The Top Dart Libraries for Cloud Development

If you are thinking of deploying your Dart applications to the cloud, then you need to be aware of the top Dart libraries that will help you achieve that goal. By leveraging the power of these libraries, you can accelerate your cloud development process and create robust and scalable applications that perform well in the cloud.

In this article, we will look at some of the best Dart libraries for cloud development that you can use in your projects right away. These libraries will help you with different aspects of cloud development including communication, authorization, storage, and more. So let's get started.

Dart HTTP

To communicate with cloud services, you need a reliable HTTP library that can handle requests and responses effectively. Dart HTTP is one such library that provides a simple API for making HTTP requests and receiving responses. With Dart HTTP, you can create GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE requests easily and handle the response as per your requirements.

import 'package:http/http.dart' as http;

void main() async {
  var response = await http.get(Uri.parse('https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/todos/1'));

  print('Status code: ${response.statusCode}');
  print('Body: ${response.body}');
}

Dart HTTP is widely used in many Dart projects and is very stable and reliable. You can use it with any HTTP-based cloud service such as Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, or Microsoft Azure.

Dart gRPC

If you are building cloud-native applications, then chances are that you are using gRPC as your communication protocol. gRPC is a modern, high-performance, open-source framework for building distributed systems that connect different services. It uses Protocol Buffers as a serialization format and supports many programming languages including Dart.

To work with gRPC in Dart, you can use the Dart gRPC library that provides an API for both client and server-side applications. With Dart gRPC, you can easily create stubs for your services, define your messages using Protocol Buffers, and handle streaming requests and responses.

import 'package:grpc/grpc.dart';

class GreeterService extends GreeterServiceBase {
  @override
  Future<HelloReply> sayHello(ServiceCall call, HelloRequest request) async {
    return HelloReply()..message = 'Hello, ${request.name}!';
  }
}

Future<void> main(List<String> args) async {
  final server = Server([GreeterService()]);
  await server.serve(port: 50051);
  print('Server listening on port ${server.port}');
}

Dart gRPC is a very performant library that can help you create cloud-native applications that communicate effectively across different services.

Dart JWT

Authentication and authorization are critical components of any cloud application, and JWT (JSON Web Token) is a widely used standard for handling such tasks. With Dart JWT, you can easily generate and validate JWT tokens for your applications.

import 'package:jwt/json_web_token.dart';

void main() {
  const secret = 'mySecretKey';
  final jwt = JsonWebTokenCodec(secret: secret);

  final claimSet = JsonWebTokenClaims.fromJson(
    {
      'sub': '1234567890',
      'name': 'John Doe',
      'iat': 1516239022,
    },
  );

  final encoded = jwt.encode(claimSet);
  print('Encoded: $encoded');

  final decoded = jwt.decode('Bearer ' + encoded);
  print('Decoded: $decoded');
}

Dart JWT supports different algorithms for generating and decoding JWT tokens and is very easy to use. You can use it with any cloud service that supports JWT authentication and authorization.

Dart Firebase

Firebase is a cloud-based platform that provides backend as a service (BaaS) and other services for mobile and web applications. With Dart Firebase, you can easily integrate Firebase services into your Dart applications and leverage its real-time database, authentication, hosting, and other features.

import 'package:firebase/firebase.dart';

void main() {
  initializeApp(
    apiKey: 'YOUR_API_KEY',
    authDomain: 'YOUR_AUTH_DOMAIN',
    databaseURL: 'YOUR_DATABASE_URL',
    storageBucket: 'YOUR_STORAGE_BUCKET',
  );

  final auth = getAuth();
  auth.createUserWithEmailAndPassword('test@example.com', 'password').then((userCredential) {
    print(userCredential.user.email);
  });
}

Dart Firebase uses the official Firebase APIs and provides a thin layer of abstraction over them, making it very easy to use. You can use Dart Firebase with any Firebase project that you create.

Dart Google Cloud Storage

Google Cloud Storage is a powerful cloud storage service that provides infrastructure for storing and serving data on Google's scalable infrastructure. With Dart Google Cloud Storage, you can easily manipulate objects in a Google Cloud Storage bucket using Dart.

import 'package:gcloud/storage.dart';

void main() async {
  final storage = Storage(projectId, ServiceAccountCredentials.fromJson(json));
  final bucket = await storage.bucket(bucketName);
  final file = await bucket.writeBytes(
    'example.txt',
    [1, 2, 3],
    metadata: ObjectMetadata(contentType: 'text/plain'),
  );
}

Dart Google Cloud Storage provides an easy-to-use interface for working with Google Cloud Storage and supports all the standard operations such as uploading, downloading, deleting, and renaming objects.

Dart AWS SDK

If you are using Amazon Web Services (AWS) for your cloud infrastructure, then you can use the official Dart AWS SDK to interact with different AWS services such as EC2, S3, DynamoDB, and more.

import 'dart:io' show Platform;
import 'package:aws_signature_v4/aws_signature_v4.dart';
import 'package:http/http.dart' as http;

void main() async {
  final accessKeyId = 'YOUR_ACCESS_KEY_ID';
  final secretAccessKey = 'YOUR_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY';

  final signer = AwsSigV4Signer(
    accessKeyId,
    secretAccessKey,
    'us-west-2',
    's3',
  );

  final request = http.Request('GET', Uri.parse('https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/my-bucket/my-object'));

  final signedRequest = signer.sign(request);

  final response = await http.read(signedRequest.url);
  print(response);
}

Dart AWS SDK provides a clean and simple API for interacting with various AWS services and fits perfectly with Dart's async/await programming model.

Conclusion

In this article, we have looked at some of the top Dart libraries that can help you with cloud development. These libraries cover different aspects of cloud development such as communication, authorization, storage, and more, and are widely used in different Dart projects.

If you are starting with cloud development in Dart, then you should definitely explore these libraries and see how they fit into your development process. By leveraging the power of these libraries, you can create cloud-native applications that are scalable, robust, and performant.

So what are you waiting for? Start exploring these libraries and build amazing cloud applications with Dart!

Additional Resources