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actionhero

The Reusable, Scalable, and Quick node.js API Server.

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What is actionhero?

vsa-server.js is a multi-transport Node.JS API Server with integrated cluster capabilities and delayed tasks.

What does that mean?

In actionhero, you make actions which respond to client requests.

{% highlight javascript %} // actionhero generateAction --name=randomNumber // File: actions/randomNumber.js exports.randomNumber = { name: 'randomNumber', description: 'I am an API method which will generate a random number', outputExample: { randomNumber: 0.123 }, run: function(api, data, next){ data.response.randomNumber = Math.random(); next(); } }; {% endhighlight %}

These actions don't just work for the web, they work for all sorts of clients.

Web

{% highlight bash %} > curl localhost:8080/api/randomNumber { "randomNumber": 0.8158452461939305 } {% endhighlight %}

Socket

{% highlight bash %} > telnet localhost 5000 Trying 127.0.0.1... Connected to localhost. Escape character is '^]'. {"welcome":"Hello! Welcome to the actionhero api","context":"api"} randomNumber {"randomNumber":0.7903316407464445,"context":"response","messageCount":1} {% endhighlight %}

WebSocket

{% highlight javascript %} var client = new ActionheroClient; client.connect(function(error, details){ client.action("randomNumber", function(data){ alert(data.randomNumber); }); }); {% endhighlight %}

actionhero also lets you perform tasks in the background...

{% highlight javascript %} // actionhero generateTask --name=sendEmail // File: tasks/sendEmail.js exports.task = { name: 'sendEmail', description: 'send an email to users after they sign up' queue: 'default', frequency: 0, run: function(api, params, next){ // email sending stub api.users.sendEmail(params.userId, function(error, done){ next(error); }); }); }; {% endhighlight %}

... and you can invoke the task from anywhere in the framework, including actions.

{% highlight javascript %} // api.tasks.enqueue(nameOfTask, args, queue, callback) api.tasks.enqueue("sendEmail", {to: 'evan@evantahler.com'}, 'default', function(err, toRun){ // enqueued! }); {% endhighlight %}

actionhero enables clients to talk to each other.

{% highlight javascript %} // client 1 var client1 = new ActionheroClient; client1.connect(function(error, details){ client1.roomAdd("myChatRoom", function(err){ client1.say('myChatRoom', 'hello from client 1'); }); }); // client 2 var client2 = new ActionheroClient; client2.connect(function(error, details){ client2.roomAdd("myChatRoom", function(err){ client2.on('say', function(message){ console.log(message); }); }); }); {% endhighlight %}

actionhero can do all of this, and it can work on one server or hundreds (actionhero is cluster-ready from the get-go).

{% highlight bash %} # start 1 instance ./node_modules/.bin/actionhero start # start a cluster ./node_modules/.bin/actionhero startCluster {% endhighlight %}

Click here to read more

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