Building APIs with Restify
About Me
@kassandra_perch
JS Developer
Client-side, server-side, robotics
Austinite
Node.JS is an excellent platform to build APIs and Web Services with.
But we keep forcing Express into an API-framework role, which it just wasn't made for.
Restify
- Node.JS Framework
- Based on Express
- Just for building RESTful APIs
- Nothing extra (no client-side app features)
Building an API
- Establish your server
- Write your routes
- Add your middleware
Example Information
The example is a registry for Red Pandas at a zoo.
Red Pandas have a name, an age, and a short description
What's already there is Mongoose models and a GET route to return all pandas
We will write a GET method to look up pandas by name, and a POST method to register a panda.
Why Restify?
- Tool that does one job, well
- Stop shoehorning Express
- Concise, Helpful API
- Thorough Documentation/Support
Other Benefits
- Complete control of request, response variables
- Easy-to-use CORS, versioning plugins
- Support for nearly all existing middleware
HTTP Clients with Restify
You can wrap requests to other APIs with clients
Allows you to abstract third-party API usage
var client = restify.createJsonClient({ url: 'https://api.example.com', version: '*'});
client.get('/foo/bar', function(err, req, res, obj) { assert.ifError(err); console.log('%j', obj);});
Questions?
@kassandra_perch
kassandra@kassandraperch.com
eunknown.net