Geddy web framework for Node.js

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Goals

• Easy to use
• Modular
• Fast

Geddy should make things easy for the most basic applications, but still let you get under the hood and tinker if you want.

Features

• Powerful, flexible router
• Easy resource-based routing
• App, resource and scaffold generators
• Content-negotiation
• Session support (in-memory, cookie)
• Multiple template engine support(EJS, Jade, Mustache, Handlebars)
• View helpers(Docs)
• Fully non-blocking

License

Apache License, Version 2

Prerequisites

Geddy requires version 0.6.x of Node.js or higher, and the Jake JavaScript build-tool.

Installing from Github

To get Geddy from Github and install it do:

git clone git@github.com:mde/geddy.git
cd geddy
make && sudo make install

By default Geddy is installed in "/usr/local." To install it into a different directory (e.g., one that doesn't require super-user privilege), pass the PREFIX variable to the make install command. For example, to install it into a "geddy" directory in your home directory, you could use this:

make && make install PREFIX=~/geddy

If you do install Geddy somewhere special, you'll need to add the "bin" directory in the install target to your PATH to get access to the geddy executable.

Installing with NPM

[sudo] npm -g install geddy

Note: Geddy (specifically, the generators) is a system-level tool, and wants to be installed globally.

Creating a Geddy application

To create Geddy applications simply run geddy app <name>. Then you can run geddy inside the application to start the server.

mde@localhost:~/work$ geddy app bytor
Created app bytor.
mde@localhost:~/work$ cd bytor
mde@localhost:~/work/bytor$ geddy
Server running at http://127.0.0.1:4000/

Go to http://localhost:4000/, and you should see the introduction page.

Generating resources

Use geddy resource <name> [model properties] to generate a resource in your application. Resources do not generate views, but creates a view directory. A resource route will be created for you.

mde@localhost:~/work$ geddy resource snow_dog breed:string name:string color:string
[Added] app/models/snow_dog.js
[Added] app/controllers/snow_dogs.js
[Added] Resource snow_dogs route added to config/router.js
[Added] snow_dogs view directory
```

Now start your Geddy server and your new route will work. Trying this for example
will return the params for the index action in JSON:

```
$ curl localhost:4000/snow_dogs.json
{"params":{"method":"GET","controller":"SnowDogs","action":"index","format":"json"}}
```

Geddy generators handle plural inflections for model and controller names. ex: 'person' to 'people'
To read about the model properties argument jump to [Model properties](#model-properties)

### Generating scaffolding

Use `geddy scaffold <name> [model properties]` to generate scaffoling in your application.
Scaffolding creates full CRUD actions includes views, and will default your configuration to use
[Mongodb](http://www.mongodb.org/) Resource routes will be created for you.

mde@localhost:~/work$ geddy resource snow_dog breed:string name:string color:string [Added] app/models/snow_dog.js [Added] app/controllers/snow_dogs.js [Added] Resource snow_dogs route added to config/router.js [Added] View templates [Added] Database configuration to config/environment.js

Now start your Geddy server and you'll have new views created from scaffolding. Trying this for example
will return the content for the index action in HTML:

$ curl localhost:4000/snow_dogs

<title>Geddy App | This app uses Geddy.js</title>

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width" />

<!-- The HTML5 shim, for IE6-8 support of HTML elements -->
<!--[if lt IE 9]>
  <script src="http://html5shim.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/html5.js"></script>
<![endif]-->

.....

Geddy generators handle plural inflections for model and controller names. ex: 'person' to 'people'
To read about the model properties argument jump to [Model properties](#model-properties)

### Model properties

Some Geddy generators (resource, scaffold and model) have a argument that takes a list of model
properties. Here's an example of a resource with some properties:

geddy resource user name admin:boolean lastLogin:datetime

Each of these items include a name and an optional type, if there's no type given it'll default
to string. The list of supported types are listed in the [model](https://github.com/mde/geddy/wiki/Models) documentation.
If no id property is given then a default id property will be created with the type of string.

You can also use custom default properties:

geddy resource user name:default admin:boolean

The above example will use the property `name`(string) to display the items in the views instead of the default ID property, this way when generating scaffolds, it will look better out of the box.

### Routes

Routes are created in a similar fashion to Merb or Rails.

***Basic routes***

router.match('/moving/pictures/:id').to( {controller: 'Moving', action: 'pictures'});

router.match('/farewells/:farewelltype/kings/:kingid').to( {controller: 'Farewells', action: 'kings'});

//Can also match specific HTTP methods only router.match('/xandadu', 'get').to( {controller: 'Xandadu', action: 'specialHandler'});

***Resource routes***

router.resource('hemispheres');

### Resources and controllers

Geddy's resource-based routes create url/request-method mappings
for easy CRUD operations like this:

GET */snow_dogs[.extension]<br/>
(SnowDogs controller, index action)

GET */snow_dogs/add[.extension]<br/>
(SnowDogs controller, add action, for any new-resource template
-- "new" is not usable as a JavaScript action name)

POST */snow_dogs[.extension]<br/>
(SnowDogs controller, create action)

GET */snow_dogs/:id[.extension]<br/>
(SnowDogs controller, show action)

GET */snow_dogs/:id/edit[.extension]<br/>
(SnowDogs controller, edit action)

PUT */snow_dogs/:id[.extension]<br/>
(SnowDogs controller, update action)

DELETE */snow_dogs/:id[.extension]<br/>
(SnowDogs controller, remove action)

A simple controller that just responds with any
form-post/query-string params looks like this:

