Recipe For A Disaster

Recipe for a Disaster is a small recipe manager application, fundamentally built with C++ language and object-oriented programming. The goal is to build a functionable application that reads and stores recipes from a file passed. Currently attempting to implement JSON logic. Ideally, there should exist functionality to enter a recipe via a website. This should help to improve concepts such as data management, file handling, and user interaction.

Learning Outcomes

• Develop knowledge of object-oriented programming through class design.
• Improve your understanding of file handling and data persistence.
• Learn to work with collections (like vectors) and algorithms for searching and sorting.
• Enhance your skills in console application development, including user input validation and error handling.

Design Considerations

1. Classes and Data Structures:
   • Recipe Class: Encapsulates properties like name, ingredients (could be a vector or list), instructions, cooking time, and category.
   • RecipeManager Class: Handles all logic related to recipe management (adding, deleting, searching).
   • User Interface Class: Manages console input and output, displaying menus and prompts.
2. File I/O: - Implement functions for reading from and writing to files for saving recipes in a structured format (like JSON or CSV). ** Changed this to mongoDB since drafting.
3. Error Handling: - Include validation for user inputs (e.g., ensuring ingredient lists are not empty).

Current Functionality

1. Displays the Main Menu of functions.
2. Add Recipe - Adds a new recipe.
3. View Recipe - Displays an existing recipe.
4. Update Recipe - Updates an existing recipe based on its title.
5. Delete Recipe - Deletes a recipe based on the title.
6. Recipe Search - Finds a recipe based on regex search.

Next Steps

• File I/O Implementation: Implement the loadRecipes and saveRecipes methods in RecipeManager to read from and write to files.
• User Input Validation: Add error checking and validation for user inputs.
• Additional Features: Consider implementing search and filtering functionality, favorites, or a graphical user interface as you progress.
• Data Storage: JSON to start and need to look at a backend DB.

Consider using nlohmann/json for easy JSON manipulation if you choose that format for data storage. Changed this since writing to MongoDB.

Environment

Running the Code Locally

These steps are under the assumption that xcode tools and gcc has been installed and is running on the latest version.

1. Switch to the directory on local workstation </$HOME/app-directory>
2. Execute clang++ -std=c++14 main.cpp Recipe.cpp RecipeManager.cpp -o RecipeManager to compile and build the application executable file.
3. Use ./RecipeManager and the name of the file without the .cpp extension.