JSON Mock Server

npm json server and json-server is a great tool for creating a mock server for your frontend projects. It is easy to use and can be set up in minutes.

Prerequisites Make sure you have the following installed:

node and npm

install json-server in the project
```
npm install --save json-server
```

Ad a script to package.json (like line 5 below:) (todos.json is the file created in step 1 above)

 "scripts": {
    "start": "node scripts/start.js",
    "build": "node scripts/build.js",
    "test": "node scripts/test.js --env=jsdom",
    "backend": "json-server -p 4000 --watch booksdb.json"
  },

create dummy data by making a javascript program and run it with node.
Create a file in the working folder: mockdata.js:

import casual from 'casual';

// Create an object for config file
var db = {books:[]};

for(var i=101; i<=115; i++){
    var book = {};
  book.id = i;

  // Create a random 1-6 word title
  book.title = casual.words(casual.integer(1,6));
  book.author = casual.first_name + ' ' + casual.last_name;
  
  // Randomly rate the book between 0 and 5
  book.rating = Math.floor(Math.random()*100+1)/20;

  // Assign a publishing year between 1700 and 2016
    book.year_published = casual.integer(1700,2016)
    db.books.push(book);
}
console.log(JSON.stringify(db));

This script is using casual to generate random data. Install it into the same folder.

npm install casual --save-dev

Windows users: In git bash run the js script like this:

bash -c "node mockdata.js > booksdb.json"

Mac and Linux users: In git bash run the js script like this:

node mockdata.js > booksdb.json

It will write an array of 15 book objects into a file: booksjb.json

Open the file to see the data format (or in the bash just node mockdata.js without the pipe > character)

Now the json-server can be started with:
```
npm run backend
```
In a browser open url: http://localhost:4000/books to see the server running.