Develop Reference

how to use variables in base url and compose config when making the request in Vue.js?

What I want to achieve - for vue to serve a foo1.bar.com where "foo" is a name of the tenant in multitenant project. So base API that vue uses becomes foo2.bar.com/api when foo2.bar.com is accessed and foo3.bar.com/api when foo3.bar.com is accessed.
Context: this is a suggested way to achieve coherence with existing multitenant backend API, URLs of which look like t1.site.com/api and t2.site.com/api .
It was suggested on reddit as a response to this question:
I have almost finished my first decoupled (frond and back ends are
separate) project - the back end is written with django + rest
framework and implements multitenancy (means my api endpoints look
like tenant1.sitename.com/api/endpoint and
tenant2.sitename.com/api/endpoint) . While I was developing, I assumed
that there shouldn't be a problem consuming my api since the front end
is the same for all tenants, so django could just consume same vue
front end no matter which tenant.. ant then it struck me - actually
it's vue consuming django api, not other way around.. and vue doesn't
know which tenant is selected..So now I'm very close to a deadline and
lost.
My main.ts looks like this
axios.defaults.baseURL = 'http://tenant1.mysite.local:8000/api/';axios.defaults.withCredentials
= true;
and works... while I need the first tenant's data....
I'm not entirely sure that variable is supposed to be used in baseUrl, or that typescript is supposed to be used, but as I said, my current setup has baseurl in main.ts .
To reiterate:
I have one back-end serving api for different tenants like t1.foo.com/api and t2.foo.com/api and one front-end that currently only sends requests to only one baseurl defined in settings, for example t1.foo.com/api ; It then serves it on t1.foo.com/home . Problem is, if I would to go to t2.foo.com/home , it would still send requests to t1.foo.com/api .
I know neither how to make different (t1,t2,t3) urls accessible nor how to make it send requests to matching api. I want to acieve my frontent sending the api request to t1.foo.com/api when i go to to t1.foo.com/home and t2.foo.com/api when I go to t2.foo.com/home .

I asked a similar question before and I got this full detailed answer
if I understand you correctly I think the best solution for is to set this in vue.config.js file:
publicPath: './'
which sets the url of all request to the backend to the relative url of the served html file (including static files like css, js...).
For example if you access you application with this url t1.mysite.com/index.html - all request will be sent to t1.mysite.com/..../....
you can read more about publicPath in vue.js docs

postman: You need to enable JavaScript to run this app

I've got a new API from the backend team in a new project, when I call the api it returns "you need to enable java...", whereas I had used Postman for another project before... is it related to api, server or something else?

I don't think that POSTMAN is capable of executing JavaScript in its console.
Try doing the same in the web browser it will work (You won't see this error message).

I spent some times pondering on this trepidation.. and then suddenly i realized what was going on..
the endpoint does not exist, it could be a misspelling
not in the same directory as you expect it to be,
try adding or removing "/" at the beginning of the url, particularly if you don't specify the hostname, i.e. fetch('getusername') is different from fetch('/getusername') .
. This acceptable in development but NOT when already deployed, it points to different path.
the endpoint may be working fine in the Development,
but somewhere within in the Production/Staging, it generated some exception.

I updated Postman and now it works. I'm not sure if it was because of the update or the restart.

I had this problem with a project built using the new template in Visual Studio 2022 for a React app with .NET Core.
In my case I was only getting the response "You need to enable JavaScript to run this app" with calls to a new controller I added. Calls to the built-in WeatherForecastController were working just fine. My new controller was configured the same as the built-in controller so I could not figure out why this was happening. It has to do with how this project template creates both a React app and a back-end API both accessible on the same port. There's a setupProxy.js file that defines routes that should be forwarded to the API. All other routes are redirected to index.html. This is actually what was happening in my case, because my new controller had not been added to setupProxy.js the middleware was redirecting the request to index.html, and because it came from Postman rather than a browser the message regarding enabling JavaScript is displayed.
The solution is that each controller must be explicitly mapped in setupProxy.js or else it won't be proxied correctly. After making this change it worked perfectly in Postman as well as fetch calls from the React app.
const context = [
"/weatherforecast", // built-in controller than comes with the project template in VS2022
"/recaptcha" // controller I created (this line must be added)
];

