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@loopback/example-lb3-application

This example demonstrates how to mount your existing LoopBack 3 (LB3) application on a new LoopBack 4 (LB4) project and how to move the middleware from the LB3 application to a common location so that both the LB3 and LB4 applications can use them.

Mounting LB3 app on LB4 app

  1. Create a new LoopBack 4 project using lb4 app.

    $ lb4 app

    Fill out the prompts as they fit your project and leave all features enabled.

  2. Create a new directory lb3app from the root of your LoopBack 4 application and copy your existing LoopBack 3 application there. You should end up with the following directory layout:

    lb3app/
  # LoopBack 3 application in JavaScript
  common/
    models/
      # LB3 model files
  server/
    boot/
      # LB3 boot scripts
public/
  # front-end assets (LB4 way)
src/
  # LoopBack 4 application in TypeScript

  3. Move LB3 dependencies to the main package.json file and remove lb3app/package.json, lb3app/node_modules/, andlb3app/package-lock.json, if it exists. Typically you will need to add the following entries, plus any connectors or components you are using in your LB3 application.

    {
  "compression": "^1.7.4",
  "cors": "^2.8.5",
  "helmet": "^3.16.0",
  "loopback": "^3.25.1",
  "loopback-boot": "^3.3.0"
}

    Note: make sure to use loopback-boot@3.2.1 or higher.

    Run npm install from the root of your LB4 project to install the LB3 dependencies.

  4. Disable error handling in your LB3 app, leave it for the new LB4 app.

    • Remove lb3app/server/middleware.development.json
    • Edit lb3app/server/middleware.json and remove the following two entries:
      • final » loopback#urlNotFound
      • final:after » strong-error-handler
    • Remove strong-error-handler from package.json dependencies.
    • In lb3app/server/config.json, if "handleErrors": false is in remoting, move it to rest.

  5. Move your front-end files from lb3app/client to public/ directory and disable static assets in your LB3 app by removing the following entry in lb3app/server/middleware.json:

    • files » loopback#static

    Also remove lb3app/server/boot/root.js, since the main page will be served by the LoopBack 4 project.

  6. Remove lb3app/server/component-config.json to disable LoopBack 3’s explorer. The LoopBack 4 explorer will be used instead.

  7. Install and configure @loopback/booter-lb3app to boot and mount the LB3 application:

    1. npm install --save @loopback/booter-lb3app

    2. Import the component at the top of your src/application.ts file.

      import {Lb3AppBooterComponent} from '@loopback/booter-lb3app';

    3. Register the component in Application’s constructor:

      this.component(Lb3AppBooterComponent);

Start the new LB4 application

$ npm start
Server is running at http://127.0.0.1:3000

Open the URL printed to console to view your front-end served from public directory or go to http://127.0.0.1:3000/explorer to explore the REST API.

The LB3 application is now successfully mounted on a LB4 application, but we can further optimize the setup so that only the bare necessary artifacts from the LoopBack 3 application remain. This includes moving almost all of the middleware to a common location so that they are shared by both the LoopBack 3 and the LoopBack 4 apps.

Migrating Express middleware from LB3 app

  1. Update config.json

    First off, edit the LB3 app’s config.json file.

    Remove these properties, as they are not required anymore:

    "host": "0.0.0.0",
"port": 3000,

    Change restApiRoot to / or any path where you would like the LB3 app to be mounted; that’s relative to the LB4 app’s REST API path, which defaults to /api.

    And then add "handleUnknownPaths": false to the rest property, this will prevent the LB3 REST api from sending a 404 response for requests it cannot handle.

    The config.json file should now look like this:

    {
  "restApiRoot": "/",
  "remoting": {
    "context": false,
    "rest": {
      "handleErrors": false,
      "handleUnknownPaths": false,
      "normalizeHttpPath": false,
      "xml": false
    },
    "json": {
      "strict": false,
      "limit": "100kb"
    },
    "urlencoded": {
      "extended": true,
      "limit": "100kb"
    },
    "cors": false
  }
}

  2. Configure the base Express app

    We will be using a base Express app (src/server.ts) for mounting the LB4 app as described in “Creating an Express Application with LoopBack REST API” guide.

    Migrate the LB3 app’s middleware from its middleware.json file to this Express app, except the one from the routes phase (there is a pending task to complete the support for this middleware).

    Each root property in the middleware.json object represents a middleware phase, extract the relevant middleware and load them in the Express app in order.

