NC News API

Backend API for a news site supporting users, articles and comments.

Table of Contents

• Getting Started
• — Prerequisites
• — Installation
• Testing
• Deployment
• Available Scripts
• API Reference
• Built With
• Authors
• Acknowledgements

Getting Started

These instructions will get you a copy of the project running on your local machine with a set of development and testing data. This is for testing and development only; for production see deployment

Prerequisites

The project requires you to have PostgreSQL installed. It also assumes that npm is available.

Installation

Clone this repository:

git clone https://github.com/Jakub-L/nc-news-api.git

Install the package dependencies:

npm install

Generate a knexfile.js with database configuration (this may require adding your postgres credentials):

knex init -x nc-news-api

Initialise the databases:

npm run setup-dbs

Seed the database with development data:

npm run seed

Start the development server:

npm run dev

The API can now be reached at localhost on port 9090 (this can be changed in listen.js):

// GET localhost:9090/api/articles/1
{
  "article": {
    "author": "jessjelly",
    "title": "Running a Node App",
    "article_id": 1,
    "body": "This is part two of a series on how to get up and running with Systemd and Node.js. This part dives deeper into how to successfully run your app with systemd long-term, and how to set it up in a production environment.",
    "topic": "coding",
    "created_at": "2016-08-18T12:07:52.389Z",
    "votes": 0,
    "comment_count": "8"
  }
}

Testing

In order to run the automated tests, first ensure the databases have been initialised (migrations and seeding are done automatically before each test):

npm run setup-dbs

Afterwards, the tests can be run for the entire package:

npm test

Or alternatively, only the utility functions can be tested by running:

npm run test-utils

Deployment

The API is hosted on Heroku.

Available Scripts

• npm run setup-dbs - create test and development databases locally,
• npm run migrate-make - create a new migration file for Knex.js,
• npm run migrate-latest - run all migrations,
• npm run migrate-latest:prod - run all migrations (using Heroku configuration),
• npm run migrate-rollback - rollback all migrations,
• npm run migrate-rollback:prod - rollback all migrations (using Heroku configuration),
• npm test - run full testing suite,
• npm run test-utils - run testing suite for utility functions,
• npm run seed - rollback, migrate latest, then seed tables with development data,
• npm run seed:prod - rollback, migrate latest, then seed production tables (using Heroku configuration)
• npm run dev - run server with nodemon for hot reload,
• npm start - run server with node

API Reference

[GET] /api

Returns JSON object with all available endpoints.

---

[GET] /api/topics

Returns array with all article topic objects.

---

[POST] /api/topics

Adds topic to table of topics and returns the newly added object.

Body Params:

• slug (type: string): unique identifier of topic
• description (type: string): description of the topic

---

[GET] /api/articles?{author}&{topic}&{sort_by}&{order}&{p}&{limit}

Returns array with all article objects.

Queries:

• author (type: string): username of author
• topic (type: string): topic of article
• sort_by (type: string): name of column by which to sort returned data. Default: created_at
• order (type: string): order of sorting, can be asc for ascending or desc for descending. Default: desc
• p (type: int): page of results to return. Default: 1
• limit (type: int): number of entries per page. Default 10

---

[POST] /api/articles

Adds article to table of articles and returns the newly added object.

Body Params:

• author (type: string): username of author
• title (type: string): article title
• body (type: string): article content
• topic (type: string): slug of topic of article

---

[GET] /api/articles/{article_id}

Returns article object matching article ID.

Path Params:

• article_id (type: int): ID of article to return

---

[PATCH] /api/articles/{article_id}

Changes the number of votes for an article with matching article ID.

Path Params:

• article_id (type: int): ID of article to return

Body Params:

• inc_votes (type: int): number of votes to be added to article. Can be negative, for decrementing votes.

---

[DELETE] /api/articles/{article_id}

Removes an article with matching article ID.

---

[GET] /api/articles/{article_id}/comments?{sort_by}&{order}&{p}&{limit}

Retrieves all comments for an article with matching article ID.

Path Params:

• article_id (type: int): ID of article to return

Queries:

• sort_by (type: string): name of column by which to sort returned data. Default: created_at
• order (type: string): order of sorting, can be asc for ascending or desc for descending. Default: desc
• p (type: int): page of results to return. Default: 1
• limit (type: int): number of entries per page. Default 10

---

[POST] /api/articles/{article_id}/comments

Adds a comment for an article with matching article ID.

Path Params:

• article_id (type: int): ID of article to return

Body Params:

• username (type: string): username of author. Must exists in the users table.
• body (type: string): body of the comment to be added

---

[PATCH] /api/comments/{comment_id}

Changes the number of votes for a comment with matching comment ID.

Path Params:

• comment_id (type: int): ID of comment to return

Body Params:

• inc_votes (type: int): number of votes to be added to comment. Can be negative, for decrementing votes.

---

[DELETE] /api/comments/{comment_id}

Removes a comment with matching comment ID.

---

[GET] /api/users

Returns array of all users.

---

[POST] /api/users

Adds user to users table and returns newly added object

Body Params:

• username (type: string): unique username identifier for user
• name (type: string): user's name
• avatar_url (type: string): url leading to user's avatar

---

[GET] /api/users/{username}

Retrieves user object with matching username.

Path Params:

• username (type: string): username of user to return

Built With

• PostgreSQL: Relational database used
• node-postgres: Interfacing with PostgreSQL
• Express: Web framework used
• Knex.js: SQL query builder

Authors

• Jakub-L: Initial work

Acknowledgements

• Northcoders: For providing test and development data