node-moodle

Moodle API client for Node.js

A simple and developer friendly JavaScript module to perform Web Service (API) calls to the Moodle site.

Getting started

Install the module

npm install node-moodle

Get site info (using Promised callbacks)

const { MoodleClient } = require('node-moodle');

const moodle = new MoodleClient({
  baseUrl: "https://moodle.example.com", //<-- Put your Moodle URL here
  token: "exppsBdQwLvNwYRoAuaiBO5j0fWTzxU6" //<-- Put your token here
});

moodle.core.webservice.getSiteInfo()
  .then(res => console.log(res))
  .catch(err => console.error(err.message));

Create a new user (using async-await approach)

const { MoodleClient } = require('node-moodle');
const moodle = new MoodleClient({ ... });

async function main() {
  try {
    //Request data
    var req = {
      users: [
        {
          firstname: "Foo",
          lastname: "Bar",
          username: "foo",
          password: "FooBar123!",
          email: "[e-mail]",
        }
      ]
    };

    //Invoke a method
    var res = await moodle.core.user.createUsers(req);
    
    //Response data
    console.log(res);
    /*
    [
      {
        "id": 3,
        "username": "foo"
      }
    ]
    */
  }
  catch (err) {
    console.log(err);
  }
}

main();

Event handlers

MoodleClient extends EventEmitter

const { MoodleClient } = require('node-moodle');
const moodle = new MoodleClient({ ... });

//Before request
moodle.on("request", function(data) {
  console.log(data);
});

//After request
moodle.on("resposne", function(data) {
  console.log(data);
});

//Catch error
moodle.on("error", function(err) {
  console.error(err);
});

Convert JSON to form data

Moodle has a peculiar way of specifying request parameters. Parameters can either be sent in URL query string or POST form body.

Thus a JSON object needs to be converted to form data

{
  "users": [
    {
      "firstname": "Foo",
      "lastname": "Bar",
      "username": "foo",
      "password": "FooBar123!",
      "email": "[e-mail]"
    }
  ]
}

As Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded

users[0][firstname]=Foo&users[0][lastname]=Bar&users[0][username]=foo&users[0][password]=FooBar123%21&users[0][email]=foo%40email.com

To perform the conversion in the code invoke the flatten function

const { MoodleClient } = require('node-moodle');
const moodle = new MoodleClient({ ... });

const form = moodle.flatten({
  "users": [
    {
      "firstname": "Foo",
      "lastname": "Bar",
      "username": "foo",
      "password": "FooBar123!",
      "email": "[e-mail]"
    }
  ]
});

console.log(form); //users[0][firstname]=Foo&users[0][lastname]=Bar...

List of functions

Offical list of functions can be found at Web service API functions

The following table represents mapping between JavaScript function names and Moodle Web Service function names.

JS function	API function	Description
auth.email.getSignupSettings(data)	auth_email_get_signup_settings	Get the signup required settings and profile fields.
auth.email.signupUser(data)	auth_email_signup_user	Adds a new user (pendingto be confirmed) in the site.
core.user.createUsers(data)	core_user_create_users	Create users - admin function
core.webservice.getSiteInfo(data)	core_webservice_get_site_info	Return some site info / user info / list web service functions
Read more...

Functions are used in the following manner

const { MoodleClient } = require('node-moodle');
const moodle = new MoodleClient({ ... });

//core_webservice_get_site_info => core.webservice.getSiteInfo
moodle.core.webservice.getSiteInfo(); //Returns `Promise`

Handling Promise

Promise can be handled with .then().catch() function chain

moodle.core.webservice.getSiteInfo()
.then(function(res) {
  console.log(res);
})
.catch(function(err) {
  console.error(err);
});

or using async-await syntax for later versions of JavaScript

async function sample() {
  try {
    var res = await moodle.core.webservice.getSiteInfo();
    console.log(res);
  }
  catch (err) {
    console.error(err);
  }
}

sample();

Note that the data argument is not always required and can be omitted.

Updating function list

Run the extract script to scrape function names from the official website

npm run extract

The script downloads the HTML from Web service API functions and parses rows from the Core web service functions table.

To update the table in the wiki/functions.md file run

npm run table

Unit test

Run unit test

npm run test

The test will be performed on a built-in mockup server.