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Announcements Controller

Overview

The announcements.controller manages course-specific announcements within the academic system. Faculty can post, update, or delete announcements for a course, and students can retrieve all relevant announcements. Each announcement can optionally include attachments and is enriched with faculty metadata.

Dependencies

import { Course } from '../models/course.model.js';
import { Faculty } from '../models/faculty.model.js';
import { Student } from '../models/student.model.js';
import { StudentCourse } from '../models/course.model.js';
import { User } from '../models/user.model.js';`

Controller Methods

Announcement Management

getCourseAnnouncements

Retrieves announcements for a specific course.

Input: - req.params: Contains courseId (course code)

Process: 1. Fetches course by course code. 2. Collects all unique postedBy faculty IDs from announcements. 3. Fetches faculty data and builds a lookup table. 4. Enriches each announcement with faculty details. 5. Sorts announcements by date in descending order.

Key Code Snippet 

const course = await Course.findOne({ courseCode: courseId });
const facultyMembers = await Faculty.find({ facultyId: { $in: facultyIds } });

const announcementsWithFaculty = course.announcements.map(announcement => ({
  ...announcement.toObject(),
  faculty: facultyLookup[announcement.postedBy] || null
}));

announcementsWithFaculty.sort((a, b) => new Date(b.date) - new Date(a.date)); Output: - Success (200): Returns course object with enriched announcements. - Error (404/500): Returns error message.

addCourseAnnouncement

Adds a new announcement to a course (faculty use).

Input: - req.params: Contains courseId - req.body: Contains title, content, importance (optional), and postedBy

Process: 1. Validates required fields. 2. Fetches course by course code. 3. Creates new announcement object with current date. 4. Pushes it to the course's announcement array and saves.

Key Code Snippet 

const newAnnouncement = {
  title,
  content,
  importance: importance || 'Medium',
  date: new Date(),
  postedBy
};

course.announcements.push(newAnnouncement);
await course.save();

Output: - Success (201): Returns success message and added announcement. - Error (400/404/500): Returns error message.

updateCourseAnnouncement

Updates an existing course announcement (faculty use).

Input: - req.params: Contains courseId, announcementId - req.body: Contains updated title, content, importance, attachments (optional)

Process: 1. Validates required fields. 2. Locates course and finds announcement index by ID. 3. Updates the relevant fields in the announcement. 4. Saves the updated course document.

Key Code Snippet 

const announcementIndex = course.announcements.findIndex(
  ann => ann.id.toString() === announcementId
);

course.announcements[announcementIndex].title = title;
course.announcements[announcementIndex].content = content;
course.announcements[announcementIndex].importance = importance || 'Medium';

if (attachments) {
  course.announcements[announcementIndex].attachments = attachments;
}

await course.save();

Output: - Success (200): Returns success message and updated announcement. - Error (400/404/500): Returns error message.

deleteCourseAnnouncement

Deletes a course announcement (faculty use).

Input: - req.params: Contains courseId, announcementId

Process: 1. Locates course by course code. 2. Finds and removes the announcement by ID from the announcements array. 3. Saves the updated course document.

Key Code Snippet 

const announcementIndex = course.announcements.findIndex(
  ann => ann.id.toString() === announcementId
);

course.announcements.splice(announcementIndex, 1);
await course.save();

Output: - Success (200): Returns success message. - Error (404/500): Returns error message.

Error Handling Strategy

  • All endpoints are wrapped in try-catch blocks.
  • Descriptive error messages and appropriate HTTP status codes.
  • Validation is applied for required fields (title, content, postedBy, etc.).
  • Logs errors to the server console for debugging.

Business Logic and Enrichment

  • Announcements are enhanced with metadata about the posting faculty.
  • Sorting is applied to show the most recent announcements first.
  • Optional fields like importance and attachments are supported.