NodeJS: Restaurant Search and Menu Handling

A food delivery platform requires an API to enable users to search for restaurants based on filters like cuisine, location, rating, and availability. Additionally, the platform needs functionality to add new menu items to restaurants, ensuring all fields are validated before being added to maintain data integrity. This API aims to streamline restaurant searches and menu management while safeguarding data consistency.

Context

We have read-only restaurant data in data/restaurants.json, where each object contains details about individual restaurants, including metadata and a list of menu items.

API Expectations:

1. Get Restaurants by Filter

Endpoint: GET /restaurants

Query Parameters:

Parameter	Description	Case Sensitivity
cuisine	Filter by cuisine type (e.g., Indian, Chinese, Italian)	Case Insensitive
location	Filter by location (e.g., New York, San Francisco)	Case Insensitive
rating	Minimum rating (e.g., 3.5 returns restaurants with ≥ 3.5)	Case Insensitive
available	Whether the restaurant is currently available (true or false)	Case Insensitive

Notes:

• All filters are optional. If no query parameters are provided, all restaurants are returned.
• Multiple filters can be used in combination.
• All API responses are in JSON format.

Response:

• Status Code: 200
• Format:

  [
     {
        "id": "1",
        "name": "Tasty Bites",
        "location": "Downtown",
        "cuisine": ["Indian", "Chinese"],
        "rating": 4.5,
        "availability": true,
        "menu": [
           {
              "itemId": "201",
              "name": "Butter Chicken",
              "price": 12.99,
              "category": "Main Course",
              "availability": true
           },
           {
              "itemId": "202",
              "name": "Fried Rice",
              "price": 8.99,
              "category": "Main Course",
              "availability": true
           }
        ]
     }
  ]

---

2. Add New Menu Item to Restaurant

Endpoint: POST /menu/:restaurantId

Sample Request Body:

{
  "itemId": "901",
  "name": "Grilled Sandwich",
  "price": 6.99,
  "category": "Snacks",
  "availability": true
}

Middleware:

middleware/validateMenu.js - Responsible for validating all input fields before processing the request.

Validation Rules:

Status Code	Message	Cause
201	Menu item added successfully	Menu item is added successfully
404	Restaurant with ID ${restaurantId} not found.	No restaurant exists with the given ID
400	Item ID is required.	itemId is missing
400	Field name is required.	name is missing
400	Price must be a valid number greater than 0.	Price is ≤ 0
400	Price is required.	price is missing
400	Category is required.	category is missing
400	Availability should be boolean.	Availability is not true or false
400	Availability is required.	availability is missing

Response:

On Success:

{
   "message": "Menu item added successfully",
   "menu": [
      ... (existing menu items),
      {
         "itemId": "901",
         "name": "Grilled Sandwich",
         "price": 6.99,
         "category": "Snacks",
         "availability": true
      }
   ]
}

On Failure:

{
  "errors": [
    {
      "field": "price",
      "message": "Price must be a valid number greater than 0."
    },
    {
      "field": "availability",
      "message": "Availability should be boolean."
    }
  ]
}

Data Handling

• Input Data: data/restaurants.json (read-only file).
• Output Data: Upon a successful POST request, a new file data/updated_restaurants.json is created to store the latest restaurant and menu data.
• Note: The original restaurants.json file remains unmodified.

Commands

• run:

npm start

• install:

npm install

• test:

npm run test:task1