As we already know the whole world is suffering from COVID-19 and the vaccinations are going in full swing everywhere. Finding a slot is getting tougher in our country India as we have a huge population to be vaccinated. Numerous times we have to go to CoWin site to search for a slot and slots are always full. It is pretty time-consuming and irritating. Being a developer, I thought most of the time is usually spent by us in the terminal so why can't we have a basic terminal-based app to save time. So this post will help you in two ways
In case you are someone who likes to watch than read you can watch the same
Pre-requisite – We are assuming you have installed Node.js and npm, If not you can install from here
So as a first step lets initialize our project using command
npm init
Enter the basic details as shown below.
This will create package.json file in the folder cowinCLI. The next step is to create a bin folder that will have our index.js file containing our application.
Open the index.js file and add the below-mentioned first line. This actually tells the interpreter that whatever code runs below this will be handled by the node.
#! /usr/bin/env node
If you remember while creating we have mentioned our entry point as index.js but actually, this file now exists in the bin folder. So we will correct that as well as we will add one more entry. The new entry which we will add is for the keyword we want to use to call our CLI. We want to use something like cowin. So we will add this entry.
"bin": {
"cowin": "./bin/index.js"
}
So your package.json will look something like this
{
"name": "vaccli",
"version": "1.0.0",
"description": "CLI vaccination slots",
"main": "bin/index.js",
"scripts": {
"test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
},
"author": "Nabheet",
"license": "ISC",
"dependencies": {
"axios": "^0.21.1",
"chalk": "^4.1.1",
"commander": "^7.2.0",
"inquirer": "^8.0.0",
"node-notifier": "^9.0.1",
"tty-table": "^4.1.3"
},
"bin": {
"cowin": "./bin/index.js"
}
}
So the basic structure is set. Now before we start adding the functionality we have not given a thought to how we will fetch the data? Let's first check that.
Thank God for looking at Co-Win site they have provided us with OpenAPI. 50% of work is done. Now, all we need to do is, consume this data and work as per our need. Let's now think about what our CLI will do.
On looking closely at the calendar slots api for a district( In India we have a Country comprised of States and Union Territories which in turn consists of districts) we can see it needs some kind of district id.
So looking at how do we get districts id we found another api but that needs state id
How do we get state id's another API😊
So our CLI shall do the following.
In order to achieve this, we will be using multiple npm modules lets install them first using the below-mentioned command
npm install axios chalk commander inquirer node-notifier tty-table
Packages to be installed
Let's begin by creating separate functions for them. Create a util folder under the cowinCLI project. Create files states.js, districts.js, config.js, and slots.js in util folder. Config.js is for the configuration related common data such as table header formatting which will be used by all functions
// Common configuration data to be used by all functions.
exports.config = {
headers: { "User-Agent": "Axios - console app" },
};
exports.options = {
borderStyle: "solid",
borderColor: "blue",
headerAlign: "center",
align: "left",
color: "white",
truncate: "...",
width: "90%",
};
If you look, we need to call the states API for that we will use our already installed npm package axios. We are calling the API and once we got a response we are formatting the table data by using the tty-table package and writing the output to the console. So this function will return the formatted output of states and its id's.
const axios = require('axios');
const table = require("tty-table");
const { config,options } = require('./config');
// function to return list of all states
module.exports = function() {
axios
.get("https://cdn-api.co-vin.in/api/v2/admin/location/states", config)
.then((response) => {
// table formatter
let header = [
{
value: "state_id",
headerColor: "cyan",
alias: "State ID",
color: "white",
align: "left",
width: 40,
},
{
value: "state_name",
alias: "State",
headerColor: "cyan",
color: "white",
align: "left",
width: 40,
},
];
const out = table(header, response.data.states, options).render();
console.table(out);
})
.catch((error) => {
console.log(error);
});
};
For this also we will use a similar set up of axios and tty-table. The only thing to be noted is, in this function which we are exporting has an argument as stateid.
const axios = require('axios');
const table = require("tty-table");
const { config,options } = require('./config');
// Function which take stateid as input and return all the formatted districts
module.exports = function(stateid) {
axios
.get(
`https://cdn-api.co-vin.in/api/v2/admin/location/districts/${stateid}`,
config
)
.then((response) => {
// Table header specific formatting
let header = [
{
value: "district_id",
headerColor: "cyan",
alias: "District ID",
color: "white",
align: "left",
width: 40,
},
{
value: "district_name",
alias: "District",
headerColor: "cyan",
color: "white",
align: "left",
width: 40,
},
];
// Output the results.
