Node.js friendly SQL library

SQLBox is not your typical ORM library like Sequelize or Mongoose, etc. It takes a different approach that involves simple function calls and plain (prototype free) objects. No worrying about this — ever.

Main differences

No class/instance method distinction, just normal node modules and functions.
Plays very nicely with Node and the ecosystem. (strict adherence to the standards)
Consitent declarative syntax where possible over things like chaining.

State

Currently Postgres and MySQL are supported. SQLite3 support is planned in the near-ish future.
It is stable and safe to use data wise. The APIs might change a bit as features are added/removed/changed.

Usage
Housekeeping

Usage

Setup

Installation

$ npm install sqlbox

In addition to sqlbox, you will also need to install the any-db adapter for your database.

$ npm install any-db-<postgres|mysql>

Create database client

Before anything, you must configure the database client.

var sqlbox = require('sqlbox');
 
sqlbox.createClient({
  dbURL: 'postgres://username:password@localhost/database_name', // required
  poolMin: 2,   // optional Minimum number of clients in the pool
  poolMax: 10   // optional Maximum number of clients in the pool
});

As noted above, both Postgres and MySQL are currently supported. SQLite3 soonish.

Configuring a model

To use sqlbox, you need to define your table in the database and your model in Node land. When creating the table in your database, you will need to make sure the following columns exist:

id — The primary key, must be set by the database on insert (either serial or some other function)
created_at — Set when row is inserted, must default to now()
updated_at — Updated everytime a row is updated. Should default to now()

CREATE TABLE "users" (
  "id" SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
  "created_at" timestamp DEFAULT now(),
  "updated_at" timestamp DEFAULT now(),
  "name" TEXT,
  "age" INTEGER,
  "email" TEXT,
  "hashed_password" TEXT
);

I recommend using something like db-migrate to create and maintain schema changes. Once that is created you will need to create the Node.js model. Here is a definition of the previously defined users table:

var sqlbox = require('sqlbox');
 
var User = sqlbox.create({
  name: 'user',
 
  columns: [
    {name: 'name', type: 'string'},
    {name: 'age', type: 'integer'},
    {name: 'email', type: 'string'},
    {name: 'hashedPassword', type: 'string'}
  ]
});

With that you have a fully functional model. The name property is the only required field. By default the plural form is used as the database table name. The columns property is an array defining the custom columns. Note that you don't have to specify the 4 required columns (id, created_at and updated_at).

Custom database table names

By default SQLBox uses the lowercase, underscore, plural form of the name property as the table name.

"user" -> users
"Users" -> users
"person" -> people
"creditCard" -> credit_cards

If you have more unique table names the following properties can be used to customize the table name:

namespace – Used to group models. If present, a lowercase, underscore form will be prefixed with the name.
tableName – When all else fails, use this. It is the exact name of the table name to use.

Here are some examples of what is produced:

{name: 'user', namespace: 'MyApp'} -> my_app_users
{name: 'user', tableName: 'myApp_member'} -> myApp_member

Alias column names

By default you use camelCase names for columns in sqlbox. These will be translated to their underscored versions when accessing the database. For example, if you have a column in the database named hashed_password, you would set the name value of the column in sqlbox to be hashedPassword.

You can alias a column name to something completely different by specifing source. Note that source is the exact representation of the database field (underscores, etc).

var User = sqlbox.create({
  name: 'user',
 
  columns: [
    {name: 'location', type: 'string', source: 'zip_code_or_state'}
  ]
});

Validations

There are 2 ways to validate a model before it is saved. The simple form:

var User = sqlbox.create({
  name: 'user',
 
  columns: [
    {name: 'name', type: 'string'},
    {name: 'age', type: 'integer'}
  ],
 
  validations: {
    name: ['isAlpha'],
    age: ['isInt', ['min', 13], ['max', 100]]
  }
});

SQLBox uses node-validator internally. Because of this you have access to all of the validation methods described there. Simply convert from the normal form .len(2, 10) to the array form ['len', 2, 10]. This API is pretty much final.