    An entry like "compression": {} translates to compression(), and loopback#favicon translates to loopback.favicon() in TypeScript. For more details about middleware.json, refer to its documentation.

    The middleware.json file should look like this now:

    {
 "routes": {
   "loopback#rest": {
     "paths": [
       "${restApiRoot}"
     ]
   }
 }
}

    The middleware mounted in the Express app will be shared by both LB3 and LB4 apps.

    Move any static files from the LB3 app to the public directory of the Express app. Move any non-REST routes defined anywhere in the LB3 app to the Express app.

    This is what the src/server.ts file will look like:

    import {ApplicationConfig} from '@loopback/core';
import {once} from 'events';
import express, {Request, Response} from 'express';
import * as http from 'http';
import {AddressInfo} from 'net';
import * as path from 'path';
// Replace CoffeeShopApplication with the name of your application
import {CoffeeShopApplication} from './application';

const loopback = require('loopback');
const compression = require('compression');
const cors = require('cors');
const helmet = require('helmet');

export class ExpressServer {
  private app: express.Application;
  public readonly lbApp: CoffeeShopApplication;
  public server?: http.Server;
  public url: String;

  constructor(options: ApplicationConfig = {}) {
    this.app = express();
    this.lbApp = new CoffeeShopApplication(options);

    // Middleware migrated from LoopBack 3
    this.app.use(loopback.favicon());
    this.app.use(compression());
    this.app.use(cors());
    this.app.use(helmet());

    // Mount the LB4 REST API
    this.app.use('/api', this.lbApp.requestHandler);

    // Custom Express routes
    this.app.get('/ping', function (_req: Request, res: Response) {
      res.send('pong');
    });

    // Serve static files in the public folder
    this.app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, '../public')));
  }

  public async boot() {
    await this.lbApp.boot();
  }

  public async start() {
    await this.lbApp.start();
    const port = this.lbApp.restServer.config.port || 3000;
    const host = this.lbApp.restServer.config.host || '127.0.0.1';
    this.server = this.app.listen(port, host);
    await once(this.server, 'listening');
    const add = <AddressInfo>this.server.address();
    this.url = `http://${add.address}:${add.port}`;
  }

  public async stop() {
    if (!this.server) return;
    await this.lbApp.stop();
    this.server.close();
    await once(this.server, 'close');
    this.server = undefined;
  }
}

  3. Update src/index.ts

    The Express app will replace the CoffeeShopApplication as the entry point for the program, modify the src/index.ts file accordingly.

    import {ApplicationConfig} from '@loopback/core';
import {ExpressServer} from './server';

export {ApplicationConfig, ExpressServer};

export async function main(options: ApplicationConfig = {}) {
  const server = new ExpressServer(options);
  await server.boot();
  await server.start();
  console.log(`Server is running at ${server.url}`);
}

  4. Next, modify the application config in src/index.ts file to prevent the LB4 app from listening, by adding listenOnStart: false in config.rest object. The config object should now look like this:

    const config = {
  rest: {
    port: +(process.env.PORT ?? 3000),
    host: process.env.HOST ?? 'localhost',
    openApiSpec: {
      // useful when used with OpenAPI-to-GraphQL to locate your application
      setServersFromRequest: true,
    },
    listenOnStart: false,
  },
};

    Then, in the bootOptions of the CoffeeShopApplication class, add the lb3app to configure the path of the LB3 APIs.

    lb3app: {
  mode: 'fullApp';
}

    this.bootOptions should now look like this:

    this.bootOptions = {
  controllers: {
    // Customize ControllerBooter Conventions here
    dirs: ['controllers'],
    extensions: ['.controller.js'],
    nested: true,
  },
  lb3app: {
    mode: 'fullApp',
  },
};

Start the app:

$ npm start

Load http://localhost:3000/ on your browser. This will load the Express app, with mounted LB3 and LB4 applications.

Running LB3 tests from LB4

You can run tests in an LoopBack 3 application from the LoopBack 4 application it mounted on with command npm test.

We want the LoopBack 3 tests to use the LoopBack 4 server rather than the LoopBack 3 application. The following guide shows how to run

  • acceptance-level tests making HTTP calls to invoke application logic. e.g. POST /users/login
  • integration-level tests that are using JS API to call application logic. e.g. MyModel.create()

Adding LB3 Test Path in Command

In order to run LoopBack 3’s tests from their current folder, add LB3 tests’ path to test entry in package.json:

  • "test": "lb-mocha \"dist/**tests**/*_/_.js\" \"lb3app/test/*.js\""

In this case, the test folder is /lb3app/test from the root of the LoopBack 4 project.

