Filmbase

Backend of an application for film enthusiasts.

Overview

The Filmbase web application was built using the tools of the Spring Framework and MySQL databases. It provides a RESTful API to make the creation of a potential front-end as easy as possible - any necessary data is stored as a JSON string.

Features

Within the app, anyone can find essential information about any film, actor or director they seek. Also, keeping a list of favourites, film wishlists and rating films, actors or directors is enabled for logged-in users. They may also update an object's information if necessary, as well as add new objects to the database.

The objects processed inside the app were divided into 3 categories:

• models - entities stored in the database, managed by JPA repositories
• DTOs - Data Transfer Objects - objects accessed and viewed by the actual user, passed as a JSON string
• requests - made to create/update objects in the database, to be handled by front-end forms

Technologies used

• Java SE 8 - lambda expressions, streams, LocalDate, etc.
• Spring Framework - Spring MVC, Spring Boot, Spring Data, basics of Spring Security, Spring Boot Test, Spring MVC Test
• JPA and Hibernate
• MySQL
• HTTP - to meet the demands of a RESTful API
• Lombok - for boilerplate reduction
• Google Gson - for testing purposes
• Faster XML Jackson - to parse LocalDate objects passed within JSON strings

Design patterns

• MVC - the backend provides the Model and Controller part separated by interfaces implementing CRUD methods used by the controllers to operate on model data (see below)
• DAO - interfaces with the @Repository annonation implementing the JpaRepository with Spring Data separate the Model and Controller parts of the applications
• Builder Pattern - to make the creation of objects easier, cleaner and to simplify adding more details to the Filmbase objects in the future

Software stack

• IntelliJ IDEA 2017.2.6
• Gradle 4.3.1
• Postman
• MySQL Workbench 6.3