Example REST API with Express.js, Mongoose and Babel

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This article will discuss an example of making a REST API using Express.js, Mongoose and Babel. The resource or endpoint created is only users. We will only make a simple user registration method. We will use a repository pattern.

• Install the package

  yarn add express mongoose mongod
  yarn add --dev @babel/cli @babel/core @babel/node @babel/preset-env nodemon

• Create folder structure

.
├── package.json
├── src
│   ├── controllers
│   │   └── UserController.js
│   ├── index.js
│   ├── models
│   │   ├── repositories
│   │   │   └── UserRepository.js
│   │   └── User.js
│   └── routes
│       ├── index.js
│       └── users.js
└── yarn.lock

5 directories, 8 files

• User Model User.js

import mongoose from 'mongoose';

const { Schema } = mongoose;

const schema = new Schema({
  email: {
    type: String
  },
  password: {
    type: String
  }
});

const User = mongoose.model('User', schema);
export default User;

• User Repository UserRepository.js

Create a repositories folder in the models folder, then create UserRepository.js

import User from '../User';

class UserRepository {

  constructor(model) {
    this.model = model;
  }

  create(object) {
    return this.model.create(object);
  }
}

export default new UserRepository(User);

Then create UserController.js in the controllers folder.

• User Controller UserController.js

import UserRepository from '../models/repositories/UserRepository';

function createUser(req, res) {
  const user = req.body;

  UserRepository.create(user)
    .then((newUser) => {
      res.json(newUser);
    }).catch((errors) => {
      res.status(500).json({
        errors,
      });
    });
}

export default { createUser };

After that we list the routes in the routes folder as users.js

• User Route users.js

import express from 'express';
import UserController from '../controllers/UserController';

const router = express.Router();

router.post('/', UserController.createUser);

export default router;

And index.js on routes

import express from 'express';
import users from './users';

const router = express.Router();

router.use(express.json());

router.use('/users', users);

export default router;

Finally we create index.js in the src

• Server index.js

import express from 'express';
import mongoose from 'mongoose';

import routes from './routes';

mongoose.Promise = global.Promise;

const app = express();

app.use('/', routes);

mongoose.connect('mongodb://localhost:27017/db')
  .then(() => {
    console.log('mongodb started.');
    app.listen(8000, () => {
      console.log('Server started on 8000');
    });
  }).catch(() => {
    console.log('Mongodb connection failed.');
  })

• Command to run the server

nodemon -w src -x "babel-node src --presets @babel/env"

We can add it to npm-scripts in package.json

{
  "name": "exercise",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "main": "index.js",
  "license": "MIT",
  "dependencies": {
    "express": "^4.17.1",
    "mongodb": "^3.2.7",
    "mongoose": "^5.6.2",
    "nodemon": "^1.19.1"
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "@babel/cli": "^7.4.4",
    "@babel/core": "^7.4.5",
    "@babel/node": "^7.4.5",
    "@babel/preset-env": "^7.4.5"
  },
  "scripts": {
    "start": "nodemon -w src -x \"babel-node src --presets @babel/env\""
  }
}

That was practicing express.js, mongoose and babel using a simple REST API. The entire code can be seen at https://github.com/yoiso/exercise-express