while using restFul Api in meteor, we return two request methods request.body and request.query for get and post methods:
Utility = {
getRequestContents: function(request) {
switch (request.method) {
case "GET":
return request.query;
case "POST":
return request.body;
}
},
But I am not getting the difference between the two.
The terminology comes from HTTP. HTTP GET requests are made to get or query something, that is why they don't have a "body", but a "query" string. POST has a body (the thing that should be POSTed), but it does not (usually) have a query.
Normally the two have different purposes and it is actually a questionable idea to mix them into a generic "content" term.
Related
URL parameter or post form data; which is more computationally efficient for a backend API to query?
example:
GET : user/:id
POST: user/ { "id": "some_id" }
I'm implementing my first REST API, and I have a question about the syntax of the URL endpoints.
I know that I should use these endpoint for get, create, update and delete:
Get list of items
Method: GET, Url: /api/items
Get item by id
Method: GET, Url: /api/items/:id
Add item (new item data in the request body)
Method: POST, Url: /api/items
Modify item (modified item data in the request body)
Method: PUT, Url: /api/items/:id
Delete item
Method: DELETE, Url: /api/items/:id
But lets say the interface of item is
interface item
{
id: string;
name: string;
}
What should be the request url for getting an item by it's name?
I can't use Method: GET, Url: /api/items/:name, because this will match the get-by-id request. So how should I syntax this endpoint?
There is no standard REST URI syntax unless you are doing OData for example. You have perfect freedom designing your own URIs, even /resource/{id} is perfectly valid.
What I like to do is end the URIs of collections with / and use queries for filtering collections. So I would do /api/{version}/items/?name={name} if they have unique names and you expect an item instead of a collection, then I would do it this way: /api/{version}/items/name:{name}. But this is my style.
From client perspective the URI syntax is totally irrelevant, because the server gives the valid URI templates to the client according to the HATEOES constraint. If you thought otherwise, then probably you are building a CRUD API instead of a REST API.
You chould use a filter on the collections endpoint like:
Method: GET, Url: /api/items?name=foo
This filter could return all items which have a foo string in them (depending on how you want to handle wildcards in the search / filter term), e.g. the response could be a collection of items:
{
"data": [
{
"id": "d079d8e9-4d24-4514-b356-78587f6c2ba9",
"name": "foo"
},
{
"id": "7f5e558c-6a7f-4ebe-8f4f-a2d029a803ed",
"name": "foo bar"
}
]
}
If you want the response to return a single resource you could also use the name as identifier and apply the scheme from above using the name, e.g.
Method: GET, Url: /api/items/:name
working with a MEAN Stack and I have three GET requests for the same URL/Route. One is to get a generalised summary of long-term emotions, the other is to get a summary of emotions by dates entered, and lastly, a summary of emotions related to a user-entered tag associated with individual emotion entries.
My first GET request is throwing no issues but the second GET request throws an error: Cannot read property 'length' of undefined
The error points to the following line:
48| each emotion in dateEmotions
Below is the relative code associated with the error:
Jade
each emotion in dateEmotions
.side-emotions-group
.side-emotions-label
p.emotion-left= emotion.emotionName
p.pull-right(class= emotion.emotionLevel) (#{emotion.emotionLevel}%)
.side-emotions-emotion.emotion-left
GET Request
module.exports.emotionsListByDates = function (req, res) {
Emo.aggregate([
{ $match :
{ "date" : { $gte: ISODate("2018-04-09T00:00:00.000Z"), $lt: ISODate("2018-04-13T00:00:00.000Z") } }
}, { "$group": {
"_id": null,
"averageHappiness": {"$avg": "$happiness"},
"averageSadness": {"$avg": "$sadness"},
"averageAnger": {"$avg": "$anger"},
"averageSurprise": {"$avg": "$surprise"},
"averageContempt": {"$avg": "$contempt"},
"averageDisgust": {"$avg": "$disgust"},
"averageFear": {"$avg": "$fear"},
}}
], function (e, docs) {
if (e) {
res.send(e);
} else {
res.render('dashboard', {
title: "ReacTrack - User Dashboard",
pageHeader: {
title: "User Dashboard",
strapline: "View your emotional data here."
},
dateEmotions: docs
})
}
});
};
This question is already getting pretty long, but I have another GET Request pointed to that URL and it is not throwing any errors, and the only difference is that I am not matching the db records by date in that query. I can post the working code if need be.
Edit
After some experimenting, I am able to get each of the three routes working individually if I comment out the other two. It's when multiple routes pull in the multiple requests that causes issues. For example, here are the routes at present where the ctrlDashboard.emotionsListByDates is working:
// Dashboard Routes
//router.get(/dashboard', ctrlDashboard.emotionsListGeneralised);
router.get('/dashboard', ctrlDashboard.emotionsListByDates);
//router.get('/dashboard', ctrlDashboard.emotionsListByTag);
If I comment out two routes and leave one running, and comment out the respective each emotion in emotions each emotion in dateEmotions and each emotion in tagEmotions blocks in the Jade file and leave the correct one uncommented, then that route will work, it seems to be when I am firing multiple routes. Is this bad practice, or incorrect? Should all queries be in the one GET request if on the same URL?
Thanks.
Apologies, new to routing and RESTful APIs but after some researching into the topic, I now understand the fault.
