Customizing Loopback - Integrating More Modules

Loopback is a great tool that allows you to generate an Express.js API from the command line. In this talk, I show you how you can take advantage of the Node.js ecosystem and integrate other modules into a Loopback API as business logic.

Transcript

1. Customizing Loopback
   – Integrating More
   Modules
   David Okun, Developer Evangelist, Strongloop & Swift@IBM
   @dokun24
   February 21, 2017
   

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2. What is a Loopback?
   • THE easiest & fastest
   way to set up a
   RESTful web API.
   • Uses Express, Node,
   and Yeoman.
   • Get an API up with
   writing zero code.
   

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3. Extending Your API – The Scenario
   • We have two immutable microservices.
   • We want to combine their output and cache it
   locally.
   

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4. Aren’t Microservices Adorable?
   

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5. Today’s Modules
   • request
   • https://npmjs.com/package/request
   

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6. Today’s Modules
   • request-promise & bluebird
   • https://npmjs.com/package/request-
   promise
   • https://npmjs.com/package/bluebird
   

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7. Setup
   • Node.js & npm (I’m running 7.4.0 and 4.0.5)
   • npm install –g loopback
   • npm install –g strongloop
   

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8. Our Microservices
   

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9. Today’s Demo
   • The finished product can be found at:
   • https://github.com/dokun1/LoopbackModulesDemo
   

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10. Our Microservices – Up And Running
    

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11. Loopback!
    

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12. In-Memory Datasource
    

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13. Setting up our Animal object
    

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14. Model…
    

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15. Model…
    

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16. Model…
    

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17. Model…
    

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18. Sanity Check
    

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19. Sanity Check
    

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20. Remote Methods
    • A remote method is a method of a model.
    • Can be made with lb remote-method.
    

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21. Animal.js
    

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22. Remote Hooks
    • A remote hook is a function that can be
    executed before or after a remote method is
    called.
    • beforeRemote(), afterRemote(),
    afterRemoteError().
    

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23. Animal.js
    

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24. Operation Hooks
    • An operation hook is a function triggered on a
    higher-order function of a PersistedModel
    object.
    

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25. Operation Hooks (cont.)
    

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26. Animal.js
    

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27. Animal.js
    

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28. Animal.js
    

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29. And we’re clear!!
    

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30. But actually…
    • We aren’t validating the entries we get, so we
    always get duplicates.
    

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31. Animal.js
    

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32. Animal.js
    

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33. Animal.js
    

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34. Animal.js
    

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35. And we’re clear!!
    

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36. Bonus Points: Validators
    • Model objects can use a set of common
    validators for convenience.
    • Only supported with in-memory, Oracle, and
    MongoDB.
    

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37. Animal.js
    

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38. Wrapping up
    • Loopback isn’t just for POCs – rather than
    limiting you to generated code, it supports
    what you want to build.
    • It gets out of the way when you need it to.
    

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39. Resources
    • https://loopback.io
    • Adding logic: https://loopback.io/doc/en/lb3/Adding-application-logic.html
    • Demo Repo: https://github.com/dokun1/LoopbackModulesDemo
    • Stack Overflow: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/loopback
    • Me on Twitter: @dokun24
    

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40. Thank You!!!
    

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