Introduction

This blog is for Sails JS actions2 examples with crud and helper function, this includes how to use GET POST PUT DELETE with actions2. Example of exits and intercept is included.

you can check this blog for step by step explaination.

Steps

Install sails js globally

npm install sails -g

Create your app

sails new sails-1-actions-2-examples

and select type of project (i've choose to empty project) after that just fire 'sails lift' and browse localhost:1337 you can use nodemon for automatic restarting of application.

lets create simple crud example with action2

we will use sails generate (sails cli) commands to generate actions,models etc.

we should add model default attribute

open: /config/models.js file and inside attributes object just add this fields

attributes: {
   createdAt: { type: 'number', autoCreatedAt: true, },
   updatedAt: { type: 'number', autoUpdatedAt: true, },
   id: { type: 'number', autoIncrement: true, },
 },

now this fields will add automatically in every model we will also uncomment this (development use only) => migrate: 'alter', (this will alter our database if needed)

Create our first model with

=> sails generate model user now we will add attributes to our model (/api/models/User.js)

module.exports = {
  attributes: {
    firstName: {
      type: 'string',
      required: true,
    },
    lastName: {
      type: 'string',
      required: true,
    },
   email: {
      type: 'string',
      required: true,
      unique: true,
      isEmail: true,
    },
    password: {
      type: 'string',
      required: true,
      protect: true
    },
  }
}

now we will generate our first action for create user

=> sails generate action api/user/create this will generate file inside user folder: api/controllers/api/user/create.js

we also need declare route inside router.js (config/routes.js)

=> 'POST /api/v1/user/create': { action: 'api/user/create' },

adding validation with action2

instead of using regular res and req in sails v1 we will use inputs and exits inside inputs object just add following (this validation will return error itself if invalid data received).

inputs: {
    firstName: {
      type: 'string',
      required: true,
    },
    lastName: {
      type: 'string',
      required: true,
    },
    email: {
      required: true,
      unique: true,
      type: 'string',
      isEmail: true,
    },
    password: {
      required: true,
      type: 'string',
      maxLength: 15,
      minLength: 6,
    },
  },

you can also set custom exits (for ex. return invalid with status code 409)

exits: {
   invalid: {
     statusCode: 409,
     description: 'firstname, lastname, email and password is required.'
   },
},

Create

we will use waterline's create with our model name we can get parameters value with inputs (for ex.inputs.firstName);

fn: async function (inputs, exits) {
   var userRecord = await User.create({
       firstName: inputs.firstName,
       lastName: inputs.lastName,
       email: inputs.email,
       password: inputs.password,
     });

   if (!userRecord) {
     return exits.invalid({
       message: 'invalid'
     });
   }
   return exits.success({
     message: 'User has been created successfully.',
     data: userRecord
   });
 }
};

if userRecord created successfully we will return success message with user data.

tip: you can intercept response

if email id is not unique our model driver will return error with code 'E_UNIQUE' you can intercept and send your own message like this

.intercept('E_UNIQUE', (err) => {
        return exits.invalid({
          message: 'invalid',
          err: err
        });
      })
      .fetch();

---

I have created a POSTMAN for all api calls.

Here is our detailed blog regarding Update, View, Delete functions