Unable to create POST request to REST API with $resource in angularjs - angularjs

Question

I am learning about the MEAN stack, and have created a REST API which posts a review to a collection in MongoDB.
I have defined a service as given:
angular.module('myApp')
.constant('baseURL', 'http://localhost:8080/');
angular.module('myApp')
.service('addReviews', ['$resource', 'baseURL', function($resource, baseURL) {
this.getReviews = function() {
return $resource(baseURL+'reviews/', null, {'save': {method: 'POST'}});
};
}]);
Now, I am calling this service from my controller:
angular.module('myApp', ['ngResource'])
.controller('reviewController', ['$scope', 'addReviews', function($scope, addReviews) {
$scope.reviewSubmit = function() {
$scope.receivedReviews = false;
var review = {
// some data
};
$scope.reviews = addReviews.getReviews().query(
function(response) {
$scope.reviews = response;
$scope.receivedReviews = true;
},
function(response) {
$scope.reviews = response;
// print error message
}
);
console.log($scope.reviews); // showing empty array
};
}]);
In routes.js, I have configured my route as:
var Reviews = require('./models/reviews');
...
app.post('/reviews', function(req, res) {
Reviews.create(req.body, function(err, post) {
if (err) {
return res.send(err);
}
return res.json(post);
});
});
I am trying to post a new review to the Reviews collection. However, $scope.reviews is showing an empty array. I logged the requests, and it shows a GET request is being to /reviews instead of POST. I think I should use save() instead of query(), but I have seen some tutorials online where they used query() despite the method being PUT/POST in the service. I am really confused. Can anyone point out how I can post the data (in var review) to the Reviews collection?

Answer 1

There are some issues with your code on the angular side of things.
You want to use $resource as an all-purpose object to communicate with the API. It has built-in functionality to:
query: get all resources from a given API endpoint
get: a single resource, usually by specifying that resource's id
save: post, with an object sent across in the body of the request. NOTE: you don't need the {'save': {method: 'POST'}} in your $resource configuration, you get it for free.
remove and delete: self-explanatory
So you'd want to set up your reviews factory (incl. url constant) like:
angular.module('myApp', ['ngResource'])
.constant('baseURL', 'http://localhost:8080/')
.factory('Reviews', ['$resource', 'baseURL', function($resource, baseURL) {
return $resource(baseURL+'reviews/:id', {id: '#id'});
}]);
If you want to have access to all saved reviews in your controller, as $scope.reviews, you'd do something like:
angular.module('myApp')
.controller('reviewController', ['$scope', 'Reviews', function($scope, Reviews) {
// hit API endpoint to get all reviews
// will have to have app.get('/reviews', function(req, res) {...})
// configured in your node code
Reviews.query(function(data) {
$scope.reviews = data;
}, function(error) {
console.log(error);
});
// and if you want to take a user-written review, say $scope.userReview,
// from the view and save it to the database on click function submitReview()...
$scope.userReview = {
message: '',
createdTime: null
};
// ^ not sure what your ReviewSchema looks like on the backend, but for example...
$scope.submitReview = function() {
if ($scope.userReview.message.length) {
$scope.userReview.createdTime = Date.now();
Reviews.save($scope.userReview);
// ^ this will make POST request with the $scope.userReview object as the request body
}
};
}]);
The create method on your back end looks fine. The object (or maybe just string) you send across will have to match your review schema. You may want to log the request body to make sure you're getting what you expect.
Have a look at this short post on using $resource to interact with RESTful APIs, and (the slightly more confusing) angular $resource docs, for more information on the $resource service.
Hope this helps you!