elnurvl / findexpert

A demo project

This is an API service that can be consumed by an SPA or a mobile app. The repository does not contain any code related to the front-end. See client repository if you are looking for the source of the SPA and the mobile app.

Get Started

First, make sure you have a PHP 8.0 server, and a MYSQL database running (e.g. XAMPP, an all-in-one solution). To set up the project in a local environment, first rename the .env.example file to .env. After filling in the db credentials in the .env file run the following commands one by one:

composer install
composer dump-autoload
npm install
php artisan key:generate
php artisan migrate
php artisan serve

Database

This application uses Neo4j graph database along with MYSQL to get connections between users in a more optimal way. Refer here to see the benchmark comparison.

Install neo4j in your local machine before running the app. Refer to this page for more information.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install apt-transport-https ca-certificates curl software-properties-common
curl -fsSL https://debian.neo4j.com/neotechnology.gpg.key | sudo apt-key add -
sudo add-apt-repository "deb https://debian.neo4j.com stable 4.1"
sudo apt install neo4j
sudo systemctl enable neo4j.service

Finally, set the Neo4j password with the cypher shell command. Note that the default user name and password is neo4j/neo4j Do not forget to fill in the db credentials in the .env file afterwards.

Neo4j Client

laudis/neo4j-php-client library is used to run CYPHER queries. However, it seems there is a bug in the library making it impossible to make changes on the database. The framework's HTTP client is used to execute those queries.

URL Shortener

Cutt.ly is a simple URL shortening service. Make sure you signed up in their website and acquired an API key. Add the API key to the .env file.

Planned features

• Users can remove friends
• Users can fetch topics manually in case there was a change in their websites, or a failure in previous attempts
• Users can update the URL shortenings for their websites