Book Image

RESTful Web API Design with Node.js 10 - Third Edition

By : Valentin Bojinov
Book Image

RESTful Web API Design with Node.js 10 - Third Edition

By: Valentin Bojinov

Overview of this book

When building RESTful services, it is really important to choose the right framework. Node.js, with its asynchronous, event-driven architecture, is exactly the right choice for building RESTful APIs. This third edition of RESTful Web API Design with Node.js 10 will teach you to create scalable and rich RESTful applications based on the Node.js platform. You will be introduced to the latest NPM package handler and understand how to use it to customize your RESTful development process. You will begin by understanding the key principle that makes an HTTP application a RESTful-enabled application. After writing a simple HTTP request handler, you will create and test Node.js modules using automated tests and mock objects; explore using the NoSQL database, MongoDB, to store data; and get to grips with using self-descriptive URLs. You’ll learn to set accurate HTTP status codes along with understanding how to keep your applications backward-compatible. Also, while implementing a full-fledged RESTful service, you will use Swagger to document the API and implement automation tests for a REST-enabled endpoint with Mocha. Lastly, you will explore some authentication techniques to secure your application.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
Title Page
Copyright and Credits
Packt Upsell
Contributors
Preface
Index

Chapter 5. Restful API Design Guidelines

In the previous chapter, we implemented a catalog module that exposed functions for data manipulation for the items in the catalog application. These functions made use of the express.js request object to parse the incoming data in the body and then to carry out the appropriate database operation. Each function populated the response object with a relevant status code and response body payload, if needed. Finally, we bound each function to a route, accepting HTTP requests.

Now, it's time to look closer into the URLs of the routes and into the returned HTTP status codes per operation.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

  • Endpoint URLs and HTTP status codes best practices
  • Extensibility and versioning
  • Linked data