Cloudkit JS && Node JS

Question

I'm currently trying to perform server side connection to iCloud Server using the new CloudKit JS from Apple. According to the WWDC 2015 "CloudKit JS and Web Service", since CloudKit JS is a pure JS framework, you can use it in all JS environnements such as node JS.

I copied the source code of CloudKit JS from https://cdn.apple-cloudkit.com/ck/1/cloudkit.js and pasted it in a file named "cloudkit.js". Here is a demo of what I tried :

var CloudKit = require("/some/folders/cloudkit.js")

function demoPerformQuery() {
  CloudKit.configure({
      containers: [{
    containerIdentifier: 'myContainerIdentifier',
    apiToken: 'myAPIToken',
    environment: 'development'
      }]
    })

  var container = CloudKit.getDefaultContainer();
  var publicDB = container.publicCloudDatabase;

  publicDB.performQuery({recordType: 'Items'}).then(function(response){
    // never called :-(
  })
}

var express = require('express')

var app = express()

app.get("/", function(){
  demoPerformQuery()
})

var server = app.listen(8080, function () {
  console.log("server launched")
})

CloudKit seems to be correctly set up since all the functions are correctly called. But the callback of performQuery is never called. Why ?

Is there someone who already succeed to configure CloudKit JS in an server environnement ?

Thanks in advance

Kreplach

Answer 1

In the browser, CloudKit.js relies on XmlHttpRequest in order to fetch resources, but since CloudKit isn't an npm module you'll need a way to fetch things from your server.

npm install node-fetch

Using node-fetch, here is a tweaked version of your code that logs the resulting Items in your query:

var fetch = require('node-fetch');
var CloudKit = require("./cloudkit.js")

CloudKit.configure({
  services: {
    fetch: fetch
  },
  containers: [{
    containerIdentifier: 'yourContainerIdentifier',
    apiToken: 'yourAPItoken',
    environment: 'development'
  }]
})

var container = CloudKit.getDefaultContainer();
var publicDB = container.publicCloudDatabase;

function demoPerformQuery() {
  publicDB.performQuery({recordType: 'Items'}).then(function(response){
    console.log(response)
  }).catch(function(error){
    console.log(error)
  })
}

var express = require('express')
var app = express()

app.get("/", function() {
  demoPerformQuery()
})

var server = app.listen(8080, function () {
  console.log("Server listen")
})

After hitting http://localhost:8080 you should see your server log the response to your query.

Upturned

Thanks for your response. I got an error : "native promise missing, set Fetch.Promise to your favorite alternative". Did this method work for you ? – Cromorne

Promises were available in node as of version 0.11 (the current version is 0.12). You can upgrade node or use something like github.com/jakearchibald/es6-promise as a backfill. – Upturned

var fetch = require('node-fetch'); fetch.Promise = require('es6-promise').Promise; – Wellworn