The API for SCIENCE
The Macrostrat API provides diverse macrostratigraphic and geologic data in a concise, queryable format.
MariaDB, PostgreSQL, Nodejs, and the Macrostrat system are required. Redis is optional. When the API starts requests for all columns and all units are cached. If Redis is available it will be used, otherwise they are cached in the application memory.
The API requires node v14 or later to run. Recent testing has been conducted on node v18.
The following databases must be in place:
- MariaDB - macrostrat
- Postgres - burwell, alice, wof, elevation
First clone the repo:
git clone https://github.com/UW-Macrostrat/macrostrat-api.git
cd macrostrat-api
Next, install dependencies:
yarn install
NOTE: Postgres connections are completely broken in node v14 and v15 (as of 2021-03-16). Use node v12!
This will also run the script postinstall.sh which copies credentials files
into place.
Old config below. We now use env variables specifying which db and environment to connect to.
For credentials.ts fill in your MariaDB and PostgreSQL user information,
update the port for Redis if necessary, and follow the inline instructions for
generating a cache refresh key. The cache refresh key is used as a secret
parameter to programmatically refresh the column cache, such as in situations in
which the underlying data has been changed (editing, adding, etc).
To start the API simply run node server.js which will start a process on
port 5050. Note that the default port was changed from 5000 to 5050 to avoid a
port conflict introduced in recent versions of commonly used OSs. To use a
different port, you can specify it during startup as so: node server.js 5151.
For production use pm2 is recommended. To start as a single process:
pm2 start server.js --name macrostrat-api
or, to start in a load balanced mode with two processes:
pm2 start server.js --name macrostrat-api -i 2
For more information about managing processes with pm2 see the Macrostrat Wiki
The Macrostrat API caches three specific request responses:
- All columns with geometry (
/columns?all&format=geojson_bare) - All columns without geometry (
/columns?all) - The summary of all units used in the response of the above routes
To refresh this cache without restarting the API you can make an HTTP GET
request to /api/v2/columns/refresh-cache?cacheRefreshKey=<cacheRefreshKey>
where <cacheRefreshKey> refers to the valuable of the variable with the same
name found in ./credentials.js.
This is primarily used by scripts in the Macrostrat CLI to ensure that the API is reporting the most recent data after columns have been added, removed, or otherwise edited.
npm test
Each version of the API functions as a self-contained module, and therefore has
its own package.json and dependencies.
John J Czaplewski and Shanan E Peters
CC0 for all code unique to this API.