reading-notes

API Design

Readings

• API Design Best Practices

References

• RegExr
• Regex Tutorial
• Regex 101

Questions

API Design Best Practices

• What does REST stand for?
  • Representational State Transfer
• REST APIs are designed around a ____.
  • Resources, which are any kind of object, data, or service that can be accessed by the user’s client
• What is an identifier of a resource? Give an example.
  • URI
  • https://mywebsite.com/orders/1
• What are the most common HTTP verbs?
  • GET
  • POST
  • PUT
  • PATCH
  • DELETE
• What should the URIs be based on?
  • The nouns of the resources, not verbs
• Give an example of a good URI.
  • https://mywebsite.com/orders
• What does it mean to have a ‘chatty’ web API? Is this a good or a bad thing?
  • It is an API that exposes a large number of small resources
  • This is bad since it will slow down performance
• What status code does a successful GET request return?
  • 200 (OK)
• What status code does an unsuccessful GET request return?
  • 404 (Not Found)
• What status code does a successful POST request return?
  • 201 (Created)
• What status code does a successful DELETE request return?
  • 204 (No Content)

Notes

• TODO

In Class Notes

RegEx

• Can look at strings and tell us if the string contains an expected pattern
  • Good for phone numbers, emails, etc. that you are expecting as user inputs that follow a specific pattern
• Pair RegEx with .test() to return a true or false evaluation of the presence of the pattern
• Syntax
  • Set expected pattern in a separate variable with values surrounded by //

  let regex = /ox/;
  
  let str = 'Fox jumps over the lazy dog';
    
  let hasPattern = regex.test(str);
  cosole.log(hasPattern); //returns `true`
  

• Can also pair wth .match() to extract the value that RegEx finds

Lab 8: Adding API to Weather

• Need to write a handler on the backend in order to handle API requests for map images and movies associated with the search city
• Basic backend

  • REQUIRE

    require('dotenv').config();
    const express = require('express');
    const cors = require('cors');
    

  • USE

    app.use(cors());
    const PORT = process.env.PORT || 3002;
    

  • ROUTES

    app.get('/', (request, response)) => {
      response.status(200).send('Server is running');
    };
    
    app.get('*', (request, response)) => {
      res.status(404).send('404: File Not Found');
    };
    

  • LISTEN

• Steps for integrating the API
  • Create new route for weather requests using API
  • Create new .env parameter in backend for weather API key WEATHER_API_KEY=<key>
  • Extract values from the request
  • Make an additional request to the weather API
  • Request URL: <put-url-here> for reference
  • Replace API key in request URL to ${process.env.<api-key-var-name>}
  • Replace search parameter with user input ${searchVariable}
  • Use axios to make the request from the backed using the request URL
    • Remember to include async, await, and .data
  • Clean the data from the request
  • Send groomed data back to the front with the response