I'm having an issue getting my backend to work.... honestly it's not even loading, I get the log that the server has started but entering in http://localhost:5000/api/items loads indefinitely. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.
This is my server.js
const express = require('express');
const bodyParser = require('body-parser');
const routes = require('./items-routes');
const server = express();
server.use(bodyParser.json);
server.use('/api/items', routes);
const port = 5000;
try {
server.listen(port);
console.log(`Listening on port ${port}`);
} catch (error) {
console.log(error.message);
}
Here is my items-routes.js
const express = require('express');
const itemsController = require('./items-controller');
const router = express.Router();
router.get('/', itemsController.getItems);
router.post('/:iid', itemsController.createItem);
module.exports = router;
And finally my items-controller.js
const Item = require('./items-schema');
const items = [
{
title: 'This is a title',
description: 'This is a description',
},
{
title: 'This is another title',
description: 'This is another description',
},
{
title: 'This is a third title',
description: 'This is a third description',
},
];
const getItems = async (req, res, next) => {
res.json({
items: items.map((item) => {
item.toObject({ getters: true });
}),
});
console.log('These are the ITEMS!');
};
const createItem = async (req, res, next) => {
const { title, description } = req.body;
const createdItem = new Item({
title,
description,
});
try {
items.push(createItem);
console.log('You are posting an ITEM!');
} catch (error) {
return next(error);
}
res.status(201).json({ item: createdItem });
};
exports.getItems = getItems;
exports.createItem = createItem;
I initially had mongoose set-up to create a proper backend but now have dummy items in order to solve this issue before moving on. The server never worked but I have a similar project that did work.
I have a suspicion that I'm not understanding router.use/get/post properly but I've tried reading the documentation and only get more confused.
All of your code is actually 100% okay, you just applied the bodyParser.json middleware function incorrectly. The bodyParser.json function is not a middleware function itself, it is a function that takes an options object, then when it's called it returns a middleware function.
So, to fix your code, you just need to add () to call the function:
const express = require('express');
const bodyParser = require('body-parser');
const routes = require('./items-routes');
const server = express();
server.use(bodyParser.json()); // <- Call the bodyParser.json() function
server.use('/api/items', routes);
const port = 5000;
try {
server.listen(port);
console.log(`Listening on port ${port}`);
} catch (error) {
console.log(error.message);
}
The reason it was hanging forever is because Express was waiting on the bodyParser.json function to call next() before moving forward; however, it never does that, so it just hangs.
Side note:
By the way, you don't need the body-parser module anymore if you're using the latest version of Express. Your code can be changed to this:
server.use(express.json());
And it'll work just the same just without the extra dependency.