Forem: Nicolaas Nel

Node-Essentials V2 📦

Nicolaas Nel — Fri, 04 Mar 2022 10:56:23 +0000

Intro 🐱‍💻

So first off, I just want to thank everyone that used my first and only NPM package I've ever created.

I pretty much abandoned the project after getting more experienced these past few years but today I decided I wanted to update this package and make it a little bit more useful.

How the original project came to be:

Late last night I decided to finally publish my very own npm package, it's something I've wanted to do for a while now and I could never decide what to package.

While brainstorming I was busy working on a node.js app to process some data, the same code I've used in several projects.

This was it, the perfect package. I don't like searching for stuff I've already used and will use again in the future so I decided to package my most used node functions into a lightweight npm package.

Link to the old version and legacy post: Node-Essentials

About Node-Essentials 🐱‍🏍

This is a nodejs toolkit for doing asynchronous REST API calls, writing files to the system, starting up express-js servers and more coming soon.

Setup 🚧

Run:

npm install node-essentials

And include it in your app:

const node = require('node-essentials');

import * as node from 'node-essentials';

Current Methods ⚙

http - REST Requests.
- get - Simple REST "GET" request.
- post - Simple REST "POST" request.
- put - Simple REST "PUT" request.
helpers - Helper functions.
- distinct - Return a Distinct array.
server - Express server.
- start - Set-up a express-js server on the specified port and directory.
fileManager - Manage files.
- writeToFile - Writes anything passed through to storage as any file.

Quickstart

Simple Get

Want to quickly and easily retrieve data from an API?

executeGet(url: string, options?: any): Promise<any>

Implementation:

import http from 'node-essentials';

async function getData() {
    const data = await http.executeGet("https://my-json-server.typicode.com/typicode/demo/db").then();
    console.log(data); 
}

Response:

{
  posts: [
    { id: 1, title: 'Post 1' },
    { id: 2, title: 'Post 2' },
    { id: 3, title: 'Post 3' }
  ],
  comments: [
    { id: 1, body: 'some comment', postId: 1 },
    { id: 2, body: 'some comment', postId: 1 }
  ],
  profile: { name: 'typicode' }
}

Distinct

Want to easily return distinct values from an array?

distinct(array: Array[any]);

Implementation:

import helpers from 'node-essentials';

const nonDistinct = [1,1,1,2,3];

function getDistinct(){
    const distinct = helpers.distinct(nonDistinct);
    console.log(distinct);
}

Response:

[1,2,3]

Write To File

Want to write files to storage with data?

writeToFile(folder: string, fileName: string, extension: string, data: any);

Implementation:

import fileManager from 'node-essentials';

const data = {
    sample: "Sample Data"
}

fileManager.writeToFile("./", "fileName", "json", JSON.stringify(data));

Conclusion 🏁

The package contains functions I commonly use, I will be adding more simplified essential tools/functions as time goes on!

It's been an interesting journey making my first package and any feedback/suggestions of functions to add would be welcomed.

Where to get the package

NPM
Github

Author

Node Essentials is Developed and Maintained by Nicolaas Nel

Made with 💙 and ☕ by Nicolaas Nel.

Node-Essentials📦

Nicolaas Nel — Wed, 18 Dec 2019 15:11:11 +0000

Intro 🐱‍💻

Late last night I decided to finally publish my very own npm package, it's something I've wanted to do for a while now and I could never decide what to package.

While brainstorming I was busy working on a node.js app to process some data, the same code I've used in several projects.

This was it, the perfect package. I don't like searching for stuff I've already used and will use again in the future so I decided to package my most used node functions into a lightweight npm package.

To my surprise in under 10 hours it already hit over 800 downloads!🥳

About Node-Essentials 🐱‍🏍

This is a nodejs toolkit for doing asynchronous api calls, writing files to the system, starting up express-js servers and more coming soon.

