merest

Mongoose Express REST-full API

merest provides easy way to expose Mongoose models as REST-full api. It creates pointed bellow end-points:

For each api-application:

• all api options: OPTIONS ..\

For each exposed model

• model api options: OPTIONS ..\model-plural-name\
• search: GET ..\model-plural-name\
• create: POST ..\model-plural-name\
• details: GET ..\model-plural-name\:id
• update: POST ..\model-plural-name\:id
• delete: DELETE ..\model-plural-name\:id

Generally merest allows to:

• create rest api for many models
• create many rest interfaces for one model
• restrict the set of documents that are accessible via API
• configure of each mentioned above end-points
• expose static and instance methods of the Model
• create and expose swagger documentation of your rest api
• serve the swagger-ui (merest-swagger required)

Documentation

http://dscheglov.github.io/merest/

Installation

npm i --save merest

merest doesn't install Mongoose or Express in production environment. It is crucial to embed API into your project correctly. You should to install these components by yourself.

Recommended components:

npm i --save mongoose express body-parser method-override

To provide swagger documentation and user interface additionally the merest-swagger should be installed:

npm i --save merest-swagger

Getting started with merest

'use strict';
 
const merest = require('merest');
const express = require('express');
const bodyParser = require('body-parser');
const methodOverride = require('method-override');
 
// Defining model
const mongoose = require('mongoose');
const Contact = mongoose.model('Contact', new mongoose.Schema({
  name: { type: String, required: true },
  email: { type: String, required: true },
  phone: String,
  tags: [String]
}));
mongoose.connect('mongodb://localhost/merest-sample');
 
// Creating the Express application to serve API
const api = new merest.ModelAPIExpress();
 
api.use(bodyParser.json()); // Parsing JSON-bodies
api.use(methodOverride()); // Supporting HTTP OPTIONS and HTTP DELETE methods
 
api.expose(Contact); // Exposing our API
 
api.listen(8000, () => {
  console.log('Express server listening on port 8000');
});

Calling API:

curl -X OPTIONS http://localhost:8000/

Output:

[
  ["options","/","List all end-points of current application"],
  ["options","/contacts/","List API-options for contacts"],
  ["get","/contacts/","List/Search all contacts"],
  ["post","/contacts/","Create a new Contact"],
  ["get","/contacts/:id","Find a Contact by Id"],
  ["post","/contacts/:id","Find a Contact by Id and update it (particulary)"],
  ["delete","/contacts/:id","Find a Contact by Id and delete it."]
]

Getting contact list:

curl -X GET http://localhost:8000/contacts

Output:

[
  {
    "_id": "58503799b1ab13090f2eeb31",
    "name": "Jack London",
    "email": "[e-mail]",
    "__v": 0,
    "phone": "[phone]",
    "tags": ["author", "American"]
  }, {
    "_id": "585276ca2aadb34477ad4034",
    "name": "Taras Shevchenko",
    "email": "[e-mail]",
    "__v": 0,
    "tags": ["author", "poet", "painter", "national hero", "Ukrainian"]
  }
]

Integrating merest into existing projects

'use strict';
 
const merest = require('merest-swagger'); // to support SwaggerUI
const express = require('express');
const bodyParser = require('body-parser');
const methodOverride = require('method-override');
 
// Defining model
const mongoose = require('mongoose');
const Contact = mongoose.model('Contact', new mongoose.Schema({
  name: { type: String, required: true },
  email: { type: String, required: true },
  phone: String,
  tags: [String]
}));
mongoose.connect('mongodb://localhost/merest-sample');
 
const app = express();
// Creating the Express application to serve API
const api = new merest.ModelAPIExpress({
  title: 'Contact List API',
  host: 'localhost:8000', // Assign correct host that could be accessed from your network
  path: '/api/v1',
  options: false // we do not need the OPTIONS any more
});
 
app.use(bodyParser.json()); // Parsing JSON-bodies
app.use(methodOverride()); // Supporting HTTP OPTIONS and HTTP DELETE methods
 
api.expose(Contact); // Exposing our API
api.exposeSwaggerUi(); // Exposing swagger-ui
 
app.use('/api/v1', api); // mounting API as usual sub-application
 
app.listen(8000, () => {
  console.log('Express server listening on port 8000');
});

Going to swagger-ui in browser: http://localhost:8000/swagger-ui