#Restify Usage

Restify allows you to create new application backend very easily and conveniently. Let's take an example of bidding application and create it from the scratch using Restify.

Step 1:

Define Entities : Decide the entities required for the application. This is more like categorizing your application into modules. For example in bidding application we have following entities: - Products - Bid - Results

Step 2:

Define your Schema: After creating entities, you'll have to define attributes for each one of them. For example in bidding application we define the attributes as follows:

1. Products { "name": {"type" : "string"}, "description": {"type": "string"}, "type": {"type": "string"}, "openDate": {"type": "string"}, "closeDate": {"type": "string"}, "awardedDate": {"type": "string"} }

2. Bid { "productName": {"type": "string"}, "supplierName":{"type": "string"}, "supplierAddess": {"type": "string"}, "bidValue": {"type": "string"}, "bidId": {"type": "string"} }

3. Results { "productName": {"type": "string"}, "supplierName": {"type": "string"}, "awardedValue": {"type": "string"}, "bidId": {"type": "string"} }

Step 3:

Declare data model in Restify:

• Navigate to restify services url, http://restify.labs.hashedin.com/services and click on Create New Entity
• Specify the Entity name we decided in Step 1 for Name under Entities. Add description for the entity.
• Specify the attribute names and type from Step 2 for Name and Type under Add Fields
• Repeat Step 3 for each of the entities in Step 1.

Congratulations! you've created the backend of your application.

To view the entities and their attributes created, follow below steps:

• Navigate to http://restify.labs.hashedin.com/apps.
• Click on the link ApiDocs against your application.
• Enter the usename and password against each field and click "Get token".
• Click on any one of the Entity names mentioned in Step 1. For example in case of bidding application we click on Products.
• After clicking on products, we find options like "POST", "GET", "PUT", "DELETE" etc. To view the schema for products click on "GET".
• We have two options there namely Model and Model Schema. Click on Model Schema to view the attributes and their types. We would also use this model schema to post data for that particular entity.

How make GET request using Api Docs:

• Navigate to ApiDocs page using above mentioned steps.
• Click on GET option.
• Click on try it out button to get the data for that entity.

How make GET request using Api Docs:

• Navigate to ApiDocs page using above mentioned steps.

• Click on POST option.

• In the data section, input the values in the format we saw in Model Schema under GET section earlier. For example for products we provide following data as input:

  {
      "name": "Pen",
      "description": "Pen with black Ink",
      "type": "Stationary",
      "openDate": "24th September 2013",
      "closeDate": "20th December 2013",
  }
  

• Click on try it out button to post the data for that entity.

• Verify the data you posted using GET request as mentioned in the above steps.