restfool

RESTfool is largely just a set of higher order functions that produce middleware for mocking responses with assertions and fixture data. These middleware also report request and response information to a RESTfool Dashboard instance for debugging and analysis of each made call.

Getting Started

Install via npm:

npm install restfool

Create a server.js file and require restfool:

var restfool = require('restfool')

Starting a server

RESTfool requires an Express server to serve mocked routes and the dashboard. You can choose to add the middleware yourself, but it's recommended to have RESTfool create and configure a server for you.

var server = restfool.create()
 
server.get('/', function (req, res, next) {
  res.send('OK')
})
 
server.listen(4050)

Fixture Data

RESTfool makes it easy to generate fake fixture data by using the fixture() method. The fixture() methods accepts either an object literal containing, or a function that returns, the desired output schema. When using the object literal method, you can pass in functions to generate values dynamically.

Note: We're using the faker library below to quickly generate fake data.

var faker = require('faker')
 
// object literal
var postFixture = restfool.fixture({
 
  title: faker.lorem.sentence,
 
  body: faker.lorem.paragraph,
 
})
 
// function
var userFixture = restfool.fixture(function () {
  return {
 
    name: faker.name.firstName() + ' '+ faker.name.lastName(),
 
    email: faker.internet.email()
 
  }
})

Generating rows

Now that you've defined the schema for the data, you can output a single row by calling the makeOne() method or a defined number of rows using the make() method.

var one = postFixture.makeOne()
// => { title: 'Lorem ipsum dolor', ... }
 
var many = postFixture.make(3)
// => [ {...}, {...}, {...} ]

You can override the results of custom values by passing an object or function in as a second argument.

var active = userFixture.make(2, { active: true })
// => [ {name: '...', active: true}, {name: '...', active: true} ]
 
var noNicks = userFixture.make(10, function (user) {
  // return false to filter out records
  if (user.name.match(/^nic(k|holas) .*/i)) return false
 
  return user
})

Generating middleware

You can also generate middleware quickly using the send() and sendOne() methods. These methods function the same as their "make" counterparts but will send a 200 JSON response containing the data.

server.get('/posts', postFixture.send(10, { published: true }))

Mocking entire resources

You know what's even cooler than sending completely dynamic fixture data? Mocking data persistence complete with scaffolded routes!

Note: RESTfool simply stores the data in memory. This means that the data will be lost once the server is closed.

var uuid = require('uuid')
 
var posts = restfool.resource({
  // define the endpoint/resource name
  name: 'posts',
 
  // provide an initial set seed data
  seed: postFixture.make(10),
 
  // format the resource data on output
  format: function (data) {
    var req = this
    var output = { data: data }
 
    if (Array.isArray(data)) {
      data.page = req.query.page || 1
      data.results = data.length
    }
 
    return data;
  }
 
  // run this function when a post is made
  onCreate: function (post) {
    // if the primary key doesn't have a value then an auto-incrementing
    // index will be provided
    post.id = uuid.v1()
 
    return post
  }
})

The following events are supported: create, update, save, delete