baucis

baucis v0.2.3

*** WORK IN PROGRESS ***

This is a work in progress, but should be mostly stable. The API is subject to change.

Baucis is Express middleware for automatically creating REST services from Mongoose schemata.

Like Baucis and Philemon of old, this library provides REST to the weary traveler. The goal is to create a JSON REST API for Mongoose that matches as closely as possible the richness and versatility of the HTTP 1.1 protocol.

David Rijckaert - Philemon and Baucis Giving Hospitality to Jupiter and Mercury

An example of creating a REST API from a Mongoose schema:

// Define a Mongoose schema
var Vegetable = new mongoose.Schema({
  name: String
});

mongoose.model('vegetable', Vegetable);

// Create routes for the schema
baucis.rest({
  singular: 'vegetable'
});

// Create the app and listen for API requests
var app = express();
app.use('/api/v1', baucis());
app.listen(80);

Later, make requests:

• GET /api/v1/vegetables/:id — get the addressed document

• PUT /api/v1/vegetables/:id — create or update the addressed document

• DEL /api/v1/vegetables/:id — delete the addressed object

• GET /api/v1/vegetables — get all documents

• POST /api/v1/vegetables — creates a new document and sends back its ID

• PUT /api/v1/vegetables — replace all documents with given new documents

• DEL /api/v1/vegetables — delete all documents

baucis.rest returns an instance of the controller created to handle the schema's routes.

var controller = baucis.rest({
  singular: 'foo'
});

var subcontroller = baucis.rest({
  singular: 'bar',
  publish: false, // don't add routes automatically
  restrict: function (query, request) { // allows direct access to the Mongoose queries
    query.where({ parent: request.params.fooId });
  }
});

// Embed the subcontroller at /foos/:fooId/bars
controller.use('/:fooId/bars', subcontroller);

// Embed arbitrary middleware at /foos/:fooId/qux
controller.use('/:fooId/qux', function (request, response, next) {
  // Do something cool…
  next();
});

Controllers are Express apps, so do whatever you want with them.

var controller = baucis.rest({
  singular: 'robot'
});

controller.use(function () { ... });
controller.set('some option name', 'value');
controller.listen(3000);

Baucis uses the power of Express, without getting in its way. It's meant to be a way to organize your REST API's Express middleware.

Requests to the collection (not its members) take standard MongoDB query parameters to filter the documents based on custom criteria.

Examples with jQuery:

$.getJSON('/api/v1/vegetables/4f4028e6e5139bf4e472cca1', function (data) {
  console.log(data);
});

$.ajax({
  type: 'POST',
  dataType: 'json',
  url: '/api/v1/vegetables',
  data: { name: 'Potato' }
}).done(function (vegetable) {
  console.dir(vegetable);
});

An example with Backbone:

var Foos = Backbone.Collection.extend({
  url: '/foos'
});

var Bar = Backbone.Model.extend({
  urlRoot: '/bars'
});

Use plain old Connect/Express middleware, including pre-existing modules like passport. For example, set the all option to add middleware to be called before all the model's API routes.

baucis.rest({
  singular: 'vegetable',
  all: function (request, response, next) {
    if (request.isAuthenticated()) return next();
    return response.send(401);
  }
});

Or, set some middleware for specific HTTP verbs:

baucis.rest({
  singular: 'vegetable',
  get: [middleware1, middleware2],
  post: middleware3,
  del: [middleware4, middleware5]
});

Contact Info

• http://kun.io/
• @wprl

© 2012-2013 William P. Riley-Land