tent-request

A javascript module for talking to Tent servers. It supports the current version 0.3. Thanks to browserify this module can also be used in the browser.

install

With npm:

npm install tent-request --save

usage

var request = require('tent-request')
var client = request(meta, auth)

Create a new client for each user with a meta post and auth credentials. The second parameter is optional.
This library has no support for retrieving meta posts. You could use tent-discover for this (hint hint).
auth has to be an object with keys named id OR access_token, key OR hawk_key and algorithm OR hawk_algorithm. You could use tent-auth to get the credentials.

methods

client exposes several functions to interact with the users' Tent server. If you have questions regarding the specific behaviour of some of those methods, don't be afraid to look in the source, it's pretty basic.

result (callback)

All functions optionally take a callback as the last argument, which gets called after the full response is received.
The err variable is null, unless http.request() emits an error or the response status code is not 200.
The response object is forwarded from the underlying response event emitted by http.ClientRequest. It's an instance of http.IncomingMessage. It has information about the response, such as the response status code and headers.
body either contains the JSON decoded response or a number, if the count of a post list was requested.

function callback(err, response, body) {
	if(err) return console.error(err)
	console.log('response with ' + response.statusCode)
	console.log(body)
}

Regardless of the callback, all functions return a http.ClientRequest object. You can listen for the response event to catch the data. This will likely change in future versions.

().on('response', function(response) {
	response.pipe(process.stdout)
})

.create

client.create(type[, metadata][, content][, cb])

Use this function to create a new post. All paramaters except the type are optional. Information about the post schema can be found in the official docs.

metadata

The metadata object can contain publishedAt, licenses, permissions, mentions and attachments keys.

client.create('https://tent.io/types/status/v0', metadata)

publishedAt

{ publishedAt: 1390986459798 }

Manually set when the post was published. Timestamp in milliseconds.

licenses

{ licenses: 'http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/' }
{ licenses: ['http://do.whatever', 'https://you.want'] }

Define the license(s) under which you want to publish the post. You can pass multiple licenses as an array of strings.

permissions

{ permissions: false }
{ permissions: 'https://entity.cupcake.is' }
{ permissions: ['https://entity.cupcake.is', 'group id' }

You can specify to only allow certain entities and groups to see your Tent posts.
Control if the post is public by using a boolean value: true -> public, false -> privat.
By passing one string or multiple strings inside an array, you can set the groups and entities to give read permission for this post.

mentions

{ mentions: 'https://entity.cupcake.is' } // either mention a entity,
{ mentions: 'postID') } // a post
{ mentions: 'http://enti.ty postID' } // or a post by another entity
{ mentions: ['http://enti.ty', 'postId', 'https://enti.ty postId']

Populate the mentions array of the post. Mentions will be completely replaced with Tent 0.4.

{ mentions: {
	entity: 'http://entity.net',
	post: 'postID',
	version: 'versionHash'
	type: 'type',
	public: true
}}

If you need to set the version, type or public status, pass a object containing one or more of those keys. Multiple mentions can be made by passing an array of those.

attachments

{ attachments: {
	name: 'photo.jpg',
	type: 'image/jpeg',
	category: 'photo[0]',
	size: 33920,
	data: photoStream
}}

Posts can have attachments. Attachments are just binary data stored alongside a post.
To add an attachment to a post, pass one or more (inside an array) attachment objects to the create function like shown above.
data can either be a string, a buffer or a stream. If data is a stream, you have to provide the attachment size (will be used for the Content-Length header).
The name, type and category fields are required.

.get

client.get(id[, entity][, opts][, callback])

Use this function to interact with a specific post from the post server endpoint.
get() requires the id of the post to fetch. If no entity is passed as the second parameter, the function will try to get a post with the given id from the current entity.

Opts Object

key | description | example --- | --- | --- version | Set to interact with a specific version. By default the latest version will be picked. | { version: 'aB8mjnxlIeJ8n2tP5ztp' } profiles | Set to one or more of these values to get the relevant profiles: entity, refs, mentions, permissions, parents or all. all is an shortcut and replaced by the other values. | { profiles: ['entity', 'mentions'] } { profiles: 'all' }

sub functions
These subfunctions take the same arguments as the base function.

function | description --- | --- client.get.mentions() | Get all posts that are mentioning the post with the given id. client.get.versions() | Get all versions of the post with the given id. client.get.childVersions() | Get all versions to which the post with the given id is the parent.

