58 lines
1.3 KiB
Markdown
58 lines
1.3 KiB
Markdown
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---
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tags:
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- Programming_Languages
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- backend
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- node-js
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- express
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- REST
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- apis
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---
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# Creating a REST API with Node and Express: POST requests
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To demonstrate the handling of POST requests, we will create a handler that add a new element to the array of courses.
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```js
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app.post('/api/courses', (req, res) => {
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const course = {
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id: courses.length + 1,
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name: req.body.name
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}
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courses.push(course);
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res.send(course)
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})
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```
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Here we use the body that is sent from the client and isolate the field `name`. This presupposes that the client is sending us data with the following shape as the body:
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```json
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{
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"name": "Biology and Life Sciences"
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}
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```
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To execute the PUT request from the frontend:
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```js
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const addCourse = async (newCourse) => {
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try {
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const resp = await axios.post("http://localhost:3000/api/courses", {
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name: newCourse,
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});
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console.log(resp.data);
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} catch (err) {
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console.error(err);
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}
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};
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addCourse("Biology and Life Sciences");
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```
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Which returns:
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```js
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{ id: 4, name: 'Biology and Life Sciences' }
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```
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The `id` is added by the server, not the client. Having created the new value we add it to our `courses` array. (In reality we would be creating a new entry in a database.) Then we follow the convention of returning the new value back to the client.
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