Setup 🚧

Run:

npm install node-essentials

And include it in your app:

let node = require('node-essentials');

Current Tools ⚙

writeToFile - Writes anything passed through to storage as any file.

The below sample is used to print out json data from an API call.

    node.writeToFile("tests", "writeToFile", "json", JSON.stringify(data));

express - Set up an express-js server on the specified port and directory.

The "__dirname" is the relative path for the directory used by node and 3000 is the port it will serve to this is also the default express port.
This would serve the current root directory.

    node.express(3000, __dirname);

get - A simple Async REST "get" request.

I will be adding more rest functions soon.

    async function get() {
    try {
        test = await node.get(
            "https://apiurlhere.com/",["api key desc", "api key value"])
            .then(console.log("done"));
    }
    finally {
        console.log(test);
    }
};

Conclusion 🏁

The package contains functions I commonly use, I will be adding more simplified essential tools/functions as time goes on!

It's been an interesting journey making my first package and any feedback/suggestions of functions to add would be welcomed.

Where to get the package

NPM
Github

If you want to keep track of all my projects and endeavors I am super active over on Twitter and I'm always happy to give advice and lend some help.

FinalNecessity on Twitter 🍣

GraphQL-NodeJS

Nicolaas Nel — Fri, 06 Dec 2019 11:28:14 +0000

Intro

For a while now I've wanted to jump into the deep end of GraphQL and see what all the fuzz is about.

And oh my I wish I did it sooner.

So, what is it?

GraphQL is A query language for your API, this gives you the ability to ask for exactly what you need from the API and nothing more.

Why should I use it?

This is something that works amazing for big API's like the Halo 5 Game API that I used in my example.

A normal player has about 20 000 lines of data but for most of the calls I make I only use a fraction of that (24 to be exact). Reducing my calls to only get what I need gives me a big performance bonus and I'm able to use less data on the client side.

Returning a smaller JSON object makes coding on the front end a lot easier than previously.

// Sample of Possible Queries
let queryObjectSample = {
    Gamertag: String,
    Xp: Number,
    SpartanRank: Number,
    HighestCsrAttained: {
      Tier: Number,
      DesignationId: Number,
      Csr: Number,
      PercentToNextTier: Number,
      Rank: Number
    },
    Stats: {
      TotalKills: Number,
      TotalHeadshots: Number,
      TotalMeleeKills: Number,
      TotalAssassinations: Number,
      TotalGroundPoundKills: Number,
      TotalShoulderBashKills: Number,
      TotalPowerWeaponKills: Number,
      TotalDeaths: Number,
      TotalAssists: Number,
      TotalGamesCompleted: Number,
      TotalGamesWon: Number,
      TotalGamesLost: Number,
      TotalGamesTied: Number,
      TotalGrenadeKills: Number,
      TotalSpartanKills: Number,
    },
    TotalTimePlayed: String
}

Here is a sample of what I return opposed to the 20 000 fields:

{
    "data": {
        "Gamertag": "NicmeisteR",
        "HighestCsrAttained": {
            "Csr": 1872,
            "Rank": 78
        },
        "Stats": {
            "TotalKills": 34834,
            "TotalDeaths": 31017
        }
    }
}

To get the above data all I have to do is make an API call to my Express NodeJS server and with the below query to retrieve what I need.

var dataString = {
    "query": 
        `{ 
            Gamertag, 
            HighestCsrAttained {Csr, Rank},
            Stats { TotalKills, TotalDeaths} 
        } 
`};

How to get started

Go over to GraphQL and select your language of choice and follow through with the tutorial.

GraphQL is super scalable and flexible.

Alternatively you can also check out my Github Repository GraphQL-NodeJS to get straight into the action and see how it all comes together.

Conclusion

GraphQL is something I would high recommend checking out, although it's still relatively new a lot of employers are on the lookout for people with knowledge around it.

Check out the repository for the project here: https://github.com/NicmeisteR/GraphQL-NodeJS