To get the number of posts matched, use .count().

client.get.versions.count('id')
client.get.mentions.count('id')
...

.update

client.update(id, parent, type[, metadata][, content][, callback])

Use this function to create a new version of an already existing post. Apart from the first two arguments, this function should be familiar to you: It has the same signature as the create function and metadata and content are accepting the same keys.

Pass the id of the post to update as the first argument. A second argument is required, which is a reference to the parent post. You can either pass the version id of a parent version or a full parent object, consisting of at least a version key and optionally post and entity keys. For more information on the update procedure take a look at this github issue.

In addition to the already known metadata you can set versionPublishedAt and versionMessage. publishedAt can not be changed.

.query

([query][, opts][, callback])

This method communicates with the posts_feed server endpoint and can be used to filter posts by certain criteria. More information can be found here.
The query endpoint will undergo big changes with Tent 0.4.

query object
The posts feed can be filtered by the following parameters.

key | description | example --- | --- | --- limit | Limit the number of posts returned. | { limit: 2 }
sortBy | Specify by which field the posts should be sorted. Possible values are received_at, published_at, version.received_at and version.published_at. | { sortBy: 'received_at' } since | Return only posts since this point. Time in milliseconds since the Unix epoch. | { since: 1373643809000 } until | Return only posts until this point. Time in milliseconds since the Unix epoch. | { until: 1373643814000 } before | Return only posts before this point. Time in milliseconds since the Unix epoch. | { before: 1373643909000 } types | Specify the types of the returned posts. | { types: 'http://ty.pe' } { types: ['http://ty.pe', 'https://another.type'] } entities | Filter by the publishing entity. | { entities: 'http://one.entity' } { entities: ['https://or.more', 'http://than.one'] } mentions | Query by mentions. Supports AND and OR operators. Entities in one array are connected by AND operators, commata represent ORs. | { mentions: [['http://enti.ty' + '+id',/*AND*/ 'https://enti.ty'], /*OR*/ 'http://pet.er'] }

Opts Object

key | description | example --- | --- | --- profiles | Set to one or more of these values to get the relevant profiles: entity, refs, mentions, permissions, parents or all. all is an shortcut and replaced by the other values. | { profiles: ['entity', 'mentions'] } { profiles: 'all' } maxRefs | Set the maximum number of included refs. | { maxRefs: 5 }

Count
To get the number of posts matched, call the subfunction count. Be aware that the actual posts won't be returned.

.count([query][, opts][, callback])

.delete

This simple function can be used to delete specific posts. The id parameter is required.

client.delete(id[, opts][, callback])

opts object

key | description | example --- | --- | --- version | Only delete a specific version. | { version: 'versionId' } createDeletePost | Control if a delete post should be created. Server default: true. | { createDeletePost: false }

.batch

The Tent protocol supports batch requests. This enables you to perform multiple logical requests in one round-trip. More information can be found in this Github issue.
Note: At the time of writing this, the biggest Tent host Cupcake does not support batch requests.

var batch = client.batch()

batch.get(id, function(err, res, body) {})
batch.delete(id)
batch.query(query, cb)

batch.end(function(err, res, body) {})

The batch object exposes the same functions as the main client object. Individual callbacks are invoked as usual.
Send the batch request off by calling the end method. The error and response objects contain information concerning the batch request itself. They are not about the individual requests.
body is an array containing objects with error, res and body keys. The array is sorted by the order in which the requests were added to the batch object. The response to the delete request in the example above can therefore be found in body[1].

pagination

All post lists support pagination. This includes the results of the query, get.mentions, get.versions and get.childVersions functions. The methods to retrieve other pages are bound to the context of the callback. There are this.next, this.prev, this.first and this.last functions, if the corresponding pages are available.

(cb)

function cb(err, res, body) {
	console.log(body)
	if(this.next) this.next(cb)
}

This code snippet would log all posts that are saved on a Tent server.

test

Duplicate tests/config.template.js, rename the file to config.js and populate it. The app must be authorized to read and write the type defined in the config file and https://tent.io/types/delete/v0#.
Then do

npm test

to run the tests.

license

The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2014 Hendrik Cech

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.