recipebox-server

NOTE: We've decided that Go isn't the best language for our project, and are working to move our code to node.js so that we can develop more features faster. Here is a link to the new repo: https://github.com/harvardd4d/recipebox-server2.

The RecipeBox web server, written in Go. Get the code with

$ go get github.com/harvardd4d/recipebox-server

or, if you are new to go, read detailed-setup-instructions.md in this directory. View a live preview at pc-recipebox.herokuapp.com. This is still a work in progress!

Setup

If you're new to Go, set up your GOPATH and Go workspace with the instructions described in https://golang.org/doc/code.html. Go is rather picky about its workspace options but allows for some very useful modularity as a result of this workspace organization.

• github.com/codegansta/negroni
• github.com/gorilla/pat
• github.com/lib/pq
• github.com/unrolled/render
• github.com/jmoiron/sqlx

The above dependencies are necessary to build this project. We are using godep to manage dependencies - you may choose to install the dependencies locally using go get or by using the godep tool. Run

$ go get github.com/kr/godep

to install godep or a dependency.

Setting up a database

The recipebox-server app requires a recipes database. recipebox-server will read in the DATABASE_URL environment variable and attempt to connect to the database listed there. The server is set up to use a postgres database. Please install psql and look at sample_sql.txt to setup a local postgres database.

Building

Run go build in the recipebox-server folder to compile the code, assuming you have the dependencies set up manually. If you are using godep, run godep go build to build the code without downloading the dependencies.

This will create an executable named recipebox-server. Run

$ ./recipebox-server

The server will attach itself to port 8080 by default unless the PORT environment variable is set. In that case, the server will listen on the value of the PORT environment variable.

The DATABASE_URL environment variable is essential to the operation of the program and should be set to the location of a database containing the recipes table.

Testing

Run go test to test. Current, will test the server without the existence of a postgres database.

Expected behavior

The following routes are currently implemented.

1. GET /recipes/:id displays the contents of the recipe with specified id.
2. GET /recipes/:id/json displays a json string of the recipe with specified id.
3. POST /recipes/jsonsearch ? strict=[0,1] name=<string> season=<int> mealtype=<int> cuisine=<int> searches for recipes that match name, season, mealtype, and cuisine and returns them as a list of json strings seperated by newline characters.
   A search is either strict or loose. Strict searches must have the name match exactly; weak searches can have the name be a substring.
4. GET /about displays about text.

Code details

The directory is set up as so:

recipebox-server/
|
|-- recipe.go (Recipe and RecipeDB types and functions)
|-- appcontroller.go (Generic app controller type)
|-- rbcontroller.go (RecipeBox app controller)
|-- server.go (RecipeBox server)
|
+-- webroot
|   +-- css
|       |-- pixyll.css
| 
+-- templates
    +-- recipes
    |   |-- recipe.tmpl (recipe view template)
    |
    |-- layout.tmpl (layout template)
    |-- error.tmpl (error template)
    |-- about.tmpl (about template)

server.go handles routing. rbcontroller.go is the RecipeBox controller and handles rendering of html templates and RecipeDB querying.

Todo

• More testing
• Recipes home page
• Recipes search by category
• User login (Google Authentication)
• Some way for users to keep track of recipes
• Saving recipes to database

Thank you

Thank you to the following projects for your amazing tools! RecipeBox wouldn't be here without you.

• codegansta/negroni
• gorilla/pat
• lib/pq
• unrolled/render
• jmoiron/sqlx
• johnotander