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Introducing the Project
4:48In this workshop, you'll continue to use Sequelize to write robust server-side data validation for a REST API developed with Express. The API allows you to create a user account and retrieve a list of user accounts.
[MUSIC]
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Hi everyone, I'm Guil, a developer and
instructor here at Treehouse.
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As developers, we need to ensure
that the data created and
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updated by users is reliable without
irrelevant and duplicate entries.
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When working with an ORM library like
Sequelize, you can take advantage of its
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built-in data validation and
constraint capabilities.
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Sequelize can run validation on
a model to require specific values and
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define constraints to prevent
incorrect, unexpected or
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potentially harmful data from
being recorded into the database.
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You've added validations to Sequelize
models and handled validation errors in
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previous courses and workshops on using
Sequelize with Node JS and Express.
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In this workshop, you'll continue
to use Sequelize to write robust
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server side data validation for
a REST API developed with Express.
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The API allows you to
create a user account and
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retrieve a list of user accounts.
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To get started, download the project
files with this video and
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open the rest-api folder
in your text editor.
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Let's review the starter project,
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which is the same REST API application
you worked with in a previous course.
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The file app.js is the entry
point into the application.
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It creates and
configures the express app and
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authenticates and
syncs the Sequelize database.
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routes.js defines
the application's routes.
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There are two routes,
a route that returns a list of users, and
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a route that creates a new user.
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And we're going to work
with one model only,
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a user model located and models user.js.
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Remember, a model represents
a table in your database,
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in this case, a users table.
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Currently, this user model gets
initialized with four attributes name,
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email, birthday and password.
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These represent the columns
in the users table, and
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they each have a datatype assigned.
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For example name, email and
password will be stored as string and
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birthday is date only,
which means that it will be
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a date datatype that gets
formatted without a timestamp.
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Now let's run and test the application.
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In your terminal or console,
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start by running npm install to
install the necessary dependencies.
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After the dependencies have finished
downloading and installing,
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run npm start to start the application.
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Since there are no validation rules for
the user model yet,
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I can successfully create a new user
account without supplying any values.
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For example,
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I'll open up the Postman app which I'll
use in this workshop to test the API.
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I'll first select POST as the request,
and enter the request URL or
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end point, which is api/users, then send
an empty object in the request body.
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Notice how I received a 201 Created HTTP
status code from the server with
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the message "Account successfully
created" in the response.
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And if I sent a GET request
to the API users route,
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I can confirm that the application
created a new user account,
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regardless of the data that
was sent by the client.
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Notice all the null values
posted to the database for name,
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email, birthday, and password.
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Users should not be able to create
an account if they provide no data or
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any incorrect data.
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So next, we'll start defining data
validation requirements to make these
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fields required and ensure that
new users provide values for them.
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You wrote validation rules for
a REST API in a previous course by adding
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conditional statements in the wrap
handlers to check if values for
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properties like name and
email were defined.
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Now you're going to perform
more powerful validation checks
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directly in the user model.
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This can help keep your
route handlers lighter,
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more manageable and focused on the job
of responding to incoming requests.
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In addition to making the fields required,
you'll set up constraint rules to
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ensure users create an account using
a valid and unique email address.
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You'll also use range validation rules for
passwords, to require a specific
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length of characters and hash or
protect passwords before storing them in
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a database if the password confirmation
value matches the password value.
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To get the most from this workshop,
you should be familiar with using
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the Sequelize ORM,
as well as the Express framework.
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Be sure to review the teachers
notes with this video,
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if you need a refresher on these topics
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