Deprecated

DISCLAIMER - Development of this package is currently on hiatus. We are currently not actively developing this package due to both resource constraints and uncertainty about how well supported it will be in the future. We are using this in our active projects, so we will continue to do bug fixes as we encounter them, but feature requests may go unanswered. PRs are still welcome.

REST2DDP Meteor Atmosphere Package

Convert REST APIs into DDP publications for your client side to reactively consume.

Add it to your project meteor add okgrow:rest2ddp.

Examples

Scraping websites with yahoo tools (code)
Passing parameters to get windchills (code)
Passing tokens in header to get gov data (code)

1. Collection (Client and/or Server)

REST2DDP requires a Meteor collection to interact with. Typically this is called on the client but can be on the server or both as well.

BaseballPlayers = new Mongo.Collection('baseballPlayers');

2. Config Objects (Server)

REST2DDP.configs is a global array of objects which hold configuration settings for each publication. Since this object could hold private keys it is recommended to only have these configs on the server-side.

Setting	Type	Required	Description
name	string	true	Name of the publication to subscribe to.
collection	string	true	Specify which collection to send data.
restUrl	string	true	The URL of the REST call. Dynamic parameters are held by a dollar sign blocks, `${varName}`.
jsonPath	string	true	Tell REST2DDP where to find the array in the API response. The path must always be an array and end with a wildcard (*). Check out the jsonpath docs.
pollInterval	number	false	Sets the interval in seconds of pinging the API. Defaults to 10 seconds.
headerKeys	array	false	An array of strings. Specifies which keys are allowed in the header of a call. Good idea to set since clients can modify the header.
headers	object	false	Pass an object of default key values passed with every call. Client can override key values. Values must be a string.

// -----------------
// BASIC EXAMPLE
// -----------------
REST2DDP.configs.push({
  name: 'basic-baseball-player-stats',
  collectionName: 'baseballPlayers',
  restUrl:'http://dev.mlb.com/api/teamStats&team=cubs',
  jsonPath: '$.results.players.*'
});

// -----------------
// ADVANCE EXAMPLE
// -----------------
var apiToken = process.env.MLB_API_TOKEN;

REST2DDP.configs.push({
  name: 'adv-baseball-player-stats',
  collectionName: 'baseballPlayers',
  restUrl:'http://dev.mlb.com/api/teamStats&team=${teamName}',
  jsonPath: '$.results.players.*',
  pollInterval: 30,
  headerKeys: ['token', 'Content-Type'],
  headers: {
    token:apiToken,
    'Content-Type': 'application/json'
  }
});

3. Subscribing (Client or Server)

On the client you will subscribe to REST2DDP like you would any other publication and pass it parameters. The name of the publication you are subscribing to will always be 'REST2DDP'.

Argument	Type	Required	Description
1	string	true	Name of the publication you are subscribing to will always be `'REST2DDP'`.
2	string	true	Name of configuration to call.
3	object	false	Takes upto two optional keys which are objects, `variables: {object}` and `headers: {object}`.

Template.playersList.onCreated(function () {
  var self = this;
  
  // -----------------
  // BASIC EXAMPLE
  // -----------------
  self.autorun(function () {
    self.subscribe('REST2DDP', 'basic-baseball-player-stats');
  });
  
  // -----------------
  // ADVANCE EXAMPLE
  // -----------------
  self.autorun(function () {
    self.subscribe('REST2DDP', 'adv-baseball-player-stats', {
      variables: {
        teamName: 'cubs'
      },
      headers: {}
    });
  });
});

How to help/future features

Support XML
Support single document returns

Contributing

Issues and Pull Requests are always welcome. Please read our contribution guidelines.

okgrow/rest2ddp

okgrow

Reviews

Repository Details