README

Stack

• Ruby on Rails as the API framework
• Rspec test framework
• PostgreSQL as the database
• Jwt for authentication
• Alba for data serialization

• Ruby version 3.1.0

• Rails version 7.1.3.4

Managing Environment Variables

Ensure you have a .env file where you store api keys (ipstack api key should be stored there) and other credentials below is what mine looks like

IP_STACK_KEY='enter ipstack api key'
POSTGRES_DB='enter db name'
DATABASE_HOST='geolocation-db' # this is not necessarily a secret
DATABASE_USER='enter your db username'
DATABASE_PASSWORD='enter your db password'
DATABASE_PORT='5432' # this is not necessarily a secret

Setup in a minute (using Docker)

• Clone the repo

• Ensure you have docker installed and running (see https://www.docker.com/).

• Run the command in the root directory docker-compose build, this will download all the necessary images and dependencies.

• Run the command docker-compose up to start the services in the docker-compose file(rails, and postgresql).

• In a different terminal, run the command below.

• docker-compose run web rails db:migrate, this command will execute migration in dev environment.

• Run docker-compose run web bundle exec rails db:seed to seed data into the DB.

• For testing db setup, run docker-compose run web bundle exec rails db:create RAILS_ENV=test

• On your browser, visit localhost:3000 to see the app in development.

Application Setup(without Docker)

Ensure you have Ruby 3.1.0 installed, then follow the steps below

- Run `bundle install`
- Run `rails db:create`
- Run `rails db:migrate`
- Run `rails db:seed` to seed data into the DB.
- Run `rails s` to start the rails server on port 3000.

Running Tests

• After the setup is complete, open a terminal in the root directory.
• Run docker-compose run web bundle exec rspec
• If you run into a migration error, run the command docker-compose run web bundle exec rails db:migrate RAILS_ENV=test, then try to run the test command again.

Endpoints/Documentation

To see a brief list of endpoints and their information, open the file endpoints.md, the file can be found in the root directory of this app.

Possible Improvements

• Error Logging

  In a production environment, a logger like Sentry is needed to report unexpected errors, this will ensure swift bug fixing.

• Add Related Models

  More models can be added to cover data such as location, time_zone, currency and other related data that are related to a Geolocation, for the sake of simplicity, I decided to implement a minimal/single model (Geolocation), the other models will have a one-to-one or one-to-many relationship with geolocation.

• Use of Background Job and Webhook

  Depending on the use case of the app, the call to retrieve and save Geolocation data can be done asynchronously, this will ensure a much better user experience, it can be implemented by using backend queues such as Good Job or Sidekiq (this requires redis). The webhook option available on ipstack is also a great way to ensure great user experience and less load on the server so that does not
  continue to wait for a response from the third-party API.

• More Specs

  More specs can be written to cover at least 98% of the entire code, due to timing and my tight schedule this week, I was unable to write as much specs as I would have loved to.

• Authentication

For the sake of simplicity, I decided to implement a jwt authentication by my self, this is because using a gem like devise will be adding a lot more than is needed for a simple authentication. For a more robust and wholesome application, the use of devise and devise-jwt or any other proven token based authentication gem should be preferred.