Go: Developing a REST API - Gin and GORM

Acknowledgements

• This is a project of creating a a REST API using Gin and GORM, connect it to a PostgreSQL database using a Docker image.

Authors

• Alura

Requirements

• Golang
• PostgreSQL
• Gin
• GORM
• Docker
• Postman

Environment Variables

To run this project, you will need to do the following:

• docker-compose up
• go run main.go

Features

• Access from postman
• Create / update / edit / delete an item from a db using the frontend

Demo

Postgre database created via Docker

• http://localhost:54321 = login to pgAdmin - PostgreSQL

Postman - Perform CRUD tests via

View all API data on JSON format

• http://localhost:8080/vehicles - see vehicles (json)

Swagger - Framework for API documentation / testing

• http://localhost:8080/swagger/index.html

• Command to edit swagger: $ swag init --parseDependency --parseInternal --parseDepth 1
• Swagger official documentation: https://github.com/swaggo/gin-swagger

Frontend

• 

Tests

• Implement automated testing

• run on terminal: go test

• Testify official documentation: https://github.com/stretchr/testify

Golang: Website Monitoring

Lessons Learned:

• Understood the importance of structuring the API endpoints and handling HTTP requests and responses efficiently.

Integrating with a Database

• Learned how to integrate a Go API with a database using Docker.

• Gained knowledge of using Docker for containerization and database management. Using GORM

• Learned how to use GORM, Go's popular ORM (Object-Relational Mapping) library, for database operations.

• Explored features such as model definitions, querying, and relationships management provided by GORM.

Creating Middleware

• Learned how to create middleware in Go to handle cross-cutting concerns such as logging, authentication, and request validation.
• Understood the benefits of using middleware to avoid code duplication and maintain clean API logic.

Integrating with a React Frontend

• Learned how to integrate a Go API with a React frontend for a full-stack application.
• Explored methods for communication between the frontend and backend, such as RESTful APIs and WebSocket.

Installation

1. Open Docker Desktop

2. Run Docker

  docker-compose up

3. Run API

  run main.go

4. Open Postman and perform CRUD operations on API. See the reponse on the frontend

Notes:

Gin framework- to create API - Official site: https://github.com/gin-gonic/gin

Gorm ORM

• (Object–relational mapping - avoid the need for queries) used to connect to DB
• site: https://gorm.io/docs/index.html

PostgreSQL

• Store data

Docker - create two images:

• 1 postgres
• 2 pgadmin-compose

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Validator - V2 - https://pkg.go.dev/gopkg.in/validator.v2

gitignore file - Include all .yml filmes in gitignore in order to avoid sharing them to the cloud.

Render page on the FrontEnd

Github - provide project link

• https://github.com/tiagoc0sta/api-go-gin

explain MVC model - Model View Controller