

apiBuilder.models.load('app/models', global.models = {});

models are then accessed as :

models.User.someAttribute  
models.User.Roles.someAttribute  
models.User.Profile.someAttribute  

Contributing

In lieu of a formal styleguide, take care to maintain the existing coding style. Add unit tests for any new or changed functionality. Lint and test your code using Grunt.

License

Copyright (c) 2013 Mark Selby
Licensed under the MIT license.