Welcome to the Comprehensive Guide to Restify

Restify is a lightweight framework built specifically for creating RESTful web services in Node.js. It’s optimized for performance and unobtrusiveness, making it a great choice for developers who need to build and deploy fast and scalable web APIs. In this guide, we’ll explore dozens of Restify APIs through practical examples and give you a starter application incorporating these concepts.

Setting Up Restify

Getting started with Restify is easy. First, you need to install the package via npm:

npm install restify

Creating a Basic Server

Here’s how you can create a basic Restify server:

const restify = require('restify');

const server = restify.createServer({
  name: 'myApp',
  version: '1.0.0'
});

server.listen(8080, function () {
  console.log('%s listening at %s', server.name, server.url);
});

Handling GET Requests

Here’s how to handle GET requests with Restify:

server.get('/hello/:name', function (req, res, next) {
  res.send('Hello ' + req.params.name);
  return next();
});

Handling POST Requests

Handling POST requests is just as simple:

server.post('/hello', function (req, res, next) {
  res.send(201, req.body);
  return next();
});

Middleware

Restify supports middleware for request processing:

server.use(restify.plugins.bodyParser());

server.post('/data', function (req, res, next) {
  res.send(req.body);
  return next();
});

Versioning

Restify supports API versioning:

server.get({ path: '/versioned', version: '1.0.0' }, function (req, res, next) {
  res.send('This is version 1.0.0');
  return next();
});

server.get({ path: '/versioned', version: '2.0.0' }, function (req, res, next) {
  res.send('This is version 2.0.0');
  return next();
});

Error Handling

Error handling in Restify is straightforward:

server.on('restifyError', function (req, res, err, callback) {
  console.error(err);
  return callback();
});

Full Application Example

Here is a complete example that integrates all the above concepts:

const restify = require('restify');

const server = restify.createServer({
  name: 'exampleApp',
  version: '1.0.0'
});

server.use(restify.plugins.bodyParser());

server.get('/hello/:name', function (req, res, next) {
  res.send('Hello ' + req.params.name);
  return next();
});

server.post('/hello', function (req, res, next) {
  res.send(201, req.body);
  return next();
});

server.get({ path: '/versioned', version: '1.0.0' }, function (req, res, next) {
  res.send('This is version 1.0.0');
  return next();
});

server.get({ path: '/versioned', version: '2.0.0' }, function (req, res, next) {
  res.send('This is version 2.0.0');
  return next();
});

server.on('restifyError', function (req, res, err, callback) {
  console.error(err);
  return callback();
});

server.listen(8080, function () {
  console.log('%s listening at %s', server.name, server.url);
});

By using Restify, you can create scalable and efficient REST APIs with ease. Whether you are building a small application or a large-scale service, Restify offers the tools and flexibility you need.

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