A simple Node.js REST server simulator for Testing

Problem

You are developing a client application (AngularJS) and need to retrieve data from a REST API service. However, you often lack access to the remote service, or it doesn’t have the required data for your tests (e.g., dynamically generated data).

A direct request to a test .json file is not possible due to browser security restrictions—browsers cannot directly access the file system.

Solution – Concept

A client application can send a GET request to a local server, which then serves a JSON file as a response.

This local server can be implemented in Node.js, which handles HTTP requests and serves static files.

Solution – Implementation

The code and installation guide are available here:
🔗 GitHub Repository

Project Structure

The project follows a simple structure:

Example Response

Here’s an example of a JSON response:

Solution – Details

The server.js file creates an HTTP server that listens for requests.
It uses a loaderModule, which contains a class responsible for retrieving the JSON data.

server.js

// Import the function from the module 
var loaderModule = require('./ResponseLoader.js'); 
// Create an instance of the prototype 
var loader = new loaderModule("loader"); 
 
function requestService(request, response) { 
    // URL is the filename without extension 
    var url = request.url; 
 
    // Handle home page request 
    if (url == "/") { 
        url = "/index"; 
    } 
 
    // Load the static JSON file 
    loader.load(url); 
 
    // Prepare the HTTP response 
    response.statusCode = 200; 
    response.setHeader('Content-Type', 'application/json'); 
     
    // Send JSON content 
    response.end(loader.getJson()); 
}