On this page:

• Get started by listing orca sightings: a tutorial
  • Step 1: Make sure you have the API database file
  • Step 2: Start JSON Server with the Orca Sightings service
  • Step 3: List orca whale sightings
  • Step 4: View the response

Get started by listing orca sightings: a tutorial

This tutorial shows you how to download the API files and try one of the service actions: viewing all orca sightings reported in the app for the San Juan Islands. If you’ve already set up your environment, the process should take about 20 minutes.

Step 1: Make sure you have the API database file

If you haven’t already done so:

1. Download orca-sightings-db.json. The file is at orca-sightings-api repo on GitHub. This is a JSON file containing example users and sightings.
2. Copy this file into the same location as your json-server app.

Step 2: Start JSON Server with the Orca Sightings service

To start the Orca Sightings service:

1. Open a terminal window and cd to the location of the json-server app.
2. Start the service by typing json-server orca-sightings-db.json. The service starts and lists some information to show it’s running.

 user@macbookair ~ % json-server orca-sightings-db.json

  \{^_^}/ hi!

  Loading orca-sightings-db.json
  Done

  Resources
  http://localhost:3000/users
  http://localhost:3000/sightings

  Home
  http://localhost:3000

Step 3: List orca whale sightings

In this part of the tutorial, you’ll use cURL or Postman to list all orca whale sightings.

To use cURL:

1. Open a new terminal window.
2. Run this command:

curl -X GET http://localhost:3000/sightings

To use Postman:

1. In Postman’s main panel on the right, toward the top, select GET.
2. Add the following content to the URL text box next to GET: http://localhost:3000/sightings/.
3. Click Send.

Step 4: View the response

The response pane should show all sightings and look like this:

[
    {
        "id": 1,
        "user_id": 1,
        "pod": "J-pod",
        "time": "2025-05-03T10:00",
        "location": "Lime Kiln Point State Park"
    },
    {
        "id": 2,
        "user_id": 3,
        "pod": "T49A",
        "time": "2025-05-01T19:00",
        "location": "Patos Island"
    },
    {
        "id": 3,
        "user_id": 4,
        "pod": "unknown",
        "time": "2025-04-28T12:30",
        "location": "Shaw Island"
    },
    {
        "id": 4,
        "user_id": 3,
        "pod": "K-pod",
        "time": "2025-02-15T10:00",
        "location": "Lime Kiln Point State Park"
    },
    {
        "id": 5,
        "user_id": 2,
        "pod": "J-pod",
        "time": "2025-01-20T13:00",
        "location": "Lime Kiln Point State Park"
    },
    {
        "id": 6,
        "user_id": 1,
        "pod": "K-pod",
        "time": "2024-12-24T17:15",
        "location": "Friday Harbor"
    },
    {
        "id": 7,
        "user_id": 4,
        "pod": "T49A",
        "time": "2025-12-13T06:00",
        "location": "Reuben Tarte County Park"
    },
    {
        "id": 8,
        "user_id": 2,
        "pod": "T49A",
        "time": "2025-01-30T11:00",
        "location": "Lime Kiln Point State Park"
    }
]

In Postman, you should also see a green 200 OK message at the top of the pane. Hover over that text to see the full confirmation message.

That’s it. Next, view the reference topic GET /sightings to see an example of listing a specific sighting by its id.

You can also try other tutorials like adding a user or view other topics in the API reference.