project: Node & File IO

Story points 3
Tags Node FileIO
Hard Prerequisites
IMPORTANT: Please review these prerequisites, they include important information that will help you with this content.
  • TOPICS: Node

    • You are required to create a backend service that will help capture basic information about prospective students who come to inquire here at Umuzi. In this project, you’ll just be storing and retrieving information from plain old JSON files.

    Instructions

    1. Create a class called Visitor. Instances of this class should have the following properties:
    • full name
    • age
    • date of visit
    • time of visit
    • comments
    • the name of the person who assisted the visitor
    1. Create a function called save that saves the visitor’s data to a JSON file. The file name should be named like this visitor_{their_full_name}.json.
    alice.save()   # results in visitor_alice_cooper.json
bob.save()     # results in visitor_bob_marley.json
charlie.save() # results in visitor_charley_sheen.json

    Notice that the full name used in the file is all lower-case and spaces are replaced by underscores.

    1. Create a function called load that takes in a name and then grabs a Visitor object from a file. It should simply console.log the visitor.

    eg:

    load("Alice Cooper")
// prints out all of Alice's goodies


load("Bob Marley")
// Same deal for good ol Bob

    Resources

    Up for a challenge?

    Here are some upgrades you can add to your project if you are up for it.

    1. Update your load function so that it returns an instance of Visitor instead of just console.log. You’ll need to learn a little bit about Synchronous versus Asynchronous code to get this one right :)

    2. Make use of integer ids when saving things to files.

    Update your save function so it works like this:

    alice.save()   # results in visitor_1.json
bob.save()     # results in visitor_2.json
charlie.save() # results in visitor_3.json

alice.comments = "Kinda weird, I don't think he'll fit in"
alice.save()   # results in an UPDATE to visitor_1.json
    • Do not overwrite existing .json files when save() is called on a different instance.

    Your load function should also get a bit of an update.

    charlie = load(3)
charlie.comments = "Winning!"
charlie.save() # results in an UPDATE to visitor_3.json

    Instructions for a reviewer

    • The load function can either log or return the visitor. Either is fine.
    • Edge cases should be catered for. The learner should make sure that the load function takes in the proper data type.
    • The learner should use mocks and spies when testing this project since the project requires interacting with the file system.
    • Please pay careful attention to DRY code. A common problem is that learners write the same logic multiple times.

    Imagine that the code produced by the learner needs to be maintained, imagine that some parts of the code will have to change over time. Ideally, changes to the code should be made just once, and that change should affect everything else without going through the file(s) looking to change the same thing.

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