```javascript
var SnowDogs = function () {
  this.respondsWith = ['text', 'json', 'html'];

  this.index = function (params) {
    this.respond({params: params});
  };

  this.add = function (params) {
    this.respond({params: params});
  };

  this.create = function (params) {
    this.respond({params: params});
  };

  this.show = function (params) {
    this.respond({params: params});
  };

  this.update = function (params) {
    this.respond({params: params});
  };

  this.remove = function (params) {
    this.respond({params: params});
  };

};

exports.SnowDogs = SnowDogs;

Content-negotiation

Geddy can perform content-negotiation, and respond with with the correct format based on the requested filename-extension.

If you have a JSON-serializable JavaScript object you want to return in JSON format, pass your JavaScript object to the respond method in the action on that controller.

this.respondsWith = ['text', 'json'];

this.show = function (params) {
  item = {foo: 'FOO', bar: 1, baz: false};
  this.respond(item);
};

Models and validations

Geddy has a simple way of defining models, with a full-featured set of data validations. The syntax is similar to models in Ruby's ActiveRecord or DataMapper.

Here is an example of a model with some validations:

var User = function () {
  this.property('login', 'string', {required: true});
  this.property('password', 'string', {required: true});
  this.property('lastName', 'string');
  this.property('firstName', 'string');

  this.validatesPresent('login');
  this.validatesFormat('login', /[a-z]+/, {message: 'Subdivisions!'});
  this.validatesLength('login', {min: 3});
  this.validatesConfirmed('password', 'confirmPassword');
  this.validatesWithFunction('password', function (s) {
      // Something that returns true or false
      return s.length > 0;
  });

  // Can define methods for instances like this
  this.someMethod = function () {
    // Do some stuff
  };
};

// Can also define them on the prototype
User.prototype.someOtherMethod = function () {
  // Do some other stuff
};

User = geddy.model.registerModel('User', User);

Alternatively, you can use the defineProperties method to lay out your model:

var User = function () {
  this.defineProperties({
    login: {type: 'string', required: true}
  , password: {type: 'string', required: true}
  , lastName: {type: 'string'}
  , firstName: {type: 'string'}
  });
}

Creating an instance of one of these models is easy:

var params = {
  login: 'alex'
, password: 'lerxst'
, lastName: 'Lifeson'
, firstName: 'Alex'
};
var user = User.create(params);

Data-validation happens on the call to create, and any validation errors show up inside an errors property on the instance, keyed by field name. Instances have a valid method that returns a Boolean indicating whether the instance is valid.

// Leaving out the required password field
var params = {
  login: 'alex'
};
var user = User.create(params);

// Prints 'false'
util.puts(user.valid());
// Prints 'Field "password" is required'
util.puts(user.errors.password);

Running the tests

In the geddy project directory, run jake test. The tests simply use NodeJS's assert library, which throws an error on failure. If there are no errors, the tests all ran successfully.

API Docs

API docs can be found here.

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Geddy Web-app development framework copyright 2112 mde@fleegix.org.