Express Bootstrap

Bootstrap for Node.js RESTful web applications based on Express.

Know before start

Before you begin to develop, make sure you have known something about these:

0. JavaScript
1. Node.js
2. Express: node.js web application framework
3. Sequelize: node.js database ORM middleware
4. Relational Database: such as MySQL or PostgreSQL

Local deployment

You need run these steps just once.

0. First, you need to use npm install to download all depended pacakges.

   $ npm install
   

1. Copy .env.sample to .env, and configure your database URL in it, also set local HTTP port you like. The db_protocol could be mysql or postgres or any other your are using.

2. Use this command to initilize database tables (make sure you've installed MySQL or Postgresql):

   $ npm run init-databases
   

3. Start app by this command:

   $ npm run dev
   

   The nodemon will be used to watch any modifications.

Architecture

Folder structure

.
|-- controllers/      # All HTTP API routers, same path as folder
|-- middlewares/      # Interceptor filters before routers
|-- services/         # Main business logic code as service layer
|-- store/            # Database definition
|  |-- db/
|  |  |-- migrations/ # Sequelize migration files
|  |  |-- models/     # Sequelize database table definition
|  `-- ...            # Other database driver definition
|-- utils/            # Local utilities library for application
|-- .env.sample       # Local environment config sample
|-- app.js            # Application main file, which could be exported as a module
`-- server.js         # Npm default start script

Back end MVC

Model

All models are about database tables, and use Sequelize ORM framework to manage them in store/<db instance>/ folder.

Every file in store/<db instance>/ folder defined a database table, use camel case table name, excluding a special file index.js which maintains all tables associations (1 to 1, 1 to many, many to many) in it.

Controller(action)

Just like Action layer in Java SSH, or controller in PHP CI, here controllers' responsibility as routing and catching HTTP request from client.

All files under controllers/ folder would have same path when client request. For example, controllers/index.js would catch request from http://yourhost/, controllers/account/login.js would catch request from http://yourhost/account/login.

In order to do some pre-treatment before real action process, there designed a filter layer just like interceptors in Java SSH. And it is easy to maintain in middlewares/ folder, each file in it is an Express middleware.

If a controller need to be intercepted by some filters, it should be define like this:

// real controller process
exports.GET = [
	authoriticate,
	function (req, res, next) {
		// ...
		res.send(200, 'OK');
	}
];

All controllers routing had been move to a single npm. See more about Rainbow.

All these configuration could be changed in app.js.

RESTful HTTP Response

Here is some HTTP status code used for certain meaning of response from server. And the methods in this list have been implemented in response object.

• 200 data

  Everything is OK, and responese contains some data from server.

• 201(*) created

  Create done, and response new created resources.

  May use for creating new data record.

• 204 ok

  A certain operation has been done successfully, and no extra data need to response.

  Used for updating or deleting some data.

• 205(*) done

  Almost same as 204, but need to update view.

  May use in login/logout, etc.

• 400 badrequest

  Syntax error.

  Query parameters less than required or data type not match.

• 403 forbidden

  Forbidden. Just indicates that the request need authorization.

• 404 notfound

  Not found. Wrong path or resouces not exist (may be private).

• 409 conflict

  Confict. Repeat record.

• 422(*) wrongcontent

  Semantics error.

  Something like 400, additionally indicates query parameters contains wrong content.

• 500 servererror

  Server error. There is something wrong in server.

  Mostly indicates that server exceptions have not been caught.

These all could be used in both filters and controllers.

Notice: * means it is just in design.

For more infomation wiki:HTTP status codes.

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