vmoody373 / express-workshop

Now that you have had experience with logging out different types of jokes based on command line arguments, it's time to apply that same concept to a server. In a broad sense, the URL (Universal Resourse Locator) to a webserver is much like the the flags we provided with running our joke printer from the last workshop. To clarify, we can control what content (or type of joke) is delivered to a client's browser based on what application route they are on.

The goal of this workshop is to introduce express.js server initialization and routing. The amount of code needed to complete this workshop is far less than the previous workshop; however, this workshop requires reading a lot of documentation in order for you to be able to complete it without at least referencing the solution branch. That being said, dont worry if you don't complete the workshop in time and feel free to ask Jason or Jonathan for help/clarification if you feel stuck.

Step 1: Setup

If you finished the previous workshop, start with that codebase, or fork this repo and clone it onto your own computer.

Run npm install in your project directory.

Step 2: Initializing the Server

If you look at your package.json file, you'll notice it looks very different from the previous workshop. One diffence is "start:" "node main" under "scripts". This addition allows you to run your main.js file (which will eventually initialize and run the server) by running the command npm start.

Before you begin, I recommend you read the express documentation at: http://expressjs.com/en/4x/api.html and this node js http resource: https://nodejs.org/en/docs/guides/anatomy-of-an-http-transaction/.

First, you'll want to initialize an express application inside main.js (if you are starting from previous code, feel free to gut all your flag logic, but keep the requires.

Hint:

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

Next, you'll need to set up which port number your server is listening on. You can do this by invoking the listen function on app, which takes a port number and an optional callback function.

Hint:

app.listen(8000, function () {
  console.log('server listening on port: ' + 8000)
})

Note: It's always a good idea to log something, so you can see whether or not your sever is running successfully.

Step 3: Building the Routes

Before getting started with building the application routes, I recommend you read express routing docs around the header 'Route paths': http://expressjs.com/en/guide/routing.html.

Now that your server is running you can begin adding api routes. For now let's only focus on GET routes for delivering specific content back.

For each of the joke types you will want the following:

1. A general route for accessing a random joke. e.g. GET /jokes gives either a knockknock or one liner joke back.
2. A nested route for accessing a particular type of joke. e.g. GET /jokes/knockknock gives a knockknock joke back.
3. A route for accessing a capitalized joke. e.g. GET /capitalized/jokes will return either joke type but capitalized
4. A route for accessing a joke in quotation marks. e.g. GET /quotes/jokes will return either joke type but in quotes
5. A route for accessing x jokes. e.g. GET /jokes/5 will return 5 jokes.

Feel free to deviate from those example route names, we want you to design your API however you wish before we move onto more advanced design techniques tomorrow.

Note: For routes 3,4,5 we will discuss a much better strategy tomorrow for handling inputs, cause those are NOT industry standard methods by any means.

You can test the success of your server by accessing localhost:<PORTNUMBER>/<your api route> in your browser's URL while the server is running.

If you finish and are confident with your implementation, ask one of us to come over and check it over. We'll suggest more challenges if you feel up for the task.