B4J Tutorial Pocketbase CRUD REST API & SSE with PostMan and then HttpUtils

Hi

CRUD Examples Attached

PocketBase is an open source backend consisting of embedded database (SQLite) with realtime subscriptions, built-in users management, convenient dashboard UI and simple REST-ish API.



It runs on Linux, Windows and Mac, You can get it here, https://pocketbase.io/

We will look at each offering using HTTPUtils, thus covering the REST API both with postman & b4x.

Here we go.

PS: Do not forget to start the server

 

[Mashiane]

Lesson 1: Creating a User for Email Authentication...

PocketBase has various auth providers. These are...

These can be set from its dashboard.

With PostMan, you can execute this call to create a user. Its a JSON Post request.

With B4x, I have created this simple example.

We have a class that will do some pocketbase things...

We initialize this:

pb.Initialize(Me, "http://127.0.0.1:8090/api")

We then add our user

Private Sub btnCreateUser_Click
    Dim u As Map = CreateMap()
    u.Put("email", txtEmail.text)
    u.Put("password", txtpassword.Text)
    u.Put("passwordConfirm", txtConfirmPassword.Text)
    Wait For(pb.CreateUser(u)) Complete (Result As Map)
    Dim pjson As String = pb.Map2JsonPretty(Result)
    txtOutput.Text = pjson
End Sub

This calls the internal function to the jPocketBase class...

'<code>
'Dim u As Map = CreateMap()
'u.Put("email", txtEmail.text)
'u.Put("password", txtpassword.Text)
'u.Put("passwordConfirm", txtConfirmPassword.Text)
'Wait For(pb.CreateUser(u)) Complete (Result As Map)
'Log(Result)
'</code>
Sub CreateUser(u As Map) As ResumableSub
    Dim out As Map = CreateMap()
    'convert map
    Dim qs As String = Map2QueryString(u)
    '
    Dim j As HttpJob
    j.Initialize("", mcallback)
    j.PostString($"${baseUrl}/users"$, qs)
    Wait For (j) JobDone(j As HttpJob)
    If j.Success Then
        out = Json2Map(j.GetString)
    Else 
        out = Json2Map(j.ErrorMessage)
    End If
    j.Release
    Return out
End Sub

In you dashboard, select the users button to see added users

 

[thinktank]

I ran pocketbase server using command line, it runs successfully

C:\Users\ABC\Desktop>pocketbase serve
> Server started at: http://127.0.0.1:8090
- REST API: http://127.0.0.1:8090/api/
- Admin UI: http://127.0.0.1:8090/_/

There is no problem in opening and using Admin UI. However, when I open the link: http://127.0.0.1:8090/api/, following error is generated

{"code":404,"message":"Not Found.","data":{}}

What I am doing wrong, please guide...

tia

 

[Mashiane]

Remember the rest api needs to be fed something, so you if you are just opening that via a browser/postman without parameters, it does nothing, thus that response.

Also http://127.0.0.1:8090/api/ is the base endpoint. As an example, create a collection for example, call it projects, add some fields to it.

After the collection is added, select

This will give you examples of the API calls you need to append to the base url. See get below.

At the bottom of each tab it gives you the parameters that you need to pass

In the example above for example

j.PostString($"${baseUrl}/users"$, qs)

I am using the base url and then giving it parameters via the map object I did. See also the postman example I did above.

In my example users is not a collection as its build internally to PocketBase.

 

[thinktank]

Hello brother,

I have problem while executing your B4J example code, with postman the post request works fine and record is created in collection, however, with B4J example it was giving me following errors:

{
    "code": 404,
    "data": {},
    "message": "Not Found."
}

Second error I faced was :

{
    "code": 400,
    "data": {},
    "message": "Failed to load the submitted data due to invalid formatting."
}

Which I fixed by changing your code in jPocketBase class -> CreateUser subroutine to following:

    Dim qs As String = Map2Json(u)
   
    Dim j As HttpJob
    j.Initialize("pb", Me)
 j.PostString($"${baseUrl}/collections/users/records"$, qs)
 j.GetRequest.SetContentType("application/json")

This might help someone else, btw I am using latest pocketbase version 8.

