It's part lamb. It's part dog. It's Lambdog.

Ok, so what IS Lambdog? Lambdog is a set of packages (one for the client, and one for the server) that makes it easy to call and write Lambda functions for AWS. You can use either one independently, or use them together.

⚡️ New in v0.3.0... ROUTES! ⚡️

@lambdog/server

@lambdog/server consists of a higher order function that you can use to wrap your plain JavaScript function that will do all of the work to turn it into an AWS Lambda function. You concentrate on your code, let Lambdog do the rest.

Let's look at a quick example. Say you have a "Hello World" function that you would like to run on the server. It should be as simple as this.

const hello = ({ name = 'World' }) => `Hello, ${name}!`;

I say "should" because that's not all you have to do. To make it a Lambda function, there are a few more things you need to do.

First, you must create an object with a statusCode property set to 200 (OK). Next, you take the results from calling hello and assign that to the body property, but first, you must JSON.stringify it. Then you call the callback function with the results.

Whew! That'a a lot of "plumbing" for a simple "Hello World" function. And you can barely even see your core function. Whatever happened to the design principle talking about the separation of concerns? And exactly what is queryStringParameters anyway? ¯\(ツ)/¯

export function handler(event, context, callback) {
  callback(null, {
    statusCode: 200,
    body: JSON.stringify(
      `Hello, ${event.queryStringParameters.name || 'World'}!`
    ),
  });
}

Enter Lambdog

With Lambdog, we can take our simple hello function from above, wrap it and export it. The plumbing is hidden away. You don't have to concern yourself with HTTP, status codes, headers, or caching.

import { withJSONHandler } from '@lambdog/server';

const hello = ({ name = 'World' }) => `Hello, ${name}!`;

export const handler = withJSONHandler(hello);

You would call this from your client by doing a GET to /hello?name=Joe.

Other benefits

Oh, and there are a few other benefits that you get out of the box—for free.

• Your return value is automatically JSON.stringify'ed and added to body.

• Automatic etag/if-none-match generation/matching to return a 304 status code means fewer bits pass over the wire.

• If your function is "pure" (i.e. has no side effects), there is an optional setting that allows you to set "max-age" caching.

• Automatic try/catch to produce 400 server errors.

• Support for props based on query parameters, URL pattern matching (i.e. /.netlify/functions/hello/:name), or POST/PUT data.

Installation

$ npm i @lambdog/server

or

$ yarn add @lambdog/server

Usage

Here is a basic setup.

import { withJSONHandler } from '@lambdog/server';

export const handler = withJSONHandler(function, config);

Parameters

Here are the parameters that you can use.

Parameter	Description
function or routes table	The function to wrap. See below for passed parameters.
config	An optional configuration object.

Return

withJSONHandler returns a function that can be exported as handler.

Configuration object

The configuration object has the following options.

Parameter	Description
pathToProps	A string used for URL pattern matching. For example, if you want the URL /.netlify/functions/hello/World to call your hello function and pass "World" as the name prop, set pathToProps to ":name". This value ignored if using a route table.
errorCallback	A callback function that you can use to format an error.
maxAge	The max-age that the client can cache the response. Set to -1 (default) if you don't want the response cached.

Your function

Parameters

Your function will be called with two arguments. The first is a consolidated props object. It is built from POST data, URL pattern matching (i.e. :name), and query parameters, in that order.

Note: POST data will only be decoded if the Content-Type header is application/json (for JSON encoded) or application/x-www-form-urlencoded (for URL encoded).

The second argument is your "escape hatch" in case your function needs to know more about how it was called. For example, you can check for a particular header value, or get the entire post data even if the Content-Encoding wasn't properly set.

It contains the following fields.

event

The original event object passed to the handler.

context

The context object used for Netlify Identity (see the Netlify docs for details).

query

A key/value pair containing query parmeters. For example, if the query string on the URL were ?foo=bar, then query would contain the object { foo: 'bar' }.

body

A decoded representation on the HTTP body. For example, this will be an object if Content-Type is application/json.

params

Parameters from URL derived from the route or from pathToProps.

route

The matching route.

Throwing

If you throw an error, Lambdog will, by default (unless you set errorCallback in config), format a status code of 400 with the error message as the body.

If you throw an object, Lambdog will return that object "as-is". This is your response escape hatch.

Routes

If the first parameter to withJSONHandler is not a function, then it will be considered a route table. A route table is an array of routes.

Lambdog will return with the first matching route, so place you most specific routes first and get more general as you go.

A route has the following properties.

method

The HTTP method to match. If unspecified, the route will patch all methods.

path

A path segment used to match against the URL. A value starting with a : (colon) will interpret the current path segment as a parameter (i.e. will be added to the params object).

If path is * (i.e. an asterisk) it will match all segments and any remaining segments.

If path is . (i.e. an period) it will match the current segment only.

handler

If the route mathes, this handler will be called.

children

An array of child routes.

Sample routes table

Here is an example of a typical CRUD routes table.

[
  {
    method: 'get',
    path: 'orders',
    handler: getAllOrders,
  },
  {
    method: 'post',
    path: 'orders',
    handler: createOrder,
  },
  {
    path: 'orders',
    children: [
      { method: 'get', path: ':orderId', handler: getOrder },
      { method: 'put', path: ':orderId', handler: updateOrder },
      { method: 'delete', path: ':orderId', handler: deleteOrder },
    ],
  },
  { path: '*', handler: notFound },
];

Given the route above, a URL of /orders/123 will call getOrder passing a params of { orderId: '123' }.

A get from /orders would call getAllOrders with params of {}.

A post to /orders would call createOrder.

A put to /orders/123 would call updateOrder.

Becasue the last route does not specify a method, and has a path of *, any non-matching URL, with any method, will result in calling notFound. This is your "catch-all" handler. If you do not specify a catch-all handler, Lambdog will return a 404 Not Found.

Return value

Your function can return a value directly, or it can be an async function what resolves to a value (i.e. return a Promise).

The results from your function will be JSON stringified and placed in the body. An etag hash of the body will also be included in the header.

A status of 200 will be used, unless your function returns undefined, in which case a 204 will be used.

Lambdog will also set the content type to application/json.

License

MIT Licensed