News and Discussion API

A RESTful API that enables users to retrieve articles, participate in discussions through comments, and organize content with topic tags. Features a voting system to highlight the most engaging content.

Quick Links

• Backend (API): Repository • Live Demo
• Frontend (Web App): Repository • Live Demo

Features

• Retrieve, sort and filter news articles by topic
• Vote on articles and comments
• Post and delete comments
• RESTful endpoints with JSON responses

Tech Stack

Backend Technologies

• Runtime: Node.js (v20)
• Framework: Express.js
• Database: PostgreSQL (v8)
• Testing: Jest, Supertest
• Deployment: Supabase, Render

Local Development

Prerequisites

Before development, make sure you have the followings installed:

• Node.js (v20.15.1 or higher)
• npm (10.8.2 or higher)
• Git
• PostgresSQL (14.14 or higher)

Installation

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/loklokyuen/news-website-project && cd news-website-project

2. Install dependencies

npm install

3. Set up environmental variable by creating a file named .env.development and specify the database to connect to inside the file

PGDATABASE=your_database_name

4. Initialize the database

npm run setup-dbs

5. Seed the database

npm run seed

Important: Remember to put .env.* in your .gitignore file to prevent commiting any environmental variable files.

Testing

Run all tests:

npm test

Run specific test suites:

npm test app    # For API endpoint tests
npm test utils  # For utility function tests

Production Deployment

To deploy the application to a hosted website, follow these steps:

1. Configure production environment by creating a file named .env.production and specify the database URL inside

DATABASE_URL=your_database_url

2. Seed the production database

npm run seed-prod

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This portfolio project was created as part of a Digital Skills Bootcamp in Software Engineering provided by Northcoders