API Structure

[Nick Parsons]

I'm new to Restify, and a little to Node. Looking to see if anyone has good recommendations for a file structure. Ideally, I'd like to move my routes, models, configs, etc. into their own directories, and autoload those into the main app.js file. Any examples, or pointers would be extremely helpful.

Thanks!

[Ismael Gorissen]

Hi,

I'm using restify for 3 months now and node for 5 months. I'm not an expert (just a beginner) but I can help you with my example which is not the best solution. It is only a solution.

• server.js

/// ------ MODULES DEPENDENCIES

var restify = require('restify');

/// ------ CUSTOM LIBRARIES

var api_1_0 = require('./versions/1.0');

/// ------ GLOBALS

var __NAME = 'ServerName';

/// ------ VARIABLES

var server = restify.createServer({

    name:__NAME

});

/// ------ COMMON HANDLERS

server.use(restify.bodyParser());

server.use(restify.queryParser());

/// ------ INITIALIZE ROUTES BY VERSIONS

api_1_0.init(server);

/// ------ RUN SERVER

server.listen(8080, function () {

    console.log("%s running on %s (%s)", server.name, server.url, server.log.fields.hostname);

});

•  1.0.js

function init(server){

    var user = require('../services/1.0/user.js'),

        message = require('../services/1.0/message.js');

    /// ------------ USER ROUTES ------------

    /// ------ GET /user.json

    server.get('/1.0/user.json/:id', user.getUserInformation);

    server.get('/1.0/user.json', user.getUserInformation);

    /// ------ PUT /user.json

    server.put('/1.0/user.json/:id', user.updateUserInformation);

    server.put('/1.0/user.json', user.updateUserInformation);

    /// ------------ USER MESSAGES ROUTES ------------

    /// ------ GET /message.json

    server.get('/1.0/message.json/count/:id', message.getNumberOfMessagesForUser);

    server.get('/1.0/message.json/count', message.getNumberOfMessagesForUser);

    server.get('/1.0/message.json/:id', message.getUserMessageList);

    server.get('/1.0/message.json', message.getUserMessageList);

}

exports.init = init;

• user.js

// modules dependencies

/**

 * Check if the user exists.

 *

 * @param req

 * @param res

 */

exports.getUserInformation = function getUserInformation(req, res) { // do something }

/**

 * Update or insert user information.

 *

 * @param req

 * @param res

 */

exports.updateUserInformation = function updateUserInformation(req, res) { // do something }

• message.js
  

// modules dependencies

/**

 *

 * @param req

 * @param res

 */

exports.getNumberOfMessagesForUser = function getNumberOfMessagesForUser(req, res) { // do something }

/**

 *

 * @param req

 * @param res

 */

exports.getUserMessageList = function getUserMessageList(req, res) { // do something }

[Aseem Kishore]

I organize my routes, models, configs, etc. into their own directories too. Node unfortunately doesn't have a "requireDir" capability built-in, but it's trivial to implement, and a while ago I did just that as an npm module:

https://github.com/aseemk/requireDir

And in fact, the motivation was very much for servers. Here's a simplified Restify app.coffee from one of my APIs:

https://gist.github.com/4461785

Hope this helps!

Cheers,

Aseem

[Nick Parsons]

Thank you, Aseeem. This is very helpful. Any chance you could show me how your routes & middleware files are structured? I'm also trying to figure out the best way to use module.exports, validation, etc. 

--
Nick Parsons | Web Developer | Movement Strategy

o: 303-442-2542 | c: 720-290-6665 | ni...@movementstrategy.com

[Aseem Kishore]

Sure, they're structured just as you see on the `middleware` and `routes` objects in the code:

/middleware

- auth.coffee

- [others later perhaps]

/routes

- users.coffee

- things.coffee

- [others later perhaps]

Cheers,

Aseem

[Nick Parsons]

Any possibility if a gist? :) not trying to take code, just hard to fully understand the best way to code out routes. Especially when introducing a middleware layer with with, validation, etc. 

[Aseem Kishore]

Ok, updated the gist:

https://gist.github.com/4461785

But it's pretty straightforward -- ultimately, you're just defining and exporting functions you'd pass to app.use(), app.get(), app.post(), etc.

Aseem

[Nick Parsons]

Any possibility if a gist? :) not trying to take code, just hard to fully understand the best way to code out routes. Especially when introducing a middleware layer with with, validation, etc.