The other more advanced way is to specify validate which gets passed the object being validated and a node-validator instance to use to validate it.

var User = sqlbox.create({
  name: 'user',
 
  columns: [
    {name: 'name', type: 'string'},
    {name: 'age', type: 'integer'}
  ],
 
  validate: function (user, v) {
    v.check(user.name).isAlpha();
    v.check(user.age).isInt().min(13).max(100);
  }
});

It might look like these two examples are equivalent, but the first will give you an error message with a lot more details on what was expected and what failed. You should always prefer it over the validate method. Use validate when you have very custom logic. Note: Future updates will probably make validate async and require a callback so you can validate against external sources. This API is probably not final, be warned.

Hooks

Hooks let you specify custom logic when certain things have happened. The currently available hooks:

beforeValidation
afterValidation
beforeSave — Called before both creates and updates
afterSave — Called after both creates and updates
afterUpdate
afterCreate
afterFetch – Called after a row or rows are returned from the database

var User = sqlbox.create({
  name: 'user',
 
  columns: [
    {name: 'name', type: 'string'},
    {name: 'hashedPassword', type: 'integer'}
  ],
 
  hooks: {
    beforeSave: [hashPassword]
  }
});
 
function hashPassword(user, next) {
  if (user.password) {
    user.hashedPassword = hashingFunction(user.password);
  }
  next();
}

You can specify zero, one, or more hooks in the hooks object. The values should be either a single function or an array of functions to call one at a time when a hook is triggered. The hook functions must be in the form: function (obj, callback) where obj is the object triggering the hook. The second argument callback is a function that must be invoked and takes one optional argument err you can pass in if something went wrong.

Save hooks

When saving an object, the following hooks will be called in this order: beforeValidation, afterValidation, beforeSave, afterUpdate (or) afterCreate, afterSave. If validation passes then only beforeValidation will be called. If there are no changes to the record, only beforeValidation and afterValidation will be called.

All hooks and the actual save are by default contained in a SQL transaction. This allows you to do things like save related models in safety knowing that if anything goes wrong the database will be in a consitent state. Sometimes you don't want this behavior (reaching out to a lot of external services or something), to disable the tansaction pass the option transaction: false. (this actually doesn't work yet, soon)

Database interaction

Getting rows

get

Get a single row by id. If it is not found an error with code 404 will be passed back.

User.get(1, function (err, user) {
  // ...
});

mget

Get multiple rows by ids. Missing ids just won't return anything. If no ids exist, an empty array is passed back.

User.mget([1, 2, 3], function (err, users) {
  // ...
});

first

Find the first row that matches a query. Passes back undefined if nothing found.

User.first({name: 'Jim', age: 25}, function (err, user) {
  // ...
});

all

Find all rows that match a query.

User.all({age: 25}, function (err, users) {
  // ...
});

Selecting columns

To select only specific columns to return from the query, use the select option.

User.all({age: 25}, {select: ['name']}, function (err, users) {
  // only name column will be returned
});

Note: no columns are automatically returned, including the 'id' column. Because of this fact, the objects returned from the previous query should not be saved, else duplicates will be created since they have no ids, thus are new records. However, the good news is that if you select the id along with other columns, you can update the partial records and only the changed columns will be updated in the database.

Limiting and skipping

If you want to limit or skip rows, you can specify that option.

User.all({age: 25}, {limit: 10, offset:10}, function (err, users) {
  // ...
});

Sorting

To sort the rows, you supply an order option with the keys and direction to sort that key. Note that the order the keys appear in the object will be the order they are passed to the database.

User.all({age: 25}, {order: {name: 'desc'}}, function (err, users) {
  // ...
});
 
var order = {name: 'desc', location: 'asc'};
User.all({age: 25}, {order: order}, function (err, users) {
  // ...
});

Operators in queries

In the query of all and first, you can specify operators such as: in, lt, gte.

// Find all users with age greater than or equal to 21
User.all({age: {gte: 21}}, function (err, users) {});
 
// Find all users with age greater than or equal to 21 but less than 30
User.all({age: {gte: 21, lt: 30}}, function (err, users) {});
 
// More examples:
 
{name: {like: "%im"}, age: {lte: 25}}
 
{employer: {not: null}}

Here are a list of available operators:

eq
not
gt
gte
lt
lte
like
notLike
in
notIn

Saving data

save

To save a new row to the database, you simply use normal objects.

var user = {
  name: 'Jim',
  age: 25
};
 
User.save(user, function (err, savedUser) {
  // savedUser has the properties id, createdAt and updatedAt all set
});

To update a row simply fetch it, change it and save it. Only the fields that are changed will be sent to the database. When there are no changes — beforeSave, afterSave and afterUpdate hooks are not fired and no database interaction will happen.

