Bestflix API

A RESTful API for the Bestflix frontend with JWT authentication, Neon-backed profiles and favorites, and a movie catalog served from the existing export.

Features

• User authentication and authorization using JWT
• Movie catalog lookups for the frontend
• User profile management
• Favorite movies per user stored in Neon
• Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) enabled
• API documentation using JSDoc

Technologies

• Node.js
• Express.js
• PostgreSQL / Neon
• Passport.js (JWT)
• JSDoc for documentation

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

git clone <repository-usl>

2. Install dependencies:

npm install

3. Create a .env file with:

DATABASE_URL=your_neon_connection_string
JWT_SECRET=your_jwt_secret
FRONTEND_URL=https://your-bestflix-react-app.netlify.app

4. Start the server:

npm start

Current Project Status

• Active server files: neonServer.js, neonAuth.js, neonPassport.js, neonDatabase.js, middleware.js, index.js
• Archived legacy files: moved to _Archived/ to keep the repo tidy (these contain the previous MongoDB/Mongoose implementation): auth.js, database.js, models.js, passport.js, routes/movies.js, routes/users.js.

If you need to inspect the older MongoDB-based implementation, see the _Archived/ folder.

Regenerating Documentation

The docs/ folder contains JSDoc-generated HTML from an earlier version of the project. Some pages document archived files.

To regenerate up-to-date docs for the current codebase (requires jsdoc):

npm install
npm run docs

After running npm run docs, open docs/index.html in your browser to view the documentation.

Environment Variables (summary)

• DATABASE_URL — Neon/Postgres connection string used by neonDatabase.js
• JWT_SECRET — Secret for signing JWTs
• FRONTEND_URL — Allowed frontend origin for CORS
• Frontend apps should use REACT_APP_API_URL pointing to this API (e.g. http://localhost:3001)

API Endpoints

Movies

• GET /api/movies - Get all movies (requires authentication)
• GET /api/movies/:Title - Get movie by title
• GET /api/movies/Director/:Name - Get movie by director
• GET /api/movies/Genre/:Name - Get movie by genre

Auth

• POST /api/auth/signup - Register new user
• POST /api/auth/login - User login
• POST /api/auth/logout - User logout

Users

• GET /api/users - List users
• GET /api/users/:identifier - Get the signed-in user profile
• PUT /api/users/:identifier - Update user info
• DELETE /api/users/:identifier - Delete user profile

Favorites

• GET /api/favorites/:userId - List favorites for a user
• POST /api/favorites - Add a favorite movie
• DELETE /api/favorites - Remove a favorite movie

Scripts

• npm start - Start the server
• npm run dev - Start with nodemon
• npm run docs - Generate documentation

Dependencies

Production

• express - Web framework
• pg - PostgreSQL client for Neon
• passport - Authentication
• jsonwebtoken - JWT implementation
• bcrypt - Password hashing

Development

• nodemon - Development server
• jsdoc - Documentation generator

Contributing

1. Fork the repository
2. Create your feature branch
3. Commit your changes
4. Push to the branch
5. Create a Pull Request

License

MIT License