04-post-endpoint.md

API

POST /api/snippets

Let's start with a simplified version of the POST /api/snippets route. First we add the POST route to api/snippets.js:

// Contents of api/snippets.js

import express from 'express'
import knexInstance from '../database.js'

const router = express.Router()

// GET /api/snippets
router.get("/", async (request, response) => {
  // TODO
})

// POST /api/snippets
router.post("/", async (request, response) => {
  // TODO
})

// TODO: GET /api/snippets/:id

export default router

---

To be able to insert a row into the snippets table, we need to have data in the users table. Create a user and note what the user ID is.

The POST request we want to make will look something like this:

POST /api/snippets
{
    "title": "Snippet title",
    "contents": "#hello",
    "is_private": false
}

But first, for Express to handle JSON requests, we need to add app.use(express.json()) to app.js:

// Contents of app.js

import express from 'express'
const app = express()
const port = process.env.PORT || 3000

app.use(express.json())

app.get('/', (req, res) => {
  res.send('Hello Class!')
})

// Rest of the file...

---

One remaining thing in the setup is to actually use the router we're exporting from api/snippets.js. Inside app.js, below app.use(express.json()), add the following:

import snippetsRouter from "./api/snippets.js";
app.use("/api/snippets", snippetsRouter)

---

Task: when we now make a request like

POST /api/snippets
{
    "title": "Snippet title",
    "contents": "#hello",
    "is_private": false
}

you should insert a new row into the snippets table with the data from the request body.

Hints:

• Insert with Knex
• When creating a snippet we also need to specify a user_id. For now, you can just pass in the user_id in the request body (alongside the other snippet data)