This will run LoopBack 4 tests first then LoopBack 3 tests.

To emphasize the setup steps and separate them from the test case details, all the comprehensive test code are extracted into function runTests.

Running Acceptance Tests

First, move any LoopBack 3 test dependencies to package.json’s devDependencies and run:

npm install

In your test file:

  1. When launch the Express server

  • 1.1 Update to use the Express server when doing requests:

    // can use lb4's testlab's supertest as the dependency is already installed
const {supertest} = require('@loopback/testlab');
const assert = require('assert');
const should = require('should');
const {ExpressServer} = require('../../dist/server');

let app;

function jsonForExpressApp(verb, url) {
  // use the express server, it mounts LoopBack 3 apis to
  // base path '/api'
  return supertest(app.server)
    [verb]('/api' + url)
    .set('Content-Type', 'application/json')
    .set('Accept', 'application/json')
    .expect('Content-Type', /json/);
}

  • 1.2 Boot and start the Express app in your before hook, and stop the app in the after hook:

    describe('LoopBack 3 style tests - Launch Express server', function () {
  before(async function () {
    app = new ExpressServer();
    await app.boot();
    await app.start();
  });

  after(async () => {
    await app.stop();
  });

  // your tests here
  runTests();
});
  1. When launch the LoopBack 4 application

  • 2.1 Update to use the LoopBack 4 server when doing requests:

    // can use lb4's testlab's supertest as the dependency is already installed
const {supertest} = require('@loopback/testlab');
const assert = require('assert');
const should = require('should');
const {CoffeeShopApplication} = require('../../dist/application');

let app;

function jsonForLB4(verb, url) {
  // use the lb4 app's rest server
  return supertest(app.restServer.url)
    [verb](url)
    .set('Content-Type', 'application/json')
    .set('Accept', 'application/json')
    .expect('Content-Type', /json/);
}

  • 2.2 Boot and start the LoopBack 4 app in your before hook, and stop the app in the after hook:

    describe('LoopBack 3 style tests - launch LB4 app', function () {
  before(async function () {
    app = new CoffeeShopApplication();
    await app.boot();
    await app.start();
  });

  after(async () => {
    await app.stop();
  });

  // your tests here
  runTests();
});

Example of this use can be seen in test/acceptance.js which has the same tests as src/__tests__/acceptance/lb3app.acceptance.ts, but in LB3 style. And test/authentication.js

Now when you run npm test your LoopBack 3 tests should be run along with any LoopBack 4 tests you have.

Optional: Another option is to migrate your tests to use LoopBack 4 style of testing, similar to src/__tests__/acceptance/lb3app.acceptance.ts. Documentation for LoopBack testing can be found in https://loopback.io/doc/en/lb4/Testing-your-application.html.

Running Integration Tests

For the integration tests, LoopBack 3 models were bound to the LoopBack 4 application in order to allow JavaScript API to call application logic such as Model.create(). This can be seen in packages/booter-lb3app/src/lb3app.booter.ts.

In order to retrieve the model from the application’s context, get() can be used as follows:

describe('LoopBack 3 style integration tests', function () {
  let app;
  let CoffeeShop;

  before(async function () {
    // If launch the LoopBack 4 application
    // app = new CoffeeShopApplication();
    app = new ExpressServer();
    await app.boot();
    await app.start();
  });

  before(() => {
    // follow the syntax: lb3-models.{ModelName}
    // If launch the LoopBack 4 application
    // CoffeeShop = await app.get('lb3-models.CoffeeShop');
    CoffeeShop = await app.lbApp.get('lb3-models.CoffeeShop');
  });

  after(async () => {
    await app.stop();
  });

  // your tests here
  runTests();
});

The syntax for LB3 model’s binding key is lb3-models.{model name}.

Additionally, LB3 datasources are also bound to the LB4 application’s context and can be retrieved with a key in the syntax lb3-datasources.{ds name}.

Example integration tests can be found in examples/lb3-application/lb3app/test/integration.js.

Example authentication tests can be found in examples/lb3-application/lb3app/test/authentication.js.

Need help?

Check out our Slack and ask for help with this tutorial.

Bugs/Feedback

Open an issue in loopback-next and we’ll take a look.

Contributions

Tests

Run npm test from the root folder.

Contributors

See all contributors.

License

MIT