User.get(1, function (err, user) {
  if (err) {
    // something like return callback(err);
  }
 
  user.age++;
  User.save(user, function (err, savedUser) {
    // ...
  });
});

You can also specify a where condition that has to match for the update to be successful. This is a great way to ensure a concurrent update doesn't leave things in a strange state.

User.get(1, function (err, user) {
  if (err) {
    // something like return callback(err);
  }
 
  var currentAge = user.age;
  user.age++;
 
  User.save(user, {age: currentAge} function (err, savedUser) {
    // ...
  });
});

modify

Since fetching, modifing and saving is such a common pattern SQLBox provides a simple abstraction to help out.

Here is an example of updating a user's age unless they are already older than 29.

User.modify(1, {age: {lt: 30}}, function mutator(user) {
  user.age++;
}, function (err, savedUser) {
  // ...
});

Open ended queries

These are lower level interfaces for working with the tables. They do not trigger any hooks, so use them with care.

query

Query using the model's internal node-sql definition. See the node-sql docs for all the good stuff you can do.

User.query(function (t) {
  return t.select().where({age: 32});
}, function (err, users) {
  // ...
});

client

Lastly you can access the database client you created directly.

var queryString = 'SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = $1';
var values = [12];
 
User.client.query(queryString, values, function (err, result) {
  if (err) {
    // ...
  }
 
  if (result.rows.length) {
    var user = result.rows[0];
  } else {
    // no user found
  }
});

Yep, it is that low level. It is just the db client, that one you created in sqlbox.createClient. Maybe something higher will be included later.

Complete example

var sqlbox = require('sqlbox');
 
sqlbox.createClient(function (pg) {
  return new pg.Client('postgres://localhost/database_name');
});
 
var User = sqlbox.create({
  name: 'user',
 
  columns: [
    {name: 'name', type: 'string'},
    {name: 'age', type: 'integer'},
    {name: 'email', type: 'string'},
    {name: 'hashedPassword', type: 'string'}
  ],
 
  validations: {
    name: ['isAlpha']
  }
});
 
User.save({name: 'Jim', age: '25'}, function (err, user) {
  if (err) {
    return console.log(err);
  }
 
  // Let's just fetch the user for example's sake
  User.get(user.id, function (err, fetchedUser) {
    if (err) {
      return console.log(err);
    }
 
    console.log(fetchedUser);
  });
});

Deleting records

You can delete a record by its id. In the callback you will be passed a potential error and a boolean indicating whether or not the record was removed.

User.remove(1, function (err, success) {
  // ...
});

Errors

Error handling in SQLBox is simple yet highly effective. All of the method's callbacks will be passed an Error object when an issue arises (standard Node convention). These errors are normal Errors except they have a code property. Conveniently, that code matches up with the equivalent HTTP status code. This makes using SQLBox with in a web app super easy, and in other places the error codes are quite memorable.

Example errors that arise and their code's:

.get — if item was not found: 404 not found
.save — if a concurrent update happened: 409 conflict
.save — duplicate insert on unique index: 409 conflict
.save — validation didn't pass: 403 validation error
.modify — ensure failed: 409 conflict
.modify — maxRetries hit: 504 timeout (nothing is wrong, it's just taking too long)
Unknown or other database errors — 500 internal error

Express goodness

Using these errors with Express is almost as good as petting a unicorn.

app.get('/users/:id', function (req, res, next) {
  User.get(req.params.id, function (err, user) {
    if (err) {
      return next(err);
    }
 
    res.render('user', {user: user});
  });
});
 
// ... a billion other routes for your social networking music site ...
 
 
// Error handler
app.all('*', function (err, req, res, next) {
  if (err.code) {
    res.status(err.code);
    res.render('errors/' + err.code);
  } else {
    // unknown error
    res.status(500);
    res.render('errors/500');
  }
});

Housekeeping

This software is BSD licensed. <3

Tested on Node 0.10.15 and 0.10.14.

sqlbox