README.md

Ecommerce App

Getting Started

This course repository requires Node.js and a TursoDB account

Install dependencies in the root directory and the client directory, respectively.

1. In root directory:

npm install

2. Navigate to client directory in a separate terminal:

cd client
npm install

3. Create a Turso DB account (free).

Install the Turso CLI:

# Mac
brew install tursodatabase/tap/turso
# Linux/Windows
curl -sSfL https://get.tur.so/install.sh | bash

Signup and Login to Turso (this will open your browser)

Note: The docs tell you to run turso auth signup but if you created a Turso account, you can skip this step and run the following command to login. You also won't need to create a replica.

turso auth login

Create an ecommerce database:

turso db create <database-name>

4. Create a .env file in the root directory and add the following. You can also reference the .env.example file in the root.

TURSO_CONNECTION_URL=
TURSO_AUTH_TOKEN=
JWT_SECRET=

• To get the TURSO_CONNECTION_URL and generate a token for your database for TURSO_AUTH_TOKEN run the following commands:

turso db show --url <database-name>

turso db tokens create <database-name>

• Generate a secure JWT_SECRET using OpenSSL or Node.js

openssl rand -base64 32
# or
node -e "console.log(require('crypto').randomBytes(32).toString('base64'));"

5. In root directory:

npm run generate
npm run db:push

To populate the database with some sample data, as well as a list of products run:

npm run seed

You can explore the data tables by running:

npm run studio

6. In the root directory, start the server:

npm start

Server will run on http://localhost:3000.

7. Start React app in the client directory:

npm run dev

You can view the app on http://localhost:5173. After creating an account, you'll be able to view the products and shop around. No refunds!

Overview

This a e-commerce application that allows users to perform the following actions:

• View a List of Items: Display items available for purchase.
• Add Items to Shopping Cart: Enable users to add items they wish to buy.
• Checkout Process: Allow users to "submit" an order.
• Purchase Confirmation: Show a confirmation message with the purchase amount and a transaction ID.

How it Works

1. User Authentication

• JWT tokens are used for maintaining user sessions.
• Token is stored in localStorage client-side.
• Flow: User logs in -> JWT token is generated -> Token is stored in localStorage -> Token is sent in the header for routes.

2. List of Products

• Flow: User signs in or sings up -> AuthProvider updates state, setting isAuthenticated to true -> This triggers ProductsProvider to fetch products from backend.

3. Cart Management

• State Management

  • The cart state is managed using useReducer with actions for ADD, REMOVE, QUANTITY, and SUBMIT.
  • The CartContext provides the cart state and dispatch function to child components.

• Adding Items to Cart

  • Flow: User Interaction → dispatch(ADD) → Reducer → State Update → Backend Sync
  • The ADD action handles both new item addition and quantity increment for existing items.

• Removing Items from Cart

  • Flow: User Interaction → dispatch(REMOVE) → Reducer → State Update → Backend Sync
  • The REMOVE action filters out the item from the cart array.

4. Data Storage

Schema Design

• The database schema is defined in schema.ts using Drizzle ORM. It consists of five main tables:
  • products: Stores product information.
  • users: Stores user account information.
  • carts: Represents shopping carts for users.
  • cart_product: A junction table for the many-to-many relationship between carts and products.
  • orders: Stores order information, linking users and carts

Relationships

The schema defines relationships between tables using Drizzle ORM's relations function:

• Products have many CartProducts
• Users have many Carts and Orders
• Carts belong to a User and have many CartProducts
• CartProducts belong to a Cart and a Product
• Orders belong to a User and a Cart

Data Seeding

The database is seeded with initial data using the seedDatabase function in ./server/db/seedData.ts. This function performs the following operations:

• Inserts sample products into the products table.
• Creates user accounts with hashed passwords.
• Generates shopping carts for each user with random products.
• Creates sample orders for each user based on their cart contents.

Approach to Problem Solving

1. Initial Design and Planning

Database Schema Design:

I started by creating a rough design of the data model using Excel since it has an easy to use interface for rows and columns. This helps me map out a visual representation of the data and relationships between tables. This initial schema design served as a blueprint for the DrizzleORM models, which I tweaked as I built out the application.

2. API Endpoint Planning

I mapped out potential API endpoints early in the process to ensure that the frontend and backend would be in sync. This helped me identify the data I needed to send and receive, as well as the actions that would trigger these requests.

3. Challenges

There were some challenges faced with cart management. The first implementation made an API request for every cart update and had a different route for every type of cart interaction. This got messy and complicated quickly. I refactored the cart management to a more efficent cart syncing method.

Future Extensions

• Implement multi-factor authentication
• Integrate social media login options (Google, Facebook, etc.)
• Integrate multiple payment gateways (PayPal, Stripe, etc.)
• Implement personalized product recommendations
• Create a personalized user homepage experience based on user browsing and purhcase history.
• Create a review system for products.
• Implement a "wishlist" feature for users to save items for later.

Testing Strategy

• React Testing Library: Chosen for its focus on testing components in a way that resembles user interactions.
• Vitest: Chosen for compatibility and convenience. Vitest also has a very similar API compared to Jest.

For testing, I focused on unit tests for key components of the frontend application including:

• Product.test.tsx
• ProductList.test.tsx
• Checkout.test.tsx
• Receipt.test.tsx

Areas for Future Testing:

• End-to-End Tests: To validate user flows and interactions.