🚀 Timestamp Microservice

A high-performance REST API for date-time operations and timezone conversions built with Rust and Actix-web

🌟 Features

✔ Current time retrieval in UTC and Unix timestamp
✔ Date parsing and timezone conversions
✔ Weekday calculations for any date
✔ Support for all major timezone formats
✔ Comprehensive error handling
✔ High-performance async operations

🛠 Tech Stack

Technology	Purpose
Rust 🦀	Systems programming language
Actix-web ⚡	Web framework
Chrono 📅	Date and time handling
Serde 📦	Serialization/Deserialization

🚀 Getting Started

Prerequisites

First, install Rust using Rustup:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

For more details and platform-specific instructions, visit the official Rust installation page: 🔗 Rust Installation Guide

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/timestamp_microservice.git
cd timestamp_microservice

2. Build the project:

cargo build

3. Run the tests:

cargo test

4. Start the server:

cargo run

The server will start on http://localhost:8080.

📡 API Endpoints

1. Get Current Time

Returns the current time in UTC and Unix timestamp format.

curl http://localhost:8080/api

Response:

{
    "unix": 1706400000000,
    "utc": "Sun, 28 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT",
    "timezone": "UTC",
    "local_time": "2024-01-28 00:00:00 +0000"
}

2. Get Time for Specific Date

curl http://localhost:8080/api/2024-01-28

With timezone:

curl "http://localhost:8080/api/2024-01-28?timezone=America/New_York"

3. List Available Timezones

curl http://localhost:8080/api/timezones

Response:

[
    "Africa/Abidjan",
    "America/New_York",
    "Asia/Tokyo",
    "Europe/London",
    ...
]

4. Get Weekday for Date

curl http://localhost:8080/api/weekday/2024-01-28

Response:

{
    "weekday": "Sunday"
}

🔍 Error Handling

The API uses structured error responses:

{
    "type": "InvalidDate",
    "message": "input contains invalid characters"
}

Error types:

• InvalidDate: Invalid date format
• InvalidTimezone: Unsupported timezone
• InternalError: Server-side error

🧪 Testing

Run all tests:

cargo test

Run specific test:

cargo test test_get_weekday

Run tests with output:

cargo test -- --nocapture

📂 Project Structure

/timestamp_microservice
├── src/
│   ├── main.rs           # Application entry point
│   ├── error.rs          # Error handling
│   └── handlers/         # Request handlers
│       ├── mod.rs        # Handler exports
│       ├── time.rs       # Time endpoints
│       ├── weekday.rs    # Weekday endpoint
│       └── timezones.rs  # Timezone endpoint
├── tests/                # Integration tests
├── Cargo.toml           # Dependencies
└── README.md           # Documentation

🛠 Development Commands

Cargo Commands

# Build the project
cargo build

# Build for release
cargo build --release

# Run the application
cargo run

# Run tests
cargo test

# Check for compilation errors
cargo check

# Update dependencies
cargo update

# Clean build artifacts
cargo clean

Development Tips

• Use cargo watch for auto-reloading:

  cargo install cargo-watch
  cargo watch -x run

• Format code:

  cargo fmt

• Check code style:

  cargo clippy

📚 API Documentation

Full API documentation with examples is available in the API.md file.

🤝 Contributing

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Commit your changes
4. Push to the branch
5. Create a Pull Request

📝 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

---

📖 Full Tutorial & Blog Post

📌 Read the step-by-step guide on my blog:
👉 Building a Timestamp Microservice with Rust and Actix-web

The tutorial covers:

• Setting up a Rust project with Actix-web
• Implementing timezone conversions with chrono
• Error handling best practices
• Writing integration tests
• API documentation
• Performance optimization tips

🔗 Contact

• Blog: dev.to/danielphilipjohnson