express-bookshelf-jsonapi
v0.2.9
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Create JSON API endpoints from bookshelf
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express-bookshelf-jsonapi
ebja for short - yep this module needs a better name, that's why it's still under my username
WARNING: This is still very much a work in progress
ebja can be used to create API endpoints which:
- respond on express routes (act as middleware)
- serialise a bookshelf model as a response (even if it also does other work)
- use the JSONAPI format for request / responses
ebja assumes that endpoints need to be extremely customisable. It has lots of sensible defaults but tries to make everything overridable, whilst still making it very easy to return full JSONAPI-compliant responses.
Example Usage
var app = express();
var jsonapi = ebja({
baseUrl: 'http://localhost:80/api',
models: require('./my-bookshelf-models')
});
var blogs = jsonapi.Resource({
model: 'Blog'
});
blogs.read = blogs.Endpoint({});
app.get('/blogs/:id', blogs.read)
ebja()
The intial usage of ebja is to setup the initial config for your API.
var jsonapi = ebja({
baseUrl: 'http://localhost:80/api',
models: require('./my-bookshelf-models')
});
ebja()
takes an options object with two parameters:
baseUrl
- the url to prefix each endpoint with, for outputting in JSONAPI linksmodels
- an object with model names as keys, and bookshelf models as values
Once setup, the resulting object has two methods:
Resource({})
- define a resource for which endpoints will be created, e.g. a Blogs resource for creating various CRUD endpoints (returns a resource)Endpoint({})
- define an endpoint without first creating a resource (returns a middleware function)
Resource
& Endpoint
both take all the same options.
A Resource
has an Endpoint
method which has all options passed to the resource as overridable defaults.
Resources are a convenience for packaging up options for a group of endpoints, E.g. setting the model, permissions and configuring the response across a full suite of CRUD endpoints.
Principles
Bookshelf plugin
ebja assumes you'll wire up its bookshelf plugin. This provides access to two special model methods:
getOne
- return a single resourcegetPage
- return a collection
Both of these methods are used by ebja by default, to ensure that the JSONAPI params include
, page
, sort
, field
and filter
are passed through to the model correctly and applied.*
var knex = require('knex')(dbConfig)
var Bookshelf = require('bookshelf')(knex);
Bookshelf.plugin(require('ebja').plugin);
* Note: the params field
and filter
are currently disabled by this module. The params are only utilised in GET / query type endpoints.
Endpoint "types"
ebja works on the idea that there are 3 main types of endpoint:
- query (method: GET) - default
- action (methods: POST, PUT or PATCH)
- destroy (method: DELETE)
Query endpoints perform a fetch for a single object or collection with support for the JSONAPI params include
, page
, sort
, field
and filter
.
Action endpoints assume there is some operation to perform, e.g. to add or update a model. These endpoints usually perform a getOne
query after the operation in order to return a serialised model in JSONAPI format.
Destroy endpoints assume they are deleting a resource. They return a 204 and empty response by default on success.
By setting the method
option for an endpoint, the type of endpoint can be changed.
Function "stacks" (apiware)
For each type of endpoint (query, action, destroy) ebja has a stack of functions, much like middleware, that it will execute (see the Stacks listing below for details). Some stack functions have default behaviour, some are noops intended to be overridden with custom behaviour, e.g. permissions
. These functions are referred to as apiware.
Calling Endpoint() results in a function which can be called as express middleware. When called as middleware, the http req
and res
parameters are converted into transport-agnostic APIRequest
and APIResponse
objects. The apiware functions operate the same as express middleware, with the APIRequest
and APIResponse
object being past to each in turn, and each function calling next()
to continue.
For example, for a destroy endpoint there are just 2 apiware functions in the stack: permissions()
(a noop) and destroy()
. All 3 types of endpoint have a permissions()
function just before the main operation. This function can be overridden by passing a function as a permission
option to the Endpoint or Resource. All stack functions can be overridden in the same way.
Example:
var usersRead = jsonapi.Endpoint({
method: 'GET', // this is the default
queryMethod: 'getOne', // this is the default
model: 'User',
permissions: function (apiReq, apiRes, next) {
// If the id parameter in the url (query.data.id) matches the authenticated user (source.id)
if (apiReq.query.data.id === apiReq.source.id) {
// We're safe to continue because we are allowed access to this resource
return next();
}
// Else, we have no permission to continue
return next(new Error('NoPermissionError');
}
});
Options
method
(default:GET
) the HTTP method of the endpointqueryMethod
(default:getOne
) the method to call on the model in the query apiware (query & action endpoints)actionMethod
(default:noop
) the method to call on the model in the action apiware (action endpoints only)destroyMethod
(default:destroy
) the method to call on the model in the destroy apiware (destroy endpoints only)relations
array of relations that the endpoint caninclude
defaultSort
the default sort order<apiwarename>
all apiware functions can be overridden by providing a function with the same name to the optionsresponse
an object containing options for configuring the responsetype
a string type to return in the JSONAPI responseattributes
whitelist- any other option supported by jsonapi-serializer or jsonapi-mapper
Stacks
Query (default)
- validate (noop)
- paramsData
- paramsInclude
- paramsPage
- paramsFilter
- paramsFields
- paramsSort
- permissions (noop)
- query (main operation)
- process (noop)
- format
Action
- validate (noop)
- payload
- permissions (noop)
- action (main operation)
- query (secondary operation)
- process (noop)
- format
Destroy
- permissions (noop)
- destroy (main operation)