CSCI 446 Unit #10

Programming Assignment

For the next two assignments we will be implementing and extending the Course Organizer application that we started in Unit 8. Your first step should be to review the application screenshots which illustrate how the application works.

Defining the API

Based on the application requirements, in this unit you will code the API. For your final project, you and your teammates will need to define an API. For practice, I therefore suggest that you first come up with your own list of functions, based on the screenshots. Then compare your list to the table below.

NOTES:

In the Example column, sometimes I've shown the url as you would type it into Postman. For the last few, I showed examples copied from the node console. The console is your friend when writing/debugging web apps. :-)
Most of these are similar to the textbook example, but I have eliminated a few (e.g., adding/removing/updating locations) which are not used in our application. For a "real" API, you might choose to include them, as it's likely they would be needed at some point.

Action	Method	URL path	Parameters	Example
Read list of courses	GET	/courses		http://localhost:3000/api/courses
Read specific course	GET	/course	courseid	http://localhost:3000/course/5a2c3329646521cb863c546b/
Create new assignment	POST	/courses/courseid/assignments	courseid	http://localhost:3000/courses/5a2c3329646521cb863c546b/assignments
Get all assignments	GET	/courses/courseid/assignments	courseid	http://localhost:3000/courses/5a2c3329646521cb863c546b/assignments
Update an assignment	PUT	/courses/courseid/assignments/assignmentid	courseid, assignmentid	PUT /api/courses/5a2c3329646521cb863c546b/assignments/5a2c3329646521cb863c546a
Delete an assignment	DELETE	/courses/courseid/assignments/assignmentid	courseid, assignmentid	DELETE /api/courses/5a2c3329646521cb863c546b/assignments/5a2c3329646521cb863c5469

Testing with Postman

We will use Postman to test the API. Your submission will be a "script" that shows the Postman queries and results. In unit 9 you created a json file to load your courses collection. I suggest that you use that file to begin the testing process (edit as needed to simplify queries). You MUST use realistic data - no lorem ipsum or gibberish. If you want to "reset" your database, an easy way is to:

start the mongo shell
use [your_database_name]
db.courses.drop() to remove all documents.
copy-and-paste your json file (there may be other commands to do this... please post on piazza if you have a better suggestion!)

To create your "script" you will capture screenshots of Postman showing each of the required API calls. Include these in a pdf or html file. Annotate each screen shot so the grader can easily identify each requirement. For some APIs it's good to include more than one screenshot (e.g., the POST to add an assignment, I show both the returned status of 201 AND the course with the assignment added).

You may want to use the following html code to annotate your figures:


<figure>
	<img src="images/Postman/GET_listOfCourses.jpg" width="600px" alt="List of courses">
	<figcaption>GET list of courses</figcaption>
</figure>

Take a look at this Script of API calls. Your submission should be similar.

Postman hints

Postman is fairly intuitive, but a few things that I had to figure out:

Postman saves each query in a separate tab. After I noticed this, I put each API in its own tab. Makes it easy to rerun the query to list all assignments, for example.
POST and PUT require the data to be sent in the body. Click on the Body tab (same line as Authorization/Headers). Select x-www-form-urlencoded to enter your data (figure 6.6 is similar).