Assignment 1

For the first assignment, you will be setting up a basic server with 3 simple GET endpoints.

Set up your project

First, let's set up your first Node project!

To create a project, first make a folder for your assignment code using mkdir a1 in terminal and change into that directory with cd a1. You can then use the command code . to open that folder in VSCode (install VSCode here). You can also just open it in VSCode from the application directly.

Set up the yarn project by running yarn init -y in that a1 folder. Add the necessary dependencies: express, typescript, ts-node, @types/node, @types/express by running:

yarn init -y
yarn add express
yarn add --dev typescript ts-node @types/express

info

Check out Lecture 2 for more details on how this setup works!

Now you can create an index.ts file to add your routes and assignment code in.

Endpoints

1. Simple URL

The first endpoint will be a simple GET method at /. The endpoint will not take any input and responds with "ok!".

2. Query Parameters

The second endpoint will be a GET method to /book with a query parameter called name.

• If the name is 'scott', you will return "Cracking the Coding Interview".
• If the name is 'enoch', you will return "The Pragmatic Programmer".
• Finally, if no name is supplied or is any other value, return the name of your favorite book!

Let's make things case-insensitive!

Examples:

• a request to /book?name=SCOTT will return "Cracking the Coding Interview"
• a request to /book?name=enoch will return "The Pragmatic Programmer"

P.S. Don't worry, these aren't actually our favorite books.

3. Route Parameters

The third endpoint will be a GET request to /first/:firstName/last/:lastName. This will simply send "[firstName] [lastName] is really cool!" as a response.

Example: a request to /first/enoch/last/chen will send "enoch chen is really cool!" to the frontend.

Testing your code

To test your code, run ts-node index.ts. Your server should be up and running (if not, debug!).

Once the server is running, you should be able to navigate to localhost:<PORT> on your browser where PORT is the port number you've told Express to listen on.

Now you can manually test by navigating to localhost:<PORT>/book?name=bob, for example.

You might notice that using a browser to hit endpoints is a bit inflexible. If you are feeling fancy, you can download Postman to test your server. This is the tool of our choice for testing APIs, especially for manual testing. We will be introducing Postman in Lecture 3 next week, but feel free to play around with the tool ahead of time!

Submission

Please submit to CMS the index.ts file in which you've defined your routes by Thursday 10/7 at 6:29pm. You are allowed max 3 slip days (out of 6 total for all assignments and the final project) per an assignment.

FAQ

What's the difference between a route and query parameter?

Query parameters come after a ? in a route. For example: with /book?name=Enoch, 'Enoch' would be in req.query.name. We could make the query parameter name anything we want, from id to pizza and we could access it through req.query. For example, with /book?name=Enoch&pizza=cheese we will access the string 'cheese' through req.query.pizza.

Route parameters are an actual part of the route and come after a :. For example: with /first/:firstName/last/:lastName, in the request /first/scott/last/wang, 'scott' would be in req.params.firstName. What would req.params.lastName be?

I still need help. Where should I go?

Check out the office hours schedule on our syllabus. In addition, you can join the Ed and post your question.