greymarketlabs-assignment/README.md

Running the service

Pre-Reqs

• Access to the interenet
• Docker environment installed with proper user permissions

Running

• This will use port 4916, if that is not available modify the Makefile
• Run make

Stopping

• Type exit

Testing

• Run bash ./test.sh in a seperate window on the same machine

API Description

Setting Persona

GET request to /set_persona with the following properties

• persona_id: integer (if not unique it will override a previous persona)
• first_name: string first name of persona
• last_name: string last name of persona
• interest_list: string comma seperated list of interests
• lat: floating point latitude of location
• lon: floating point longitude of location

This will return a json formatted string of the values you set

Getting persona

GET request to /get_persona with the following propertie

• persona_id: integer id (error will occur if it does not exist)

This will return a JSON in the following format

• id: integer persona id
• first_name: string first name
• last_name: string last name
• interest_list: comma seperated string of interests
• latitude: floating point latitude
• longitude: floating point longitude
• city: string city
• state: string state
• temperature: current temperature in fahrenheit

Further Questions

A

I was not able to complete every aspect of this assignment. I few things I would have liked to accomplish in addition were:

• Proper error checking
  • Currently it'll just fail out if bad inputs are given. I would have liked to have it error gracefully with proper error codes
• Clean up the code
  • There are some odd variable names and no comments
  • Several variables in the API itself change from input to output, I would have liked to make those the same
• Better id handling
  • Have additional ways to determine what the next un-assigned ID would be
  • Have a better way when getting the information that an ID doesn't exist
• Better testing
  • Create a little more robust testing
• Temperature
  • I grabbed the first temperature returned, rather than the current. It isn't too far off, but would have like to get the actual current temperature.

B

Potential issues include

• Poor error handling, the app will crash on bad input
  • Provide more rubust intput checking with error code/string returns
• Interest list handling
  • Right now it is just a comma seperated list
  • I would have liked to have a seperate table of interests, then the returned json could have been an array list. This would have provided better access for the front end
• Repeat/Unknown IDs
  • A repeat ID will overwrite perviously set values, this was a choice, but the API should have an update vs new option
  • There could also be a way to not give an ID and the next ID is reaturned to the front end
  • Unknown IDs on get are not handled and will cause a crash, there should be an error message returned

C

Possible security issues are:

• If anyone has arbetrary access they will be able to get all the persona information, this should be locked down to only authorized users
• Overloading the memory with large values, there is no limit to the length of the strings, thus someone could overwhelm the system by putting in too long of strings