Backend News API

Links

You can access the live version of this API here.

To explore the endpoints in further detail, you can refer to the endpoints.json file

Please Note: This API may take up to 10 minutes to load as it is hosted with Render, and loading times are dependent on when the link was last opened.

About

The backend news API is a service built for the purpose of accessing application data programmatically. Modelled after real world backend services, such as Reddit, this api will deliver information to the front end architecture. The project uses PSQL to setup the database of articles, and HTTP endpoints using express. This is now live and being hosted on ElephantSQL with deployment on Render.

This api was completed using Test Driven Development (TDD) principles, with use of both Jest and Supertest. Each endpoint was created with its own ticket, with frequent code reviews from Senior Software Engineers.

Endpoints

Below is a list of all valid endpoints:

Endpoints	Description
GET /api	Serves up a json representation of all the available endpoints of the api
GET /api/topics	Serves an array of all topics
GET /api/users	Serves an array of objects containing username, name and avatar_url
GET /api/articles	Serves an array of all articles
GET /api/articles/:article_id	Serves an article object by article id
GET /api/articles/:article_id/comments	Serves an array of comments for given article_id requested with the most recent first
POST /api/articles/:article_id/comments	Adds comment to comment database and serves the added comment
PATCH /api/articles/:article_id	Updates article with new vote by article ID
DELETE /api/comments/:comment_id	Deletes the comment by comment_id

Instructions for running the program locally:

Clone the repository

In order to see the backend API, you can fork and clone the repository using the git clone command in your terminal. This should be run in the directory where you want to save it.

git clone https://github.com/JoravarSinghPunia/BACKEND-NEWS-API.git

Note: Forking the repository will require you to use the link provided from the forked repo.

Install dependencies

This project uses various dependencies in order to run. Failure to install these dependencies will result in the server producing errors. Install all dependencies by running the following commands in your VSCode integrated terminal within the repo.

npm install

Note: If you get vulnerabilities, follow the instruction given on the terminal. Use the following command to fix this:

npm audit fix

Set up databases and seed

As you can see inside the package.json, we have a list of scripts that you are going to run:

Set up the databases

npm run setup-dbs

Create dotenv files

You will need to create two .env files:

.env.development

and

.env.test

Into the .env.development file add the following:

PGDATABASE=database_name

And into the .env.test file add the following:

PGDATABASE=database_name_test

database_name must be replaced with the correct database name for the environment (see /db/setup.sql for the database names).

Run the tests

Run the utils.test.js to see if they are passing and get ready to seed the database.

npm test utils

Note: The test will pass and the repo should be clean and working. If any tests fail, then you will have to debug the utils function.

Seed the database

Now it is time to seed the database, run the following script to do this:

npm run seed

This will seed you database and create tables with their records.

Test endpoints

Once seeded, you can test the endpoints. To do so, run this command:

npm test app

If all tests pass, the API is ready to be deployed.

Node & PSQL versions

The version of Node used to run this project is 20.10.0

The version of PSQL used to manage the data is 16.1