🎓 Students Management API

A robust RESTful API built with Golang 1.25 to manage student records. This project demonstrates backend engineering best practices, including clean architecture, structured logging, input validation, and graceful shutdown.

Note: This is a backend-only application. API interaction is handled via Postman or cURL.

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🚀 Tech Stack & Features

• Language: Golang (1.25.5)
• Database: PostgreSQL (Driver: lib/pq)
• Routing: Standard Library net/http (ServeMux)
• Validation: go-playground/validator for strict payload verification.
• Logging: log/slog (Structured JSON Logging).
• Containerized: Fully Dockerized for consistent deployment.
• Config: YAML-based configuration management via ilyakaznacheev/cleanenv.

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📂 Project Structure

The project follows a modular layout to ensure scalability and maintainability:

├── cmd/
│   └── student-api/    # Main entry point (main.go)
├── internal/
│   ├── config/         # Configuration loader & Types
│   │   └── types/      # Data structures (Student models)
│   ├── http/
│   │   └── handlers/
│   │       └── student/ # HTTP Handlers (CRUD logic)
│   └── storage/
│       ├── postgresql/  # Database Access Layer (PostgreSQL implementation)
│       └── storage.go   # Storage Interface definition
├── config/
│   └── local.yaml      # Environment configuration
├── Dockerfile          # Container build instructions
├── go.mod              # Dependency management
└── README.md           # Documentation

🛠️ Getting Started Follow these steps to set up the project locally.

1. Clone the Repository git clone https://github.com/ZeeshanSaleem-official/student-api.git cd student-api

2. Database Setup Ensure your PostgreSQL service is running. Update config/local.yaml if needed: storage_path: "host=localhost port=5432 user=postgres password=YOUR_PASSWORD dbname=students-api sslmode=disable" http_server: address: "localhost:8080"

🐳 Option A: Run with Docker (Recommended) This project includes a multi-stage Dockerfile for production-grade deployment.

1. Build the Docker Image:

docker build -t student-api

3. Run the Container:

Maps host port 8080 to container port 8080

docker run -p 8080:8080 student-api

The API will be accessible at http://localhost:8080.

💻 Option B: Run Locally If you prefer running without Docker:

Install dependencies

go mod tidy

Run the server

go run cmd/student-api/main.go -config=./config/local.yaml

You should see a log message confirming the server has started at localhost:8080.

🔌 API Endpoints Base URL: http://localhost:8080

Method	Endpoint	Description	Example Payload (JSON)
POST	/api/students	Create student	{"name": "Zeeshan", "email": "test@example.com", "age": 21}
GET	/api/students/{id}	Get student	N/A
GET	/api/students	List all	N/A
PUT	/api/students/{id}	Update details	{"name": "Zeeshan Updated", "age": 22}
DELETE	/api/students/{id}	Remove student	N/A

🧪 Testing with Postman Since this system focuses on backend performance, use Postman to interact with the endpoints:

Open Postman.

Create a request (e.g., POST http://localhost:8080/api/students).

Go to Body → Raw → JSON.

Paste the payload:

{ "name": "Candidate One", "email": "candidate@cern.ch", "age": 22 }

Hit Send and observe the structured JSON response.

💡 Design Decisions

• Standard Library Routing (net/http): utilized Go's http.NewServeMux to handle routing logic without relying on heavy external frameworks like Gin. This demonstrates a deep understanding of the language's core capabilities and minimizes runtime overhead.

• Dependency Injection: The student handler receives a storage.Storage interface rather than a concrete struct. This decouples the business logic from the database, adhering to the Dependency Inversion Principle.

• Graceful Shutdown: The application listens for OS signals (SIGINT, SIGTERM) to ensure that the server shuts down cleanly, closing active connections and preventing data corruption.

📜 License

Distributed under the MIT License.