Learn MongoDB & Express By Building A REST API Service

Let’s learn to make an API for our Ice-cream company using MongoDB and Express!

What is Express?

Express.js / Express is a back-end web application framework for Node.js.

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What is MongoDB?

MongoDB is a scalable cloud-based no-SQL document database.

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Initialising Our Project

Using Bash, let’s make a folder called icecream-api and change the directory to it.

$ mkdir icecream-api
$ cd icecream-api

Let’s initialise a package.json file that will contain all the dependencies for the project. We will use yarn for this.

$ yarn init --yes 
//This will automatically answer yes to all questions during initialisation

Next, we will install the following dependencies to our project.

• express
• cors
• mongoose
• @mongoosejs/double
• dotenv

$ yarn add express cors mongoose @mongoosejs/double dotenv 

We will add nodemon as a development dependency to our project.

$ yarn add nodemon --dev

Your package.json file will look like this:

{
    "name": "icecream-api",
    "version": "1.0.0",
    "main": "index.js", <--Change this to "main":"server.js"
    "license": "MIT",
    "dependencies": {
        "@mongoosejs/double": "^0.2.0",
        "cors": "^2.8.5",
        "dotenv": "^16.0.1",
        "express": "^4.18.1",
        "mongoose": "^6.4.3"
    }, 
    "devDependencies": {
        "nodemon": "^2.0.19"
    } <-- Add 'scripts' here
}

Make the following changes to it:

1. Change the "main": "index.js" to "main": "server.js".
2. Add a Bash script called start to it.

"scripts": {
    "start": "nodemon server.js"
}