MEAN Stack : Building REST API with Node and MongoDB

We'll setup a simple node server, and test REST APIs (GET, POST, DELETE). Then, we'll check the results via Browser and Postman Chrome extension.

The material is based on Build a RESTful API in 5 Minutes with NodeJS - Updated

This tutorial assumes we already have Node installed:

$ node -v
v0.10.32

$ npm -v
2.14.1

$ mongo
MongoDB shell version: 3.0.6
connecting to: test

Let's make our working directory, NodeREST:

$ mkdir NodeREST
$ cd NodeREST

npm init will create a package.json:

$ npm init

Here is the package.json:

{
  "name": "noderest",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "",
  "main": "index.js",
  "scripts": {
    "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
  },
  "author": "",
  "license": "ISC"
}

Let's install Express:

$ npm install express --save

Note that we used --save flag to put it into package.json file.

Let's make server.js:

var express = require('express');
var app = express();

app.get('/', function(req, res) {
	res.send('It works');
});

app.listen(3000);
console.log('Listening on port 3000');

Run it:

T$ node server.js
Listening on port 3000

We may want to install mongoose which a=is a wrapper for MongoDB and node-restful for our REST API:

$ npm install --save mongoose node-restful

Also, we need body-parser:

$ npm install --save body-parser

nodemon monitors for any changes in our node.js application and automatically restart the server. Let's install it:

$ sudo npm install -g nodemon

Now run nodemon instead of node:

$ nodemon server.js

Then, if we change a code, it will be reflected immediately because nodemon automatically restart the server:

...
[nodemon] restarting due to changes...
[nodemon] starting `node server.js`
...

Let's modify server.js to setup API:

// Dependencies
var express = require('express');
var mongoose = require('mongoose');
var bodyParser = require('body-parser');

// MongoDB
mongoose.connect('mongodb://localhost/rest_test');

// Express
var app = express();
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({ extended: true }));
app.use(bodyParser.json());

// Routes
app.use('/api', require('./routes/api'));

// Start server
app.listen(3000);
console.log('Listening on port 3000...');

Note that we add moongoose, body-parser, and routes.

Here is our /routes/api.js:

// Dependencies
var express = require('express');
var router = express.Router();

// Routes
router.get('/products', function(req, res) {
   res.send('api works!');
});

// Return router
module.exports = router;

Let's build our models to work with database.

// Dependencies
var restful = require('node-restful');
var mongoose = restful.mongoose;

// Schema
var productSchema = new mongoose.Schema({
    name: String,
    sku: String,
    price: Number
});

// Return model
module.exports = restful.model('Products', productSchema);

We need to change api.js accordingly:

// Dependencies
var express = require('express');
var router = express.Router();

// Models
var Product = require('../models/product');

// Routes
Product.methods(['get', 'put', 'post', 'delete']);
Product.register(router, '/products');

// Return router
module.exports = router;

Since we do not have any data, we got empty array of product.

On postman Chrome extensions, we get the same result:

On postman Chrome extensions, we want to fill in data using POST:

{
"name" : "bogotobogo",
"sku" : "qaz1234",
"price" : 12.99
}

Click "Send", and we can check if it's been really posted on Postman response pane:

Or we can check via browser:

We can delete a record by appending id:

Click "Send", then we get empty list again:

Node.JS