App

Running the App

Install all the dependencies with

cd backend
npm i

cd ../client
npm i

Start the Express server with

node backend/server.js

Then start the client with

cd client
npm start

Communicating with Backend

To get the frontend talking with the backend, you can use the Fetch API to make requests to the API, and then set whatever state you need. The fetch request returns a Promise, so any data manipulation must be handled in .then statements.

For example, if a component needs to GET user data from /api/users, you would call it with the following

componentDidMount(){
  fetch('/api/users')
   .then(res => res.json())
   .then(users => this.setState({ users }));
}

POST requests take a little extra work, but not too much. If you had a method that needed to send a new user to the backend, it would simply need to specify the method, headers, and body as parameters.

createNewUser(user){
  fetch('/api/users', {
    method: 'POST',
    headers: new Headers(),
    body: JSON.stringify(user)
  }).then()
}