Add a new sighting to the Orca Sightings service: a tutorial

This tutorial should take you about 15 minutes to complete.

Before you begin

Make sure you’ve set up your environment and started the service using json-server.

Step 1: Submit a cURL or Postman request with the POST method

To use cURL:

Enter the following command to add a new sighting reported by the user with an id of 1.

curl -X POST \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -d '{ "user_id": 1, "pod": "K-pod", "time": "2024-12-24T09:20", "location": "Friday Harbor" }' \
     http://localhost:3000/sightings

In this example, -X specifies the method, -H indicates the header, and -d specifies the data.

For user_id, you specify 1 to pair the sighting with the first user. This is the person who reported the sighting.

Try using GET to see user 1:

curl -X GET http://localhost:3000/users/1

The result shows the user as Stan Marsh:

{
    "last_name": "Marsh",
    "first_name": "Stan",
    "email": "stan.marsh@gmail.com",
    "id": 1
}

To use Postman:

Select POST and enter http://localhost:3000/sightings/.
In the Header tab, select Content-Type and then application/json.
In the request body, select Body > raw > JSON and enter:

{ 
    "user_id": 1, 
    "pod": "K-pod", 
    "time": "2024-12-24T09:20", 
    "location": "Friday Harbor" 
}

Step 2: Make sure the service created the new sighting

Both of the previous examples should return the information from the request body plus a unique ID.

{ 
    "user_id": 1, 
    "pod": "K-pod", 
    "time": "2024-12-24T09:20", 
    "location": "Friday Harbor",
    "id": 6
}

The id might be different if you’ve completed other tutorials first.

You’ve completed this tutorial. Next, try other tutorials or refer to the reference topic POST /sightings.