This project is a virtual bookshelf for Udacity students. Students are able to add their books to the bookshelf, give them a rating, update the rating and search through their book lists. As a part of the Fullstack Nanodegree, it serves as a practice module for lessons from Course 2: API Development and Documentation. By completing this project, students learn and apply their skills structuring and implementing well formatted API endpoints that leverage knowledge of HTTP and API development best practices.

All backend code follows PEP8 style guidelines.

Hello students! You'll use this base in various workspaces throughout the course to build the project incrementally as you expand your skills. At each stage, there will be various 'TODO's marked for you to complete. You'll also notice some TODOs in the frontend section. You should referene those sections for formatting your endpoints and responses, and update the frontend to match the endpoints you choose and the programmed behavior.

You should feel free to expand on the project in any way you can dream up to extend your skills. For instance, you could add additional book information to each entry or create individual book views including more information about the book, your thoughts or when you completed it.

Developers using this project should already have Python3, pip and node installed on their local machines.

From the backend folder run pip install requirements.txt. All required packages are included in the requirements file.

To run the application run the following commands:

export FLASK_APP=flaskr
export FLASK_ENV=development
flask run

These commands put the application in development and directs our application to use the __init__.py file in our flaskr folder. Working in development mode shows an interactive debugger in the console and restarts the server whenever changes are made. If running locally on Windows, look for the commands in the Flask documentation.

The application is run on http://127.0.0.1:5000/ by default and is a proxy in the frontend configuration.

From the frontend folder, run the following commands to start the client:

npm install // only once to install dependencies
npm start 

By default, the frontend will run on localhost:3000.

In order to run tests navigate to the backend folder and run the following commands:

dropdb bookshelf_test
createdb bookshelf_test
psql bookshelf_test < books.psql
python test_flaskr.py

The first time you run the tests, omit the dropdb command.

All tests are kept in that file and should be maintained as updates are made to app functionality.

• Base URL: At present this app can only be run locally and is not hosted as a base URL. The backend app is hosted at the default, http://127.0.0.1:5000/, which is set as a proxy in the frontend configuration.
• Authentication: This version of the application does not require authentication or API keys.

Errors are returned as JSON objects in the following format:

{
    "success": False, 
    "error": 400,
    "message": "bad request"
}

The API will return three error types when requests fail:

• 400: Bad Request
• 404: Resource Not Found
• 422: Not Processable

• General:
  • Returns a list of book objects, success value, and total number of books
  • Results are paginated in groups of 8. Include a request argument to choose page number, starting from 1.
• Sample: curl http://127.0.0.1:5000/books

  "books": [
    {
      "author": "Stephen King",
      "id": 1,
      "rating": 5,
      "title": "The Outsider: A Novel"
    },
    {
      "author": "Lisa Halliday",
      "id": 2,
      "rating": 5,
      "title": "Asymmetry: A Novel"
    },
    {
      "author": "Kristin Hannah",
      "id": 3,
      "rating": 5,
      "title": "The Great Alone"
    },
    {
      "author": "Tara Westover",
      "id": 4,
      "rating": 5,
      "title": "Educated: A Memoir"
    },
    {
      "author": "Jojo Moyes",
      "id": 5,
      "rating": 5,
      "title": "Still Me: A Novel"
    },
    {
      "author": "Leila Slimani",
      "id": 6,
      "rating": 5,
      "title": "Lullaby"
    },
    {
      "author": "Amitava Kumar",
      "id": 7,
      "rating": 5,
      "title": "Immigrant, Montana"
    },
    {
      "author": "Madeline Miller",
      "id": 8,
      "rating": 5,
      "title": "CIRCE"
    }
  ],
"success": true,
"total_books": 18
}

• General:
  • Creates a new book using the submitted title, author and rating. Returns the id of the created book, success value, total books, and book list based on current page number to update the frontend.
• curl http://127.0.0.1:5000/books?page=3 -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"title":"Neverwhere", "author":"Neil Gaiman", "rating":"5"}'

{
  "books": [
    {
      "author": "Neil Gaiman",
      "id": 24,
      "rating": 5,
      "title": "Neverwhere"
    }
  ],
  "created": 24,
  "success": true,
  "total_books": 17
}

• General:
  • Deletes the book of the given ID if it exists. Returns the id of the deleted book, success value, total books, and book list based on current page number to update the frontend.
• curl -X DELETE http://127.0.0.1:5000/books/16?page=2

{
  "books": [
    {
      "author": "Gina Apostol",
      "id": 9,
      "rating": 5,
      "title": "Insurrecto: A Novel"
    },
    {
      "author": "Tayari Jones",
      "id": 10,
      "rating": 5,
      "title": "An American Marriage"
    },
    {
      "author": "Jordan B. Peterson",
      "id": 11,
      "rating": 5,
      "title": "12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos"
    },
    {
      "author": "Kiese Laymon",
      "id": 12,
      "rating": 1,
      "title": "Heavy: An American Memoir"
    },
    {
      "author": "Emily Giffin",
      "id": 13,
      "rating": 4,
      "title": "All We Ever Wanted"
    },
    {
      "author": "Jose Andres",
      "id": 14,
      "rating": 4,
      "title": "We Fed an Island"
    },
    {
      "author": "Rachel Kushner",
      "id": 15,
      "rating": 1,
      "title": "The Mars Room"
    }
  ],
  "deleted": 16,
  "success": true,
  "total_books": 15
}

• General:
  • If provided, updates the rating of the specified book. Returns the success value and id of the modified book.
• curl http://127.0.0.1:5000/books/15 -X PATCH -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"rating":"1"}'

{
  "id": 15,
  "success": true
}

Yours truly, Coach Caryn

The awesome team at Udacity and all of the students, soon to be full stack extraordinaires!