Tutorial

Step-by-step guide of building back-end services for car washing web application using @imqueue.

For those who prefer to learn by example.

Chapter 4. Other Services

Car Service Requirements
TimeTable Service Requirements

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Chapter 4. Other Services

At this point it should be already clear, that building @imqueue services is an easy process. To make our app fully functional we need to develop two more services: Car and TimeTable.

Building them does not differ too much of what have been done for two previous services - User and Auth, so it is suggested to work on them as your homework. Or you can simply refer to their source code at GitHub.

Here are the requirements.

Car Service Requirements

It should utilize data about cars from any available data source, for example, this one publicly available vehicle database
It should implement in-memory data storage with data update each 24 hours from a selected remote vehicle database.
It should Provide access to the list of car object containing the following data (CarObject):
- Unique car identifier (id: string)
- Car manufacturer name (make: string)
- Car model name (model: string)
- Car years of manufacturing (years: number[])
- Car type (type: 'mini' | 'midsize' | 'large')

Here is the interface of the service which is expected to be implemented:

 /**
 * Returns a list of car manufacturers (car brands)
 *
 * @return {string[]} - list of known brands
 */
public brands(): string[];
/**
 * Returns car object by its identifier or if multiple identifiers given
 * as array of identifiers - returns a list of car objects.
 *
 * @param {string | string[]} id - car identifier
 * @param {string[]} [selectedFields] - fields to return
 * @return {Partial<CarObject> | Partial<CarObject|null>[] | null} - found object or null otherwise
 */
public fetch(
    id: string | string[],
    selectedFields?: string[]
): Partial<CarObject> | Partial<CarObject|null>[] | null;
/**
 * Returns list of known cars for a given brand
 *
 * @param {string} brand - car manufacturer (brand) name
 * @param {string[]} [selectedFields] - fields to return
 * @param {string} [sort] - sort field, by default is 'model'
 * @param {'asc' | 'desc'} [dir] - sort direction, by default is 'asc' - ascending
 * @return {Partial<CarObject>[]} - list of found car objects
 */
public list(
    brand: string,
    selectedFields?: string[],
    sort: string = 'model', dir: 'asc' | 'desc' = 'asc'
): Partial<CarObject>[];

For any details and help about implementation, please, refer to corresponding source code.

What to think about: In-memory data synchronization when running multiple instance of services.

TimeTable Service Requirements

That should be a central service. Let’s consider using relational database as a data storage engine, for example, PostgreSQL or any other at your choice with Sequelize ORM library on top.

Here is the interface expected to be built for this service:

/**
 * Returns a list of reservations starting from a given time (or from
 * current time if omitted)
 *
 * @param {string} [date] - date to select reservations for, if not passed
 *                          current date is used
 * @param {string[]} [fields] - fields to select for reservations data list
 * @return {Promise<Reservation[]>} - list of found reservations
 */
public async list(date?: string, fields?: string[]): Promise<Reservation[]>;

/**
 * Fetches and returns single reservation record by its identifier
 *
 * @param {string} id - reservation identifier to fetch
 * @param {string[]} [fields] - fields to select for reservation data object
 * @return {Promise<Reservation|null>} - reservation data object or null if not found
 */
public async fetch(id: string, fields?: string[]): Promise<Partial<Reservation>|null>;

/**
 * Makes a given reservation or throws a proper error
 * if action is not possible
 *
 * @param {Reservation} reservation - reservation data structure
 * @param {string[]} [fields] - fields to select for updated reservations list
 * @return {Promise<Reservation[]>} - updated reservations list
 */
public async reserve(reservation: Reservation, fields?: string[]): Promise<Reservation[]>;

/**
 * Cancels reservation at a given time
 *
 * @param {string} id - reservation identifier
 * @param {string[]} [fields] - fields to select for updated reservations list
 * @return {Promise<Reservation[]>} - updated reservations list
 */
public async cancel(id: string, fields?: string[]): Promise<Reservation[]>;

 /**
 * Returns reservation time-table configuration settings
 *
 * @return {Promise<TimeTableOptions>} - reservations time-table options
 */
public async config(): Promise<TimeTableOptions>;

Where the following complex types exposed as well:

Reservation:

id - reservation record identifier
carId - user car identifier
userId - user identifier
type - washing type selected for this reservation, one of 'fast'|'std'|'full'
duration - is a range of start time/end time

TimeTableOptions:

start - washing station start working time in format HH:MM
end - washing station end working time in format HH:MM

baseTime - duration options for different types of washing, should be a list of

{
   key: 'fast'|'std'|'full', /* or whatever else... */
   title: string, /* human-readable definition title for washing type */
   duration: number, /* in minutes */
 }

What to think about: a) consider exposing sequelize model as a complex-type of @imqueue service; b) consider options as a configurable database records as well.

Any way, the complete source code is available on GitHub

Go to the next chapter - API Service. Integration

Tutorial

Table Of Contents

Chapter 4. Other Services

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Chapter 4. Other Services

Car Service Requirements

TimeTable Service Requirements