Dinoloop is an ExpressJs library, completely written in Typescript project designed to build REST APIs. Dinoloop adds syntactic sugar to expressjs enabling C#/Java programmers to easily switch to Nodejs with zero or less learning curve. You can reuse OOP, SOLID principles, Controllers, Services, Well-Proven OOP Design Patterns in Nodejs while developing REST APIs using Dinoloop.

As a contributor, we would definitely request you to give it a try (May be your personal or mini sized projects). The way expressjs does not abstract you from node, Dinoloop does not abstract you from expressjs. You are free to use/mix node, express and dinoloop in your development. Indeed 99% of code you write would be purely node, typescript and express. Dinoloop is a library at server-side (like Reactjs, we love what Reactjs does at client-side). You can either develop entire application in Dinoloop or part of it or gradually migrate expressjs to Dinoloop. The first principle of Dinoloop is to provide architecture shift to developers and not to create a complete huge framework because we do not want our developers to run into issues because of dinoloop, we love and support pluggable architecture.

We love Typescript and it provides great tooling to develop enterprise applications. Angular promotes typescript and now it is hard to imagine npm packages without types. If you are a lover of angular (like us), we highly suggest you to use Dinoloop to maintain single Typescript codebase for MEAN application.

• node 8.10.x or higher
• express 4.x.x or higher

npm install dinoloop

Without Dependency Injection framework

git clone https://github.com/ParallelTask/dinoloop-starter.git
cd dinoloop-starter
npm install
npm start

With Dependency Injection framework

git clone https://github.com/ParallelTask/dinoloop-inversify-starter.git
cd dinoloop-inversify-starter
npm install
npm start

Navigate to http:localhost:8088/api/home/get in browser

Dinoloop has been designed from the start for gradual adoption, and you can use as little or as much dinoloop as you need. Perhaps you only want to develop some "REST APIs" using dinoloop and other REST APIs can be developed using expressjs. In this section, we will show how to create dinoloop REST API to an existing or newly created express app.

import { ApiController, Controller, HttpGet } from 'dinoloop';

@Controller('/home')
export class HomeController extends ApiController {

    @HttpGet('/get')
    get(): string {
        return 'Hello World!';
    }
}

const app = express();
app.use(bodyParser.json());

// Dino requires express instance and base-uri to which dino will be mounted
const dino = new Dino(app, '/api');

// Dino requires express router too
dino.useRouter(() => express.Router());

// Register controller
dino.registerController(HomeController);

// Bind dino to express
dino.bind();

// These are your normal express endpoints
app.get('/home', (req, res, next) => {
 res.status(200).json('Hello World!');
});

app.get('/about', (req, res, next) => {
 res.status(200).json('Hello World!');
});

// Start your express app
app.listen(8088, () => console.log('Server started on port 8088'));

Dinoloop is mounted on /api and all of its controller routes/endpoints which are registered with dinoloop are also mounted on /api. Dinoloop will handle those requests which are mounted on /api i.e. /api/home/get, the other end points /home and /about which are created by expressjs are not handled by dinoloop, this way you can slowly migrate your existing express app to dinoloop or you can start writing your new REST APIs using dinoloop in combination with expressjs.

• Super easy set-up, git clone your taste of starter project and start building right away. We want our developers to have freedom whether to use DI or not. You can develop API without using DI framework.

  • Without DI framework dinoloop-starter-without-DI
  • With DI framework dinoloop-starter-with-DI

• Supports express middlewares, completely express compatible.

• Heavily influenced by MVC pattern.

• Configurable Dependency injection support. You can choose your favorite DI framework InversifyJs, peppermint-di and more to work with.

• Proper isolation of controllers and services.

• Middlewares, ActionFilters, ExceptionFilters, ResultFilters at controller level.

• Robust Sync/Async middlewares to handle es6 async-await pattern.

• UserIdentity principal across request.

• Visit the Wiki

Dinoloop lets user to freely upgrade/downgrade expressjs. Installing dinoloop won't install express. You can install your own version of express. All you have to provide is express app, express router instance to dinoloop.

Typescript (Javascript now) supports object oriented programming, these features are great with SOLID design principles. Dinoloop has simple motto, to apply SOLID principles and reuse similar coding skills of Java and C# in Nodejs. We are not trying to make every Nodejs developer as OOP programmer, we are providing the same architecture for the java/c# and mostly OOP minded programmers. We love javascript the way it is <3

Want to file a bug, contribute some code, or improve documentation? Excellent! Read up on our CONTRIBUTING.md

Join the dinoloop general discussion on Gitter.

Send your queries/questions on Gitter.

• Middlewares at action level.
• @ModelBinder on action level for auto binding model from http-request body.

We have a feedback from our community to have an official documentaion with more examples. We are excited to share you that soon we are going to launch an official website for dinoloop. It would be released pretty soon!. Thanks for all your support.