While calling the REST API with the postman, if you miss the end-point, then also this issue will come, add the end-point to the URL and check

What worked for me was to turn-off / deselect the user-agent header field under request

Node.js best way to store variable to be used between multiple modules

I have following Node.js app structure:
- main.js - main file
- ./requests/requestSetName.js - different functions sending different requests to API, so I have e.g. userRequests.js, vechicleRequests.js etc.
First thing I do in main.js is I send a request with login credentials to get access token. For all other requests I need to put this token in the request header. So each function in all modules in request folder needs to have access to it.
What is the best way to store this token and to be able to use it across different modules in Node.js ?

I think you shoud use classes for each request file and inject another class (Globals) witch contains the token , in the constructor of each request class, typescript should make It clean.

Node process.env variables empty

I'm building my first Express app, which needs to interact with an API, using an API key that ideally remains secure.
So I wanted to follow a basic pattern of keeping the key (and any future environment variables), in a .gitignored .env file in the root directory.
To not reinvent the wheel, I used this package, and set my env variables like so, in my app.coffee file (the root file of the application):
env = require('node-env-file')
env __dirname + '/.env'
console.log process.env.MY_API_KEY
That console.log prints out the right key to the server logs. The problem arises later:
If I try to access that same variable in one of the JS files loaded later on by my app, process.env is an empty object, so the API key is undefined. This doesn't appear to be a problem with the above package, because if I define the variable in the CL (API_KEY=whatever npm start), the behavior is the same -- it console logs correctly from app.coffee but is unavailable later.
Some information on how the files in which the key is unavailable are being loaded:
The app is running React, which I write to a few .jsx files in public/javascripts/src, and which are compiled by gulp into public/javascripts/build/*.js.
I'm trying to access the key in a .js file in public/javascripts/ which is required by one of the .jsx files.
In that required .js file, process.env returns an empty object. When I try to access process.env in the .jsx files, I'm actually told that process itself is undefined.
Any ideas what's going on here? I'm new to Express/React, and unclear where this process object, which I thought was global and defined on npm start is defined, and what's happening to all the env info in it.
Thanks! Please let me know if any other information would be helpful, orif anyone has any suggestions for how better to handle private env info in my situation.
EDIT:
I tried the suggestions below, and created a separate endpoint internally, which hits the external API and then returns a response. I've strung things up correctly, so that this responds correctly:
router.get '/images', (req, res, next) ->
res.json({ some: 'json' });
but this (which uses a separate class to make a request to an external API), throws an error:
router.get '/images', (req, res, next) ->
new Images('nature').fetch (images) ->
res.json({ some: 'json' })
Essentially, it looks like the asynchrony of the response from the external API (and not even the data itself, which I ignored), is creating a problem. How do I hit this external endpoint and then respond to the internal request with the incoming data?

Back-end vs Front-end
It seems like you are trying to access back-end data from a front-end location, in a wrong way.
The great power of Node.js is having JavaScript in the front and in the back, but it is quite confusing in the beginning to understand on which side each script is executed.
In an Express project, all Javascript files that are sent to the front-end, those that will directly interact with the client's page, are located in public/javascripts/. Generally you will have some AJAX functions in some of those files to exchange data and communicate with the back-end.
These back-end files are located everywhere else : in the root directory, in routes/, and all the other folders you create. Those files are pretty much all connected to your Node instance, and therefore can communicate with each other using global objects like process for example.
Your script in public/javascripts/, that is executed on the client's computer, is trying to directly access a variable located on the server running your Node instance : that's why your code doesn't work. If you wish to access data from the back-end, you must use AJAX calls in the front-end.
Server <---(AJAX only)--- Client
------ ------
app.js public/javascripts/script.js
routes.js
...
That being said, you wanted to keep your API key private, which will not happen if you send it to every client who's on that specific page. What you should do is make the call from the back-end, using the xhr module for example, and then delivering the data to front-end, without the secret API key.
I hope I was clear, Node is quite confusing at first but very soon you will get over these little mistakes !

