Milestones provide opportunities to run custom application code at various important steps throughout the duration of the request.
Resources have properties for each controller action: create
, list
, read
, update
, and delete
.
Also find a meta property all
as a convenience for hooking into milestones across all controllers.
Each of those properties in turn has methods for setting custom behavior.
For each milestone on a given controller we accept a function to specify custom behavior. If multiple functions are registered for a hook they will be ran in order.
Functions can expect three parameters: a request, a response, and a context object.
For example to run before the main fetch milestone:
// check the cache first
users.list.fetch.before(function(req, res, context) {
var instance = cache.get(context.criteria);
if (instance) {
// keep a reference to the instance and skip the fetch
context.instance = instance;
return context.skip;
} else {
// cache miss; we continue on
return context.continue;
}
})
We have the following milestones:
- start - ran at the beginning of the request
- auth - authorize the request
- fetch - fetch data from the database
- data - transform the database data
- write - write to the database
- send - send response to the user
- complete - request completed
Only send is defined for all actions, and defaults to returning the json format of context.instance to the browser.
Reads from context.attributes and req.body and creates a new instance of the model. Causes the response to have a HTTP 201 response and sets the instance on context.instance
Fetches from the database based on the endpoint parameters. Sets context.instance to the data if it is found, otherwise throws a 404 error.
Deletes the instance from the database and clears context.instance. Sets context.deletedInstance as a copy of context.instance for later use.
Fetches a list from the database based on the URL parameters and endpoint configuration. Sets context.instance to the returned list.
Fetches data from the database based on the request parameters and endpoint configuration and sets context.instance to the returned object or throws a 404 error if none found that match
Inside the function you must do one of the following:
- return either
context.stop
,context.skip
orcontext.continue
- return a promise/thenable that resolves to
context.stop
,context.skip
orcontext.continue
- call either
context.stop()
,context.skip()
orcontext.continue()
- throw an error
- call
context.error(err)
with an error to show
Examples:
// example for 1
users.list.fetch.before(function(req, res, context) {
return context.continue;
});
// example for 2 and 4
var ForbiddenError = require('finale-rest').Errors.ForbiddenError;
users.list.fetch.before(function(req, res, context) {
return checkLoggedIn(function(loggedIn) {
if(!loggedIn) {
throw new ForbiddenError();
}
return context.continue;
});
});
// example for 3 and 5
users.list.fetch.before(function(req, res, context) {
passport.authenticate('bearer', function(err, user, info) {
if(err) {
res.status(500);
return context.stop();
}
if(user) {
context.continue();
} else {
context.error(new ForbiddenError());
}
});
});
This says to continue on to the next hook in the chain.
This skips all the remaining functions on a milestone and skips to the start of the next one
This stops execution of all the remaining hooks and milestones and finishes the request. If you use context.stop you
should also set the response res.status(200).json({})
This should be called when throwing an error won't work. If you are returning a promise or working sync then throwing
an error will be better. If more than one parameter is passed to context.error
then this function will assume the
syntax context.error(status, message, [errors], [cause])
and will create a new FinaleError out of them and will use
that instead.
Throwing an error within a milestone function will cause the milestones to stop execution and the error message will be displayed to the user in the format:
{
"message": "Error message",
"errors": []
}
To make use of this you must use an error that extends FinaleError. Any error thrown that is not an instance of FinaleError will be shown as an Internal Server Error with it's errors array set to the error message.
In situations where throwing an error is not possible you can use context.error(err)
with the error object or
alternatively call context.error(status, message, [errors], [cause])
for it to build an FinaleError for you with the
supplied parameters
The following errors are provided on finale.Errors:
This is the parent class you can extend to make your own errors
statusCode
= the HTTP status code to return, defaults to 500
message
= the error message to show in the message field, defaults to 'FinaleError'
errors
= an array of error strings to show in the message, defaults to []
cause
= the original error that caused this error, defaults to undefined (no cause)
This returns a HTTP 400 response
message
= the error message to show in the message field, defaults to 'Bad Request'
errors
= an array of error strings to show in the message, defaults to []
cause
= the original error that caused this error, defaults to undefined (no cause)
This returns a HTTP 403 response
message
= the error message to show in the message field, defaults to 'Forbidden'
errors
= an array of error strings to show in the message, defaults to []
cause
= the original error that caused this error, defaults to undefined (no cause)
This returns a HTTP 404 response
message
= the error message to show in the message field, defaults to 'Not Found'
errors
= an array of error strings to show in the message, defaults to []
cause
= the original error that caused this error, defaults to undefined (no cause)
You can override how errors are formatted for a milestone by setting the action.error
function.
For example:
resource.controllers.create.error = function(req, res, error) {
res.status(500);
res.json({message: 'Internal Error'});
}
The error object passed will be an FinaleError. If the error is wrapping another error (for example a ValidationError
from Sequelize) the original error can be found at controllers.error.cause
resource.controllers.create.error = function(req, res, error) {
if(error.cause && error.cause instanceof sequelize.ValidationError) {
res.status(400);
res.json({message: 'Bad Request'});
} else {
res.status(500);
res.json({message: 'Internal Error'});
}
}
The default implementation is to do the following:
res.status(err.status);
res.json({
message: err.message,
errors: err.errors
});
All Sequelize ValidationError objects are wrapped in a BadRequestError and are accessed on error.cause. Any FinaleError object are passed as-is and any other errors are wrapped in an FinaleError and can be accessed on error.cause