Tutorial: Creating a model and a data source in the API Designer

Before you begin

Before you begin, you must install the developer toolkit on your local machine. For details, see Installing the toolkit.

You must also do the following:

1. Create a LoopBack project. For more information, see Creating new projects with API Designer.
2. Change directories to your LoopBack project and enter the following command:

   apic edit

   After a brief pause, the console displays this message:

   Express server listening on http://127.0.0.1:9000

   API Designer opens in your web browser, initially displaying the login page if you haven't logged in recently.

   Note: The login page prompts you to Sign in with IBM Cloud. Enter your IBM Cloud credentials, which authenticates you on IBM Cloud and provides access to the API Manager features such as Publish, Explore, and Analytics. You will continue to work in API Designer locally to create APIs, models and data sources.
   Note: If you need to run the editor on a different port, use the following command:

   

   PORT=port_number apic edit

   

   set PORT=port_number && apic edit

   where port_number is the port number to use.

The following diagram shows the sequential flow through the IBM API Connect Developer toolkit tutorials for working with LoopBack projects. Before beginning a tutorial, ensure that you have completed the previous tutorials in the sequence. You can click a tutorial in the diagram to open the instructions for that tutorial.

About this tutorial

Adding a data source

A LoopBack project requires at least one data source. To access the data source, the appropriate LoopBack connector must be installed. By default, an empty LoopBack project does not have any data sources defined. For now, you will add the in-memory data source, which is suitable for development and testing. Complete the following steps to add the data source to the project:

Adding a model

The next step is to add a model to the project. Models represent back-end data sources such as databases or other back-end services (for example, REST or SOAP). Every LoopBack application has a set of default models, which you can extend to suit your application's requirements. You can also define custom models. Models are stored in JSON format and determine properties and other characteristics of the API. For more information on models, see Defining models. Follow these steps to add a model to your LoopBack project:

1. Click .
2. Click Add. The New LoopBack Model window opens.
3. Enter branch in the Name text field, then click New.
   Note: You can use any alphanumeric characters, dashes, and underscores in a model name.
4. In the Data Source field, select bankDS.
5. In the Properties section, click the Add property icon .
6. In the Property Name text field, enter type.
7. For Type, select string.
8. Keep the default values for the other settings:
   • Required: Whether the property must have a value.
   • Is Array: Whether the property is a JavaScript array with elements of the specified type.
   • ID: Whether the property is a unique identifier. For more information on LoopBack ID properties, see LoopBack documentation.
   • Index: Whether the property represents a column (field) that is a database index.
   • Description: Text description of the property.
   For more information, see Model definition JSON file reference.
9. Click the Add property icon again to add another property.
10. In the Property Name text field, enter phone.
11. For Type, select string.
12. Select Required to make the property required. This means that it must have a value when you add or update a model instance.
13. Select ID to indicate that the property must be unique. Leave the other settings with their default values.
14. Click the Save icon to save your changes.
15. Click All Models to finish editing the model.

What you did in this tutorial

What to do next

Test your LoopBack project.