Questions and Answers API

This API provides endpoints to manage questions and answers, allowing users to create, retrieve, update, and delete questions, as well as interact with answers by upvoting or downvoting.

Technologies Used

This backend project is built using Node.js and Express for robust server-side JavaScript development. Here's why these technologies were chosen:

• Node.js: Chosen for its asynchronous and event-driven architecture, ideal for handling multiple concurrent requests efficiently.
• Express: Selected for its minimalistic yet powerful framework that simplifies routing, middleware management, and handling HTTP requests.
• PostgreSQL: Used as the relational database to store questions, answers, and user data, ensuring data integrity and scalability.
• Rate Limiting Middleware: Custom rate limiting middleware is implemented to mitigate abuse and ensure fair usage of the API.
• JWT Authorization: Implemented for securing endpoints, ensuring that only authenticated users can access certain routes.
• Swagger: Integrated for API documentation, providing clear and interactive documentation for developers consuming the API.

Table of content:

• Endpoints
  • Get all questions
  • Create a new question
  • Create an answer for a question
  • Upvote a question
  • Downvote a question
  • Get a question by ID
  • Update a question by ID
  • Delete a question by ID
  • Upvote an answer
  • Downvote an answer
  • Get answer by ID
  • Update answer by ID
  • Delete answer by ID
• Schemas
  • Question Schema
  • Answer Schema
• Installation
• Usage

Endpoints

Get All Questions

• GET /questions

  Retrieve a list of all questions.

  Parameters:

  • title: (optional) Title to filter questions
  • category: (optional) Category to filter questions

  Responses:

  • 200 OK: A list of questions
  • 404 Not Found: Questions not found
  • 500 Internal Server Error: Server error

Create a new question

• POST /questions

  Create a new question.

  Request Body:

{
  "title": "Example Question",
  "description": "This is an example question.",
  "category": "Example Category"
}

Responses:

• 201 Created: Question created successfully

• 500 Internal Server Error: Server error

Create an answer for a question

• POST /questions/{id}/answers

  Create an answer for a specific question identified by ID.

  Path Parameter:

  • id: ID of the question to which the answer belongs

  Request Body:

{
  "content": "This is an example answer."
}

Responses:

• 201 Created: Answer created successfully
• 400 Bad Request: Missing or invalid request data
• 404 Not Found: Question not found
• 500 Internal Server Error: Server error

Upvote a question

• POST /questions/{id}/upvote

  Upvote a specific question identified by ID.

  Path Parameter:

  • id: ID of the question to upvote

  Responses:

• 200 OK: Successfully upvoted the question

• 404 Not Found: Question not found

• 500 Internal Server Error: Server error

Downvote a question

• POST /questions/{id}/downvote

  Downvote a specific question identified by ID.

  Path Parameter:

  • id: ID of the question to downvote

  Responses:

• 200 OK: Successfully downvoted the question

• 404 Not Found: Question not found

• 500 Internal Server Error: Server error

Get a question by ID

• GET /questions/{id}

  Retrieve a question by its ID.

  Path Parameter:

  • id: ID of the question to retrieve

  Responses:

• 200 OK: A single question

• 404 Not Found: Question not found

• 500 Internal Server Error: Server error

Update a question by ID

• PUT /questions/{id}

  Update a question by its ID.

  Path Parameter:

  • id: ID of the question to update Request Body:

{
  "title": "Updated Question Title",
  "description": "Updated question description.",
  "category": "Updated Category"
}

Responses:

• 200 OK: Question updated successfully
• 404 Not Found: Question not found
• 500 Internal Server Error: Server error

Delete a question by ID

• DELETE /questions/{id}

  Delete a question by its ID.

  Path Parameter:

  • id: ID of the question to delete

  Responses:

• 200 OK: Question deleted successfully

• 404 Not Found: Question not found

• 500 Internal Server Error: Server error

Upvote an answer

• POST /answers/{id}/upvote

  Upvote a specific answer identified by ID.

  Path Parameter:

  • id: ID of the answer to upvote

  Responses:

• 200 OK: Successfully upvoted the answer

• 404 Not Found: Answer not found

• 500 Internal Server Error: Server error

Downvote an answer

• POST /answers/{id}/downvote

  Downvote a specific answer identified by ID.

  Path Parameter:

  • id: ID of the answer to downvote

  Responses:

• 200 OK: Successfully downvoted the answer

• 404 Not Found: Answer not found

• 500 Internal Server Error: Server error

Get answer by ID

• GET /answers/{id}

  Retrieve an answer by its ID.

  Path Parameter:

  • id: ID of the answer to retrieve

  Responses:

• 200 OK: Successfully retrieved the answer

• 404 Not Found: Answer not found

• 500 Internal Server Error: Server error

Update answer by ID

• PUT /answers/{id}

  Update an answer by its ID.

  Path Parameter:

  • id: ID of the answer to update

  Request Body:

{
  "content": "This is an example answer."
}

Responses:

• 200 OK: Answer updated successfully
• 404 Not Found: Answer not found
• 500 Internal Server Error: Server error

Delete answer by ID

• DELETE /answers/{id}

  Delete an answer by its ID.

  Path Parameter:

  • id: ID of the answer to delete

  Responses:

• 200 OK: Answer deleted successfully

• 404 Not Found: Answer not found

• 500 Internal Server Error: Server error

Schemas

Question Schema

Question

{
  "id": "string",
  "title": "string",
  "description": "string",
  "category": "string",
  "created_at": "string (date-time)",
  "updated_at": "string (date-time)"
}

QuestionCreateUpdate

{
  "title": "string",
  "description": "string",
  "category": "string"
}

QuestionWithUpvoteDownvote

{
  "id": "string",
  "title": "string",
  "description": "string",
  "category": "string",
  "created_at": "string (date-time)",
  "updated_at": "string (date-time)",
  "upvotes": "integer",
  "downvotes": "integer"
}

Answer Schema

Answer

{
  "id": "string",
  "question_id": "string",
  "content": "string",
  "created_at": "string (date-time)",
  "updated_at": "string (date-time)"
}

AnswerCreateUpdate

{
  "content": "string"
}

AnswerWithUpvoteDownvote

{
  "id": "string",
  "question_id": "string",
  "content": "string",
  "created_at": "string (date-time)",
  "updated_at": "string (date-time)",
  "upvotes": "integer",
  "downvotes": "integer"
}

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

git clone <repository-url>
cd <repository-directory>

2. Install dependencies:

npm install

3. Set up your environment variables as required (database connection, etc.).
4. Start the server:

npm start

Usage

Ensure the server is running after installation. Use a tool like Postman, Swagger or curl to interact with the API endpoints as documented.