• Use the session hash to log in a user

In this lab, we'll continue working on the blog site and set up a basic login feature.

There is some starter code in place for a Rails API backend and a React frontend. To get set up, run:

$ bundle install
$ rails db:migrate db:seed
$ npm install --prefix client

You can work on this lab by running the tests with learn test. It will also be helpful to see what's happening during the request/response cycle by running the app in the browser. You can run the Rails server with:

$ rails s

And you can run React in another terminal with:

$ npm start --prefix client

You don't have to make any changes to the React code to get this lab working.

For our basic login feature, we'll need the following functionality:

• A user can log in by providing their username in a form
• A user can log out
• A user can remain logged in, even after refreshing the page

We'll need to create the routes and controller methods to handle each of these features. Let's get started!

• Generate these routes:

  • POST /login: run the SessionsController#create method
  • DELETE /logout: run the SessionsController#destroy method

• Create a sessions controller.

  • Note: If you use the generators to generate your controllers, be sure to pass the --no-test-framework flag to avoid generating unneeded files: rails g controller Sessions --no-test-framework

• Make a SessionsController#create method. It should:

  • Find a user in the database using the username from params
  • Save the user's ID to the session hash
  • Return the user as a JSON object

• Make a SessionsController#destroy method. It should:

  • Remove the user ID from the session hash
  • Return an empty response with a 204 No Content status code

• Generate these routes:

  • GET /me: run the UsersController#show method

• Create a users controller.

  • Note: If you use the generators to generate your controllers, be sure to pass the --no-test-framework flag to avoid generating unneeded files: rails g controller Users --no-test-framework

• Make a UsersController#show method. It should:

  • Find a user in the database using the user id from the session hash
  • Return the user as a JSON object