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

Troubleshooting and identifying problems on the wire


Sometimes the interaction between the client and the server fails, and the reason for such failures often requires analysis; otherwise, their root cause stays unknown. We spotted that our client application does not load and thus doesn't display data for an existing item. Let's try to investigate the root cause for that by setting up an http tunnel between the client and the server. This will be a kind of MiM (man-in-the-middle)-based investigation, as we will listen to one port and redirect the incoming request to another, to see whether the server returns correct responses or its pipe gets broken somewhere in the middle. There are various TCP tunnels available out there; I have been using a simple open source one available on GitHub at https://github.com/vakuum/tcptunnel. Its author also maintains a separate website where you can download prebuilt binaries for the most common operating system; they are available at http://www.vakuumverpackt...