Restify-Mongoose

Restify-Mongoose provides a resource abstraction for restify to expose mongoose models as REST resources.

Getting started

First you'll need to install restify-mongoose via npm

npm install restify-mongoose

Second step is to wire up mongoose and restify using restify-mongoose

var restify = require('restify');
var restifyMongoose = require('restify-mongoose');
var mongoose = require('mongoose');

var server = restify.createServer({
    name: 'restify.mongoose.examples.notes',
    version: '1.0.0'
});

server.use(restify.acceptParser(server.acceptable));
server.use(restify.queryParser());
server.use(restify.bodyParser());

// Create a simple mongoose model 'Note'
var NoteSchema = new mongoose.Schema({
    title : { type : String, required : true },
    date : { type : Date, required : true },
    tags : [String],
    content : { type: String }
});

var Note = mongoose.model('notes', NoteSchema);

// Now create a restify-mongoose resource from 'Note' mongoose model
var notes = restifyMongoose(Note);

// Serve resource notes with fine grained mapping control
server.get('/notes', notes.query());
server.get('/notes/:id', notes.detail());
server.post('/notes', notes.insert());
server.patch('/notes/:id', notes.update());
server.del('/notes/:id', notes.remove());

server.listen(3000, function () {
    console.log('%s listening at %s', server.name, server.url);
});

Resources

To map resources or resource functionality to restify REST endpoints/routes restify-mongoose offers two approaches:

• 'fine grained mapping' control via list, detail, new, update and delete functions
• 'quick mapping' via serve method

Fine grained mapping In the above getting started example we used fine grained mapping control. Restify-mongoose defines the functions query, detail, insert, update and remove that return restify route handlers and can be used like this:

 // Serve resource notes with fine grained mapping control
 server.get('/notes', notes.query());
 server.get('/notes/:id', notes.detail());
 server.post('/notes', notes.insert());
 server.patch('/notes/:id', notes.update());
 server.del('/notes/:id', notes.remove());

For every ´id´ dependent function the restify route has to define a :id placeholder to allow restify-mongoose to access id parameters. Id dependent functions are detail, update and delete.

Quick mapping

// Serve resource notes with quick mapping
restifyMongoose(models.Note).serve('/api/notes', server);

Maps urls

• GET '/api/notes' to query function
• GET '/api/notes/:id' to detail function
• POST '/api/notes' to insert function
• DELETE '/api/notes/:id' to remove function
• PATCH '/api/notes/:id' to update function

Queries

Query parameters are passed by query string parameter q.

Query parameters are parsed as JSON objects and passed to mongoose where query function.

To filter a notes resource by title to match term "first" append the q query parameter to the URL:

http://localhost:3000/notes?q={"title":"first"}

Sort

Sort parameters are passed by query string parameter sort.

Sort parameters are passed directly to mongoose sort query function.

To sort a notes resource by title descending append the sort query parameter to the URL:

http://localhost:3000/notes?sort=-title

Select Fields

To restrict selected columns you can pass a query string parameter select.

Select fields are passed directly to mongoose select query function.

To select only date the field of a notes resource append the select query parameter to the URL:

http://localhost:3000/notes?select=date

Filter

Results can be filtered with a function, which is set in the options object of the constructor or on the query and detail function.

The function takes two parameters: the request object and the response object. The return value of the function is a query that is passed directly to the mongoose where query function.

For instance, you can use a filter to display only results for a particular user:

var filterUser = function(req, res) {
  return {user: req.user};
}

var notes = restifyMongoose(Note, {filter: filterUser});

Changelog

0.2.0

• Added before and after options to the serve function which pass arrays of handlers to the restify handler chain.
• Added beforeSave functionality to the insert and update operations.
• Added coverage script to package.json
• The insert and update operations now use aync.waterfall
• The server test helper has an optional parameter which will set or not set default routes

0.2.1

• Updates to restify 2.8.x
• Updates to async 0.9.x
• Improved the error message for mongoose validation errors
• Code cleanup

0.2.2

• The beforeSave option can now be included in the options passed to the restifyMongoose constructor.