bcgov/landuseplanning-api

API for the Land Use Planning Public and Admin apps -->

Installation

1. Get the Mongo DB up and running. See the README in the db folder.
2. Update your environment variables.

• Those related to Minio and the email service can be found in Openshift in the "dev" environment.
• Those related to Mongo correspond to the docker-compose file found in the db directory.
• SILENCE_DEFAULT_LOG is used for local development only. See Logging below.

3. Run npm i to install.
4. Run npm start to start the development environment.

Technologies used

Technology	Version	Website	Description
node	14.15.x	https://nodejs.org/en/	JavaScript Runtime
npm	6.14.x	https://www.npmjs.com/	Node Package Manager
mongodb	3.6	https://docs.mongodb.com/v3.6/installation/	NoSQL database

API Specification

The API is defined in swagger.yaml.

If the this landuseplanning-api is running locally, you can view the api docs at: http://localhost:3000/api/docs/

This project uses npm package swagger-tools via ./app.js to automatically generate the express server and its routes.

Recommend reviewing the Open API Specification before making any changes to the swagger.yaml file.

Seed with generated data:

Described in seed README

Loading legacy data:

To restore the database dump you have from the old epic system (ie ESM):

mongorestore -d epic dump/[old_database_name_most_likely_esm]

Then run the contents of dataload against that database. You may need to edit the commands slightly to match your db name or to remove the ".gz --gzip" portion if your dump unpacks as straight ".bson" files.

Developing

1. Code Reuse Strategy
2. Testing
3. Configuring Environment Variables
4. Logging

Note on Ecmascript feature availability

This app runs on Node 12.22.12 in Openshift. As a result, almost all modern ECMAScript features are available except for:

• The nullish coalescing operator
• Optional object chaining

See here for more details on ES feature availability: https://node.green/

Testing

An overview of the EPIC test stack can be found here.

This project is using jest as a testing framework. You can run tests with yarn test or jest. Running either command with the --watch flag will re-run the tests every time a file is changed.

To run the tests in one file, simply pass the path of the file name e.g. jest api/test/search.test.js --watch. To run only one test in that file, chain the .only command e.g. test.only("Search returns results", () => {}).

The MOST IMPORTANT thing to know about this project's test environment is the router setup. At the time of writing this, it wasn't possible to get swagger-tools router working in the test environment. As a result, all tests COMPLETELY bypass the real life swagger-tools router. Instead, a middleware router called supertest is used to map routes to controller actions. In each controller test, you will need to add code like the following:

const test_helper = require('./test_helper');
const app = test_helper.app;
const featureController = require('../controllers/feature.js');
const fieldNames = ['tags', 'properties', 'applicationID'];

app.get('/api/feature/:id', function(req, res) {
  let params = test_helper.buildParams({'featureId': req.params.id});
  let paramsWithFeatureId = test_helper.createPublicSwaggerParams(fieldNames, params);
  return featureController.protectedGet(paramsWithFeatureId, res);
});

test("GET /api/feature/:id  returns 200", done => {
  request(app)
    .get('/api/feature/AAABBB')
    .expect(200)
    .then(done)
});

This code will stand in for the swagger-tools router, and help build the objects that swagger-tools magically generates when HTTP calls go through it's router. The above code will send an object like below to the api/controllers/feature.js controller protectedGet function as the first parameter (typically called args).

{
  swagger: {
    params: {
      auth_payload: {
        scopes: ['sysadmin', 'public'],
        userID: null
      },
      fields: {
        value: ['tags', 'properties', 'applicationID']
      },
      featureId: {
        value: 'AAABBB'
      }
    }
  }
}

Unfortunately, this results in a lot of boilerplate code in each of the controller tests. There are some helpers to reduce the amount you need to write, but you will still need to check the parameter field names sent by your middleware router match what the controller(and swagger router) expect. However, this method results in pretty effective integration tests as they exercise the controller code and save objects in the database.

Test Database

The tests run on an in-memory MongoDB server, using the mongodb-memory-server package. The setup can be viewed at test_helper.js, and additional config in [config/mongoose_options.js]. It is currently configured to wipe out the database after each test run to prevent database pollution.

Factory-Girl is used to easily create models(persisted to db) for testing purposes.

Mocking http requests

External http calls (such as GETs to BCGW) are mocked with a tool called nock. Currently sample JSON responses are stored in the test/fixtures directory. This allows you to intercept a call to an external service such as bcgw, and respond with your own sample data.

  const bcgwDomain = 'https://openmaps.gov.bc.ca';
  const searchPath = '/geo/pub/FOOO';
  const crownlandsResponse = require('./fixtures/crownlands_response.json');
  var bcgw = nock(bcgwDomain);
  let dispositionId = 666666;

  beforeEach(() => {
    bcgw.get(searchPath + urlEncodedDispositionId)
      .reply(200, crownlandsResponse);
  });

  test('returns the features data from bcgw', done => {
    request(app).get('/api/public/search/bcgw/dispositionTransactionId/' + dispositionId)
      .expect(200)
      .then(response => {
        let firstFeature = response.body.features[0];
        expect(firstFeature).toHaveProperty('properties');
        expect(firstFeature.properties).toHaveProperty('DISPOSITION_TRANSACTION_SID');
        done();
      });
  });

You will not be able to see the above value of the secret if you try examine it. You will only see the encrypted values. Approach your team member with admin access in the openshift project in order to get the access key and secret key values for the secret name you got from the above command. Make sure to ask for the correct environment (dev, test, prod) for the appropriate values.

Logging

The winston package is used to log nearly every operation in the app. console.log is discouraged in favour of winston.

When developing, one may choose to silence the verbose log output to be able to focus on specific operations. To do this:

1. Set the SILENCE_DEFAULT_LOG environment variable to "true".
2. Switch the winston.loggers.get() call argument from defaultLog to devLog.
3. When you're finished, restore all logging to use defaultLog.

The Winston loggers have been set up in config/loggers.js.

API Controllers begin with a log output that states:

• The model name
• The level of access
• The HTTP method

So an example log for a controller would be "COMMENT PERIOD PROTECTED GET."