BR

 

[Mashiane]

btw I am using latest pocketbase version 8.

Thanks, I see my version is 0.7.7, let me update, thanks for the heads up.

If anyone was using 0.7x and have installed 8, here is the migration guide..

pocketbase/CHANGELOG.md at master · pocketbase/pocketbase

Open Source realtime backend in 1 file. Contribute to pocketbase/pocketbase development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

 

[Mashiane]

Upgrading to Version 0.8 : Breaking Changes

1. Stop pocketbase

In the command prompt... execute.

2. cp -r ./pb_data ./pb_data_backup

3. Download new version and then unzip and copy it to c:\pocketbase etc.

Release v0.8.0 Release · pocketbase/pocketbase

There are no breaking changes if you've already previously migrated to the v0.8.0-rc. PocketBase v0.8.x works only with JavaScript SDK v0.8+ and the Dart SDK v0.5+. If you are using PocketBase v0.7...

github.com

4. Execute ./pocketbase upgrade

5. Execute ./pocketbase serve

You should see... on bottom ight section of PB dashboard

 

[amorosik]

Upgrading to Version 0.8 : Breaking Changes

1. Stop pocketbase

In the command prompt... execute.

2. cp -r ./pb_data ./pb_data_backup

3. Download new version and then unzip and copy it to c:\pocketbase etc.

Release v0.8.0 Release · pocketbase/pocketbase

There are no breaking changes if you've already previously migrated to the v0.8.0-rc. PocketBase v0.8.x works only with JavaScript SDK v0.8+ and the Dart SDK v0.5+. If you are using PocketBase v0.7...

github.com

4. Execute ./pocketbase upgrade

5. Execute ./pocketbase serve

You should see... on bottom ight section of PB dashboard

View attachment 136577

Why 0.8 version ???
On web site is available the 0.9 version

 

[amorosik]

Oh no, now i see that is a 'working in progress' version

 

[Mashiane]

I think 0.9 is wip.

 

[Mashiane]

Oh no, now i see that is a 'working in progress' version

yep..

 

[Mashiane]

Updated example to new vesion

One can now include other fields on the user profiles. This is really awesome..

 

[Mashiane]

Nice, user authorization that gives you a JWT token..

 

[Mashiane]

One is able to update user details like password, emails and names...

As some functions depend on permissions, these need to be set on the dashboard.

 

[Mashiane]

Reading a collection by id...

 

[Mashiane]

Get all users in collection...

 

[Mashiane]

The attached example in the #1 post deals with all crud functionality that can be performed with postman.

One can adjust the class to suit their needs.

For now I leave this here.

Their documents are fairly easy to follow.

All the best!!

 

[Mashiane]

Flyio Hosting

Host for free on Fly.io · pocketbase/pocketbase · Discussion #537

This was requested several times in #498, #432, #328 and others. Note 1: There will be an official Docker image when PocketBase reach a more stable release Note 2: I didn't spend too much time expl...

github.com

Example

Regions - Fly.io

Find every Fly.io region code, see which regions have WireGuard gateways or host Managed Postgres, and check where your app runs with fly status.

fly.io

flyctl launch --dockerfile mashy.dockerfile --name sithasodaisy --region jnb

flyctl volumes create pb_data --size=1 --region jnb

 

[Mashiane]

PocketHost hosting

PocketHost

Get a PocketBase backend for your next app in under 10 seconds.

pockethost.io

 

[Mashiane]

Thanks to Erels example here, I've just managed to get this working.

Consuming http streams

Standard http communication is made of a request being sent from the client to the server and the server response sent back to the client. As I'm sure you know you should use OkHttpUtils2 for such requests. There are other protocols such as WebSockets that allow bi-directional and long lasting...

www.b4x.com

Source code on first post updated and now includes SSE.