Parcel Handling System

Overview

The Parcel Handling System is designed to manage and process parcels based on their weight and value. The system is divided into two main features:

Feature 1

• Parcels with a weight up to 1 kg are handled by the "Mail" department.
• Parcels with a weight up to 10 kg are handled by the "Regular" department.
• Parcels with a weight over 10 kg are handled by the "Heavy" department.

Feature 2

• Parcels with a value of over €1000 need to be signed off by the "Insurance" department before being processed by the other departments.

Technologies Used

Backend

• FastAPI: A modern, fast (high-performance), web framework for building APIs with Python 3.6+ based on standard Python type hints.
• Pydantic: Data validation and settings management using Python type annotations.
• Uvicorn: A lightning-fast ASGI server implementation, using uvloop and httptools.

Frontend

• Vue.js: A progressive JavaScript framework for building user interfaces.
• TypeScript: A strongly typed programming language that builds on JavaScript, giving you better tooling at any scale.
• Vite: A build tool that aims to provide a faster and leaner development experience for modern web projects.
• Axios: A promise-based HTTP client for the browser and Node.js.
• shadcn/ui: A library of components for building modern web applications.
• TailwindCSS: A utility-first CSS framework for rapidly building custom designs.
• pnpm: A fast, disk space efficient package manager.

Project Main Structure

Backend

• api.py: The main FastAPI application file that defines the API endpoints and business logic.
• parcel_handler folder: Contains the ParcelHandler and DepartmentFactory classes that handle the parsing and processing of parcels, and of course the Department classes.

Frontend

• src/constants/tableColumns.ts: Defines the table columns for displaying parcel data.
• src/pages/home/home.vue: The main Vue component for displaying the parcel data in a table format.
• src/types/table.ts: Defines the TypeScript types for the table columns.

Why the Factory Pattern?

The choosing of factory pattern was made for the following reasons:

1. Encapsulation: The factory pattern encapsulates the logic for creating department objects based on parcel weight and value. This makes the code more modular and easier to maintain.
2. Scalability: As business rules change or new departments are added, the factory pattern allows us to easily extend the system without modifying existing code.
3. Separation of Concerns: By using the factory pattern, we separate the logic for determining the appropriate department from the actual processing logic. This makes the code more readable and easier to test.

How to Run

Backend

1. Install the required dependencies:

   pip install fastapi pydantic uvicorn

2. Run the FastAPI application:

   uvicorn parcel_handling_system.api:app --reload

   or

   python3 api.py

Frontend

1. Install the required dependencies:

   pnpm install

2. Run the development server:

   pnpm dev

API Endpoints

• GET /parcels: Retrieves the list of parcels, processes them according to the business rules, and returns the processed parcels.

Example

Request

curl -X GET http://localhost:8000/parcels

Response

{
    "parcels": [
        {
            "name": "Parcel 1",
            "weight": 0.5,
            "value": 500,
            "department": "MailDepartment"
        },
        {
            "name": "Parcel 2",
            "weight": 5,
            "value": 1500,
            "department": "InsuranceDepartment"
        }
    ]
}