I assumed that the URL used in routing was the URL you wanted the data to populate...which it still kinda is, but I thought if I wanted to populate the dashboard page, I had to use that exact route and I did not realise I could post the data to different URL routes and take the data from those URLs to populate the one page.
Fixed by adding /date and /tag to those routes and using AJAX to perform those requests and populate the main page.
Thanks all.
I have the same problem but I'm using React+Redux+Fetch. So is it not a good practice dispatch more the one request in the same time and from the same page to a specific url?
I would know what causes that problem. I've found some discussions about it could be a mongoose issue.
My code:
MymongooObject.find(query_specifiers, function(err, data) {
for (let i = 0; i < data.length; ++i) {
...
}
}
Error:
TypeError: Cannot read property 'length' of undefined
Greeting everyone, I have a datatable in my html page that I populated using REST API. I can create new row and also update or delete by selecting a row and clicking the edit or delete button.
But currently I am unable to delete update or delete multiple row at once due to url error,
e.g : PUT http://127.0.0.1:8000/dashboard/content_detail/5,7,9/ 404 (Not Found)
how can I split this this into several separate url with respective id when I update or delete.
e.g :
/dashboard/content_detail/5
/dashboard/content_detail/7
/dashboard/content_detail/9
Below is my code, any help is much appreciated thank you.
idSrc: 'id',
ajax: {
create: {
type: 'POST',
url: content_path,
data: function (content_data) {
var create_data = {};
$.each(content_data.data, function (id, value) {
create_data['name'] = value['name'];
create_data['description'] = value['description'];
create_data['category'] = value['category'];
});
return create_data;
},
success: function () {
content_table.api().ajax.reload();
}
},
edit: {
type: 'PUT',
url: '/dashboard/content_detail/_id_/',
data: function (content_data) {
var updated_data = {};
$.each(content_data.data, function (id, value) {
updated_data['description'] = value['description'];
updated_data['category'] = value['category'];
updated_data['name'] = value['name'];
});
return updated_data;
},
success: function () {
content_table.api().ajax.reload();
}
},
remove: {
type: 'DELETE',
url: '/dashboard/content_detail/_id_/',
data: function (content_data) {
var deleted_data = {};
$.each(content_data.data, function (id, value) {
deleted_data['id'] = id;
});
return deleted_data;
},
success: function () {
content_table.api().ajax.reload();
}
}
},
If you're going to allow the update of a large number of items at once, then PATCH might be your friend:
Looking at the RFC 6902 (which defines the Patch standard), from the client's perspective the API could be called like
PATCH /authors/{authorId}/book
[
{ "op": "replace", "path": "/dashboard/content_detail/5", "value": "test"},
{ "op": "remove", "path": "/dashboard/content_detail", "value": [ "7", "9" ]}
]
From a design perspective you don't want several ids in your url.
I would prefer single calls for each change, thinking in resources you only manipulate one at a time.
In case this is a perfomance issue, I recommend a special url marked with action or something simliar, to make clear this ist not REST.
In HTTP it is not required for information to only exist on a single resource. It is possible to have multiple resources that represent the same underlying data.
It's therefore not out of the question to create a resource that 'represents' a set of other resources that you wish to DELETE or PUT to.
I do agree that it might not be the most desirable. I think we tend to prefer having information only exist in a single part of tree, and I think we like to avoid situations where updating a resource effects a secondary resource's state. However, if you are looking for a strictly RESTful solution to solve this problem, I think it's the right way.
Therefore a url design such as:
/dashboard/content_detail/5,7,9/
Is not necessarily non-RESTful or goes against the HTTP protocol. The fact that you're getting a 404 on that URL currently has to do with your application framework, not the protocol (HTTP) or architecture (REST) of your API.
However, for cases such as these I feel I would personally be inclined to sometimes create a separate POST endpoint that, acting outside of REST like an RPC endpoint. Specifically for these types of batch requests.
I'm using the request library to make calls from one sails app to another one which exposes the default blueprint endpoints. It works fine when I query by non-id fields, but I need to run some queries by passing id arrays. The problem is that the moment you provide an id, only the first id is considered, effectively not allowing this kind of query.
Is there a way to get around this? I could switch over to another attribute if all else fails but I need to know if there is a proper way around this.
Here's how I'm querying:
var idArr = [];//array of ids
var queryParams = { id: idArr };
var options: {
//headers, method and url here
json: queryParams
};
request(options, function(err, response, body){
if (err) return next(err);
return next(null, body);
});
Thanks in advance.
Sails blueprint APIs allow you to use the same waterline query langauge that you would otherwise use in code.
You can directly pass the array of id's in the get call to receive the objects as follows
GET /city?where={"id":[1, 2]}
Refer here for more.
Have fun!
Alright, I switched to a hacky solution to get moving.
For all models that needed querying by id arrays, I added a secondary attribute to the model. Let's call it code. Then, in afterCreate(), I updated code and set it equal to the id. This incurs an additional database call, but it's fine since it's called just once - when the object is created.
Here's the code.
module.exports = {
attributes: {
code: {
type: 'string'//the secondary attribute
},
// other attributes
},
afterCreate: function (newObj, next) {
Model.update({ id: newObj.id }, { code: newObj.id }, next);
}
}
Note that newObj isn't a Model object as even I was led to believe. So we cannot simply update its code and call newObj.save().
After this, in the queries having id arrays, substituting id with code makes them work as expected!