loopback-boot/README.md

LoopBack Boot

LoopBack Boot is a convention-based bootstrapper for LoopBack applications.

For full documentation, see the official StrongLoop documentation:

• Creating a LoopBack application

Installation

npm install loopback-boot

Usage

var loopback = require('loopback');
var boot = require('loopback-boot');

var app = loopback();
boot(app, __dirname);

app.use(loopback.rest());
app.listen();

See API docs for complete API reference.

Configurations and conventions

The bootstrapping process takes care of the following tasks:

• Configuration of data-sources.
• Definition and configuration of custom Models, attaching models to data-sources.
• Configuration of app settings like host, port or restApiRoot.
• Running additional boot scripts to keep the custom setup code in multiple small files as opposed to keeping everything in the main app file.

Below is the typical project layout. See the following sections for description of the project files.

project/
  app.js
  app.json
  datasources.json
  models.json
  models/
  boot/

App settings

The settings are loaded from the file app.json in the project root directory and can be accessed via app.get('option-name') from the code.

Additionally, the following files can provide values to override app.json:

• app.local.js or app.local.json
• app.{env}.js or app.{env}.json, where {env} is the value of NODE_ENV (typically development or production)

NOTE: The additional files can override the top-level keys with value-types (strings, numbers) only. Nested objects and arrays are not supported at the moment.

Example settings

app.json

{
  "host": "localhost",
  "port": 3000,
  "restApiRoot": "/api"
}

app.production.js

module.exports = {
  host: process.env.CUSTOM_HOST,
  port: process.env.CUSTOM_PORT
};

Data sources

The configuration of data sources is loaded from the file datasources.json in the project root directory, the data sources can be accessed via app.datasources['datasource-name'] from the code.

Additionally, the following files can provide values to override datasources.json:

• datasources.local.js or datasources.local.json
• datasources.{env}.js or datasources.{env}.json, where {env} is the value of NODE_ENV (typically development or production)

NOTE: The additional files can override the top-level data-source options with value-types (strings, numbers) only. Nested objects and arrays are not supported at the moment.

Example data sources

datasources.json

{
  // the key is the datasource name
  // the value is the config object to pass to
  //   app.dataSource(name, config).
  db: {
    connector: 'memory'
  }
}

datasources.production.json

{
  db: {
    connector: 'mongodb',
    database: 'myapp',
    user: 'myapp',
    password: 'secret'
  }
}

Models

App models are loaded from the file models.json.

Example models

The following is example JSON for two Model definitions: Dealership and Location.

{
  // the key is the model name
  "Dealership": {
    // a reference, by name, to a dataSource definition
    "dataSource": "my-db",
    // the options passed to Model.extend(name, properties, options)
    "options": {
      "relations": {
        "cars": {
          "type": "hasMany",
          "model": "Car",
          "foreignKey": "dealerId"
        }
      }
    },
    // the properties passed to Model.extend(name, properties, options)
    "properties": {
      "id": {"id": true},
      "name": "String",
      "zip": "Number",
      "address": "String"
    }
  },
  "Car": {
    "dataSource": "my-db"
    // options can be specified at the top level too
    "relations": {
      "dealer": {
        "type": "belongsTo",
        "model": "Dealership",
        "foreignKey": "dealerId"
      },
    }
    "properties": {
      "id": {
        "type": "String",
        "required": true,
        "id": true
      },
      "make": {
        "type": "String",
        "required": true
      },
      "model": {
        "type": "String",
        "required": true
      }
    }
  }
}

Adding custom methods to models

The models created from models.json come with the set of built-in methods like find and create. To implement your custom methods, you should create a javascript file in models/ directory named after the model and define the methods there.

Example:

models/car.js

module.exports = function(app) {
  var Car = app.models.Car;

  Car.prototype.honk = function(duration, cb) {
    // make some noise for `duration` seconds
    cb();
  };
};

Boot scripts

When the data sources and models are configured, the bootstrapper invokes all scripts in the boot/ folder. The scripts are sorted lexicographically ingoring case.

Example boot script

boot/authentication.js

module.exports = function(app) {
  app.enableAuth();
};

Running in a browser

The bootstrap process is implemented in two steps that can be called independently.

Build

The first step loads all configuration files, merges values from additional config files like app.local.js and produces a set of instructions that can be used to boot the application.

These instructions must be included in the browser bundle together with all configuration scripts from models/ and boot/.

Don't worry, you don't have to understand these details. Just call boot.compileToBrowserify, it will take care of everything for you.

build file (Gruntfile.js, gulpfile.js)

var browserify = require('browserify');
var boot = require('loopback-boot');

var b = browserify({
  basedir: appDir,
});

// add the main application file
b.require('./browser-app.js', { expose: 'loopback-app' });

// add boot instructions
boot.compileToBrowserify(appDir, b);

// create the bundle
var out = fs.createWriteStream('browser-bundle.js');
b.bundle().pipe(out);
// handle out.on('error') and out.on('close')

Run

In the browser, the main application file should call loopback-boot to setup the loopback application by executing the instructions contained in the browser bundle:

browser-app.js

var loopback = require('loopback');
var boot = require('loopback-boot');

var app = module.exports = loopback();
boot(app);

The app object created above can be accessed via require('loopback-app'), where loopback-app is the identifier used for the main app file in the browserify build shown above.

Here is a simple example demonstrating the concept:

index.html

<script src="app.bundle.js"></script>
<script>
var app = require('loopback-app');
var User = app.models.User;

User.login(
  { email: 'test@example.com', password: '12345' },
  function(err, res) {
    if (err) {
      console.error('Login failed: ', err);
    } else {
      console.log('Logged in.');
    }
  }
);
</script>