Rest API

This API is written in Node.js using express.

Run

Easy option (requires installation of Docker and npm):

1. Start all required docker containers

npm run start

2. On first startup, apply database migrations

bash migrate.sh

3. Shutdown using

npm run down

Docker only (requires installation of Docker):

1. Start all required docker containers

docker compose --env-file ./dev.env build
docker compose --env-file ./dev.env up -d

2. On first startup, apply database migrations

bash migrate.sh

3. Shutdown using

docker compose --env-file ./dev.env down

Run API without docker (requires installation of npm & node)

npm run dev

Requires a Postgres instance on port 5432

API Documentation

The API Documentation can be hosted to localhost:8080 by running

npm run apiDoc

If still online, the doc can also be viewed here

File structure

api
└─── /migrations
│   │   <timestamp>_migration.js    # Migration step definition, create new using 'npm run migrate create <name>'
│   
└─── /src
    │   app.ts                      # Application entry point
    └─── /api                       # API routes
        │   ...
    └─── /service                   # Service layer contains business logic
        │   ...
    └─── /data                      # Data access layer
        │   ...
└─── /swagger
    │   swagger.yml                 # API definition in openAPI spec
│   .dockerignore
│   .env                            # Production environment variables
│   dev.env                         # Development environment variables
│   .eslintrc.json
│   docker-compose.yml
│   Dockerfile
│   package-lock.json
│   package.json
│   tsconfig.json
│   README.md
|   migrage.sh                      # Script for applying database migrations

Error handling

Event though Javascript/Typescript supports try/catch style error handling, it is not widely used in this project. Instead, functional style error handling using the Either monad is used where applicable. By doing this, it is always clear which function threw an error without wrapping each individual statement in a try/catch block. Furthermore, by explicitly returning errors from functions, they are represented in the type system. Typescript does not enforce handling of throwing functions, so it is very easy to miss a try/catch block. However, try/catch might still be used with Promises, though the .then and .catch methods are prefered.