All .jsx is, is some code, what matters is where the code is being executed. process.env is a variable that is accessible inside the Node.js runtime. When your .jsx code gets transpiled down to .js and served to the browser, the process.env variable will no longer exist. If you're making an API call inside the browser, the API key will be fundamentally available to the client. If you want to secure the key, you have to have your Node.js server expose an API route, which your React app will hit. That Node.js server will then make the call to the external service using the API key. Because that call is being made by the server, process.env will be available, and will remain hidden from the client. You can then forward the result of the API call back to the user.

Singe Page Application External Configurations (Not On NodeJS)

I'm looking for either a reference or an answer to what I think is a very common problem that people who are current implementing JavaScript MVC frameworks (such as Angular, Ember or Backbone) would come across.
I am looking for a way or common pattern to externalize application properties that are accessible in the JS realm. Something that would allow the javascript to load server side properties such as endpoints, salts, etc. that are external to the application root. The issue that I'm coming across is that browsers do not typically have access to the file systems because it is a security concerns.
Therefore, what is the recommended approach for loading properties that are configurable outside of a deployable artifact if such a thing exists?
If not, what is currently being used or is in practice that is considered the recommended approach for this types of problem?
I am looking for a cross compatible answer (Google Chrome is awesome, I agree).

Data Driven Local Storage Pattern
Just came up with that!!
The idea is to load the configuration properties based on a naming over convention configuration where all properties are derived from the targeted hostname. That is, the hostname will derive a trusted endpoint and that endpoint will load the corresponding properties to the application. These application properties will contain information that is relative at runtime. The runtime information will be supplied to the integration parts which then communicate via property iteration on the bootstrapping start up.
To keep it simple, we'll just use two properties here:
This implementation is Ember JS specific but the general idea should be portable
I am currently narrowing the scope of this question to a specific technological perspective, that is Ember JS with the following remedy that is working properly for me and hope it will help any of you out there dealing with the same issue.
Ember.Application.initializer implementation in start up
initialize: function (container, application) {
var origin = window.location.origin;
var host = window.location.hostname;
var port = window.location.port;
var configurationEndPoint = '';
//local mode
if(host === 'localhost'){
//standalone using api stub on NODEJS
if(port === '8000'){
configurationEndPoint = '/api/local';
}//standalone UI app integrating with back end application on same machine, different port
else{
configurationEndPoint = '/services/env';
}
origin += configurationEndPoint;
}else{
throw Error('Unsupported Environment!!');
}
//load the configuration from a trusted resource and store it in local storage on start up
$.get(origin,
function( data ) {
//load all configurations as key value pairs and store in localStorage for access.
configuration = data.configuration;
for(var config in configuration){
debugger;
var objectProperty = localStorage + '.' + config.toString()
objectProperty = configuration[config];
}
}
);
}
Configurable Adapter
export default DS.RESTAdapter.extend({
host: localStorage.host,
namespace: localStorage.namespace
});

No later than yesterday morning i was tackling the same issue.
Basically, you have two options:
Use localStorage/indexedDB or any other client-side persistent storage. (But you have to put config there somehow).
Render your main template (the one that gets rendered always) with a hidden where you put config JSON.
Then in your app init code you get this config and use it. Plain and simple in theory, but lets get down to nasty practice (for second option).
First, client should get config before application loads. It is not easy sometimes. e.g. user should be logged in to see config. In my case i check if i can provide config on the first request, and if not redirect user to login page. This leads us to second limitation. Once you are ready to provide config, you have to reboot app completely so that configuration code run again (at least in Angular it is necessary, as you cannot access providers after the app bootstraps).
Another constraint, the second option is useless if you use static html and cannot change it somehow on server before sending to the client.
May be a better option would be to combine both variants. This should solve some problems for returning users, but first interaction will not be very pleasant anyway. I have not tried this yet.