RESTful services have become the de facto standard data feed providers for social services, news feeds, and mobile devices. They deliver a large amount of data to millions of users; therefore, they need to address high-availability requirements such as reliability and scalability. This book will show you how to utilize the Node.js platform to implement a robust and performant data service. By the end of the book you will have learned how to implement a real-life RESTful service, taking advantage of the modern NoSQL database for serving both JSON and binary content. Important topics such as correct URI structuring and security features are also covered with detailed examples, showing you everything you need to know to start implementing robust RESTful APIs serving content for your applications!
Chapter 1, REST – What You Did Not Know, gives you a brief introduction into the history of REST and how it couples with the HTTP protocol.
Chapter 2, Getting Started with Node.js, teaches you how to install Node.js and how to work with its package manager to install modules, develop your first HTTP server application, and write automated unit tests for the HTTP handler by using mock request objects.
Chapter 3, Building a Typical Web API, teaches you how to structure your application using human-readable URL and URI parameters and develop a read-only RESTful service application using the filesystem as storage.
Chapter 4, Using NoSQL Databases, explains how to use LevelDB and MongoDB NoSQL databases, understand the difference between key/value and document data stores, and write automated tests for NoSQL user defined modules.
Chapter 5, Implementing a Full-Fledged RESTful Service, implements a production-ready RESTful service that uses NoSQL to store its data. You will also learn how to handle binary data and how to version an API while it evolves.
Chapter 6, Keeping the Bad Guys Out, explains how to restrict access to your data by choosing an appropriate authentication approach, protect data leakage with transport layer security.
The following software is required to test the code present in this book:
- Node.js
- Enide developer studio or the Nodeclipse plugin for the Eclipse IDE
- SoapUI
- OpenSSL
This book targets developers who want to enrich their development skills by learning how to develop scalable, server-side, RESTful applications based on the Node.js platform. You also need to be aware of HTTP communication concepts and should have a working knowledge of the JavaScript language. Knowledge of REST would be an added advantage but is definitely not a necessity.
In this book, you will find a number of text styles that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "All Node.js modules contain a package.json descriptor file."
A block of code is set as follows:
"dependencies": {
"url": "0.1.x",
"express": "4.7.x"
}Any command-line input or output is written as follows:
nodeunit test-math.js
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, appear in the text like this: "Let's start by creating a workspace in Enide Studio. Navigate to File | New | Node.js Project and enter the name of your first project."
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