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Mwelwa Nkuta edited this page Jan 5, 2022 · 1 revision

Welcome to the merlee.js wiki!

merlee.js is a backend nodejs rest api framework that lets you focus on the backend web fundamentals to deliver a simple and resilient apis that deploy to any Node.js server environments

This repository contains the merlee.js source code. This repo is a work in progress. and more features are being implemented such as

  • TypeScript support
  • Middleware support

Disclaimer

  • This is a work in progress and should not be used in production

Prerequisites

  • Nodejs a free, open-sourced, cross-platform JavaScript run-time environment that lets developers write command line tools and server-side scripts outside of a browser.

Installation

Assuming your already have Nodejs installed on your machine. create a directory to hold your application. and change directory into the newly created directory

$ mkdir my-app
$ cd my-app

Use the npm init command to create a package.json file for your project

$ npm init

Now install merlee.js into the directory you just. For Example

$ npm install merlee.js

Hello world example

const Merlee = require('merlee.js');
const app = new Merlee();

app.set('port', 3000)

app.handler({method:'GET', path:'/'}, (req, res) => {
    res.send('Hello World')
})

app.listen(port => console.log('listening on port:', port))

currently undefined routes juts hang, and do not send backend a response. The example above is a fully working server and when http://localhost:3000 is visited the server send backend a 200 response with Hello World

both thr req and res objects are the same objects that nodejs http provides but with a few modifications.

Basic Routing

The following examples illustrate how defining endpoints in merlee.js work

app is an instance of the Merlee Class

app.handler({method:'GET', path:'/'}, (req, res) => {
    // code goes here...
})

Real world projects often have different routes in different directories because of this merlee.js has an inbuilt routing system. to use the merlee.js router

  • create a new javascript file that has a function that returns an objects of objects that have router configuration. For example
// routes.js
function routes(){
    return {
        get:{
            path:'/users/friends',
            callback(req, res) {
                // do something
            }
        },
        post:{
            path:'/users/friends',
            callback(req, res) {
                // do something
            }
        }

    }
}

the method used on the endpoint is defined by the name of the key.

App Options

to pass app options use the set() method. the Merlee object has a set method which you could use to set global options for your apps. some inbuilt options port, static, views

option description
port sets a port that the server runs on
views sets a path to the ejs files directory
static serves files in the directory as static

Below is an example of how to pass app options

const app = new Merlee()
app.set('port', 3000)

app options can be set by passing them directly to the Merlee class. For example

const app = new Merlee({port: 3000})

Serving Static Files

To serve static files such as css, images or other types of files. set the app option static to the directory you would like to be served by the server. Below is an example of how to set the static method

const app = new Merlee({static: './public'})

// or

app.set('static', './public')

now all the files in the public directory are served as static files. now the files can be access:

http://localhost:3000/public/style.css
http://localhost:3000/public/app.js
http://localhost:3000/public/cat.png

Contributing

feel free to contribute and make merlee.js a better package.

License

this project is MIT Licensed

Author

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