const out = table(header, response.data.districts, options).render();
console.table(out);
})
.catch((error) => {
console.log(error);
});
};
For this also we will use a similar set up of axios and tty-table. The only thing to be noted is in this function which we are exporting has an argument as districtid. In addition to it you can see we are using chalk and inquirer package. Chalk is used to format the headers above the table and inquirer is used for taking input from user when slots command is run. We have also used node-notifier which will send desktop notification as soon as it runs, just an example. You can modify this behavior to code your own custom logic.
const axios = require('axios');
const table = require("tty-table");
const chalk = require("chalk");
const notifier = require("node-notifier");
var inquirer = require("inquirer");
const { config,options } = require('./config');
// function to check slots.
module.exports = function(district) {
//Input prompt for getting what age you want to check records.
inquirer
.prompt([
{
type: "list",
name: "choice",
message: "Which Age group?",
choices: [
{
name: "View All",
value: "",
},
{
name: "45 Plus",
value: "45",
},
{
name: "18 - 45 ",
value: "18",
},
],
},
])
.then((answers) => {
const date = new Date();
var todaysDate = `${date.getDate()}-${String(
date.getMonth() + 1
).padStart(2, "0")}-${date.getFullYear()}`;
console.log(
chalk.underline.bgRed.bold(`Showing Slots from - ${todaysDate}`)
);
axios
.get(
`https://cdn-api.co-vin.in/api/v2/appointment/sessions/public/calendarByDistrict?district_id=${district}&date=${todaysDate}`,
config
)
.then((response) => {
let finalData = [];
let districtName;
response.data.centers.forEach((item) => {
item.sessions.forEach((session) => {
districtName = item.district_name;
// based on user age choice filter the data
if (answers.choice == "") {
let data = {
Center: item.name,
Address: item.address,
Date: session.date,
FreeSlots: session.available_capacity,
Age: session.min_age_limit,
};
finalData.push(data);
} else if (
answers.choice == "18" &&
session.min_age_limit == "18"
) {
let data = {
Center: item.name,
Address: item.address,
Date: session.date,
FreeSlots: session.available_capacity,
Age: session.min_age_limit,
};
finalData.push(data);
} else if (
answers.choice == "45" &&
session.min_age_limit == "45"
) {
let data = {
Center: item.name,
Address: item.address,
Date: session.date,
FreeSlots: session.available_capacity,
Age: session.min_age_limit,
};
finalData.push(data);
}
});
});
console.log(
chalk.underline.bgGreen.bold(`District - ${districtName}`)
);
switch (answers.choice) {
case "":
console.log(chalk.underline.bgBlue.bold(`All ages`));
break;
case "45":
console.log(chalk.underline.bgBlue.bold(`45+ Age`));
break;
case "18":
console.log(chalk.underline.bgBlue.bold(`18-45 Age`));
break;
default:
break;
}
// table formatting
let header = [
{
value: "Center",
headerColor: "cyan",
color: "white",
align: "left",
width: 40,
},
{
value: "Address",
headerColor: "cyan",
color: "white",
align: "left",
width: 40,
},
{
value: "Date",
headerColor: "cyan",
color: "white",
align: "left",
width: 15,
},
{
value: "FreeSlots",
headerColor: "cyan",
color: "white",
align: "left",
width: 20,
},
{
value: "Age",
headerColor: "cyan",
color: "white",
align: "left",
width: 20,
},
];
const out = table(header, finalData, options).render();
console.table(out);
notifier.notify({
title: "Vaccination Slots Available",
subtitle: "Daily Maintenance",
message: "Immediately go and check Vaccination slots!",
wait: true,
});
})
.catch((error) => {
console.log(error);
});
})
.catch((error) => {
if (error.isTtyError) {
// Prompt couldn't be rendered in the current environment
} else {
// Something else went wrong
}
});
};
Now our all basic functions are in place but what is pending is the actual CLI😊 Let's start building that.
So far we have used all npm packages except commander it is the heart of our CLI. We will be using commander for making the subcommands as well as flag options. As can be seen, below we have used both command and option. Commands for getting states, districts, and slots and they have a callback function mentioned as our reusable functions under action.
#! /usr/bin/env node
const program = require("commander");
// import all functions
const districts = require('../util/districts');
const states = require('../util/states');
const slots = require('../util/slots');
// adding different cli options,commands and passing callback functions in actions
program.option("-a, --available", "Output If slots available");
program
.command("states")
.description("Get all State Codes and descriptions.")
.action(states);
program
.command("district <stateid>")
.description("Get all district of a State")
.action(districts);
program
.command("slots <districtid>")
.description("Get slots for the district")
.action(slots);
program.parse();
So we have everything ready all we need to do is now run the below command which will install our package globally.
npm install -g .
Output
cowin states
cowin districts 12
cowin slots 187
You can refer to the source code
Previously published at https://blogs.sap.com/2021/05/15/lets-build-node.js-based-cli-track-real-time-covid-19-vaccination-slots-in-india/?update=updated