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Building a Back-End Application with NestJS

Adding Search Functionality

Explore how to enhance a NestJS REST API by adding search and filtering capabilities. Learn to create and use a new DTO for querying books by title, author, language, and publication date, enabling efficient retrieval of specific data from a growing collection.

We'll cover the following...

As the collection of books in our virtual library grows, pinpointing a specific book becomes increasingly challenging. Whether it’s someone looking for books from a particular date, readers with language preferences, or those keen on works by a specific author, an enhanced search capability is essential. This section delves into refining our virtual library search mechanism, enabling users to quickly locate books by title, author, language, or publication date.

Creating a new DTO for search and filtering

We’ll define a new DTO named GetBookFilterDto to enhance our application with search and filtering capabilities. This DTO encapsulates the criteria users might specify when looking for books.

Here’s the structure of GetBookFilterDto:

TypeScript 4.9.5
import { Language } from "src/books/entities/books.entity";
export class GetBookFilterDto {
  search?: string;
  author?: string;
  publication_date?: string;
  language?: Language;
}

Let’s look into the purpose and utilization of each property within the DTO: ...