How to use a custom Express server with Ember CLI? - ember-cli

Question

I'm using Ember CLI 0.0.36. When I run ember server in my project folder, my understanding is that a server buried in some Brocoli process gets started. However I would like to program a custom Express server and have my app point to that Node.js code for its backend. How would I go about doing that within the Ember CLI framework?
UPDATE:
Following #user3155277's answer, I added an adapter file like so:
app-name/app/adapters/application.js:
import DS from 'ember-data';
export default DS.RESTAdapter.reopen({ namespace: 'api' });
I created an Express server that I put at the root of my app:
app-name/server.js:
var express = require("express"),
app = express(),
path = require("path");
app.get("/api/test", function(req, res) {
res.json({
hello: "world"
});
});
var server = app.listen(8147);
In the Ember app, my index route is defined as so:
app-name/app/routes/index.js:
import Ember from 'ember';
export default Ember.Route.extend({
model: function() {
return Ember.$.getJSON("/api/test").then(function(data) {
return data;
});
}
});
On the command line I then start the server like so:
ember serve --proxy http://localhost:8147/
I get the following error:
version: 0.0.35-master-86abdb11ba
Proxying to http://localhost:8147/
object is not a functionTypeError: object is not a function
at Class.module.exports.Task.extend.start (D:\ember-cli\lib\tasks\server\express-server.js:41:43)
at Class.module.exports.Task.extend.run (D:\ember-cli\lib\tasks\serve.js:40:23)
at Class.module.exports.Command.extend.run (D:\ember-cli\lib\commands\serve.js:35:18)
at Class.Command.validateAndRun (D:\ember-cli\lib\models\command.js:74:15)
at CLI.<anonymous> (D:\ember-cli\lib\cli\cli.js:33:20)
at tryCatch (D:\ember-cli\node_modules\rsvp\dist\commonjs\rsvp\-internal.js:163:16)
at invokeCallback (D:\ember-cli\node_modules\rsvp\dist\commonjs\rsvp\-internal.js:172:17)
at publish (D:\ember-cli\node_modules\rsvp\dist\commonjs\rsvp\-internal.js:150:13)
at flush (D:\ember-cli\node_modules\rsvp\dist\commonjs\rsvp\asap.js:51:9)
at process._tickCallback (node.js:419:13)Livereload server on port 35729

Answer 1

This is actually pretty simple with Ember CLI 0.0.40:
Create folder structure
ember new my-app
Go into the newly created folder
cd my-app
Generate api-stub* (see update)
ember generate api-stub my-server
This latter command creates a server folder with an index.js file and a routes folder with a my-server.js file.
Open my-server.js file and you see:
module.exports = function(app) {
var express = require("express");
var myServerRouter = express.Router();
myServerRouter.get("/", function(req, res) {
res.send({my-server:"something"});
});
app.use("/api", myServerRouter);
};
All you need to do then is to change that file. If the Ember app makes calls to /api/hamsters and /api/project, edit as follows:
module.exports = function(app) {
var express = require("express");
var myServerRouter = express.Router();
myServerRouter.get("/hamsters", function(req, res) {
res.send({ ... });
});
myServerRouter.get("/project", function(req, res) {
res.send({ ... });
});
app.use("/api", myServerRouter);
};
To start the server (from project's root):
ember server
Make sure you have updated node.js to the latest version as well.
Updates
As of Ember CLI 0.0.41 (via this PR) api-stub has been renamed http-mock.

Answer 2

I started playing with ember cli so i'm not sure but i found the following:
https://github.com/dockyard/ember-cli-plus-backend/tree/rails-served-html/frontend/api-stub
Basically you should proxy your express server to the same port as your ember-cli (so then you don't have to deal with jsonp issue)
Set the method to 'proxy' and define the proxyURL to pass all API requests to the proxy URL.
UPDATE:
1.Generate adapter ember generate adapter application
2.Make api namespace - fill the created file with the following code:
export default DS.RESTAdapter.reopen({
namespace: 'api'
});
3.Start the server with ember serve --proxy http://localhost:1337/ (this will proxy all your request to localhost:4200 to 1337
4.Make routes in your express app prefixed by /api
Hope it helps