node-vertica throws exception for multi-queries with a callback - node.js

I have created a simple web interface for vertica.
I expose simple operation above a vertica cluster.
one of the functionality I expose is querying vertica.
when my user enters a multi-query the node modul throws an exception and my process exits with exit 1.
Is there any way to catch this exception?
Is there any way overcome the problem in a different way?

Right now there's no way to overcome this when using a callback for the query result.
Preventing this from happening would involve making sure there's only one query in the user's input. This is hard because it involves parsing SQL.
The callback API isn't built to deal with multi-queries. I simply haven't bothered implementing proper handling of this case, because this has never been an issue for me.
Instead of a callback, you could use the event listener API, which will send you lower level messages, and handle this yourself.
q = conn.query("SELECT...; SELECT...");
q.on("fields", function(fields) { ... }); // 1 time per query
q.on("row", function(row) { ... }); // 0...* time per query
q.on("end", function(status) { ... }); // 1 time per query

Related

How to handle multiple database connections for 2 or 3 SELECT queries in AWS Lambda with nodejs?

The lambda's job is to see if a query returns any results and alert subscribers via an SNS topic. If no rows are return, all good, no action needed. This has to be done every 10 minutes.
For some reasons, I was told that we can't have any triggers added on the database, and no on prem environment is suitable to host a cron job
Here comes lambda.
This is what I have in the handler, inside a loop for each database.
sequelize.authenticate()
.then(() => {
for (let j = 0; j < database[i].rawQueries[j].length; j++) {
sequelize.query(database[i].rawQueries[j] => {
if (results[0].length > 0) {
let message = "Temporary message for testing purposes" // + query results
publishSns("Auto Query Alert", message)
}
}).catch(err => {
publishSns("Auto Query SQL Error", `The following query could not be executed: ${database[i].rawQueries[j])}\n${err}`)
})
}
})
.catch(err => {
publishSns("Auto Query DB Connection Error", `The following database could not be accessed: ${databases[i].database}\n${err}`)
})
.then(() => sequelize.close())
// sns publisher
function publishSns(subject, message) {
const params = {
Message: message,
Subject: subject,
TopicArn: process.env.SNStopic
}
SNS.publish(params).promise()
}
I have 3 separate database configurations, and for those few SELECT queries, I thought I could just loop through the connection instances inside a single lambda.
The process is asynchronous and it takes 9 to 12 seconds per invocation, which I assume is far far from optimal
The whole thing feels very very sub optimal but that's my current level :)
To make things worse, I now read that lambda and sequelize don't really play well together:
I am using sequelize because that's the only way I could get 3 connections to the database in the same invocation to work without issues. I tried mssql and tedious packages and wasn't able with either of them
It now feels like using an ORM is an overkill for this very simple task of a SELECT query, and I would really like to at least have the connections and their queries done asynchronously to save some execution time
I am looking into different ways to accomplish this and i went down the rabbit hole and I now have more questions than before! Generators? are they still useful? Observables with RxJs? Could this apply here? Async/Await or just Promises? Do I even need sequelize?
Any guidance/opinion/criticism would be very appreciated
I'm not familiar with sequelize.js but hope I can help. I don't know your level with RxJS and Observables but it's worth to try.
I think you could definitely use Observables and RxJS.
I would start with an interval() that will run the code every time you define.
You can then pipe the interval since it's an Observable, do the auth bit and do a map() to get an array of Observables (for each .query call, I am assuming all your calls, authenticate and query, are Promises so it's possible to transform them into Observables with from()). You can then use something like forkJoin() with the previous array to get a response after all calls are done.
In the .subscribe at the end, you would make the publishSns().
You can pipe a catchError() too and process errors.
The map() part might be not necessary and do it previously and have it stored in a variable since you don't depend on an authenticate value.
I'm certain my solution isn't the only one or the best but i think it would work.
Hope it helps and let me know if it works!

Is there any risk to read/write the same file content from different 'sessions' in Node JS?

I'm new in Node JS and i wonder if under mentioned snippets of code has multisession problem.
Consider I have Node JS server (express) and I listen on some POST request:
app.post('/sync/:method', onPostRequest);
var onPostRequest = function(req,res){
// parse request and fetch email list
var emails = [....]; // pseudocode
doJob(emails);
res.status(200).end('OK');
}
function doJob(_emails){
try {
emailsFromFile = fs.readFileSync(FILE_PATH, "utf8") || {};
if(_.isString(oldEmails)){
emailsFromFile = JSON.parse(emailsFromFile);
}
_emails.forEach(function(_email){
if( !emailsFromFile[_email] ){
emailsFromFile[_email] = 0;
}
else{
emailsFromFile[_email] += 1;
}
});
// write object back
fs.writeFileSync(FILE_PATH, JSON.stringify(emailsFromFile));
} catch (e) {
console.error(e);
};
}
So doJob method receives _emails list and I update (counter +1) these emails from object emailsFromFile loaded from file.
Consider I got 2 requests at the same time and it triggers doJob twice. I afraid that when one request loaded emailsFromFile from file, the second request might change file content.
Can anybody spread the light on this issue?
Because the code in the doJob() function is all synchronous, there is no risk of multiple requests causing a concurrency problem.
If you were using async IO in that function, then there would be possible concurrency issues.
To explain, Javascript in node.js is single threaded. So, there is only one thread of Javascript execution running at a time and that thread of execution runs until it returns back to the event loop. So, any sequence of entirely synchronous code like you have in doJob() will run to completion without interruption.
If, on the other hand, you use any asynchronous operations such as fs.readFile() instead of fs.readFileSync(), then that thread of execution will return back to the event loop at the point you call fs.readFileSync() and another request can be run while it is reading the file. If that were the case, then you could end up with two requests conflicting over the same file. In that case, you would have to implement some form of concurrency protection (some sort of flag or queue). This is the type of thing that databases offer lots of features for.
I have a node.js app running on a Raspberry Pi that uses lots of async file I/O and I can have conflicts with that code from multiple requests. I solved it by setting a flag anytime I'm writing to a specific file and any other requests that want to write to that file first check that flag and if it is set, those requests going into my own queue are then served when the prior request finishes its write operation. There are many other ways to solve that too. If this happens in a lot of places, then it's probably worth just getting a database that offers features for this type of write contention.

How to think asynchronously with nodejs?

I just started developing nodejs. I'm confused to use async model. I believe there is a way to turn most of SYNC use cases into ASYNC way. Example, by SYNC, we load some data and wait until it returns then show them to user; by ASYNC, we load data and return, just tell the user data will be presented later. I can understand why ASYNC is used in this scenario.
But here I have a use case. I'm building an web app, allowing user to place a order (buying something). Before saving the order data into db, I want to put some user data together with order data (I'm using document NoSql db by the way). So I think by SYNC, after I get order data, I make a SYNC call to database and wait for its returned user data. After I get returned data, integrate them together and ingest into db.
I think there might be an issue if I make ASYNC call to db to query user data because user data may be returned after I save data to db. And that's not what I want.
So in this case, how can I do this thing ASYNCHRONOUSLY?
Couple of things here. First, if your application already has the user data (the user is already logged in), then this information should be stored in session so you don't have to access the DB. If you are allowing the user to register at the time of purchase, you would simply want to pass a callback function that handles saving the order into your call that saves the user data. Without knowing specifically what your code looks like, something like this is what you would be looking for.
function saveOrder(userData, orderData, callback) {
// save the user data to the DB
db.save(userData, function(rec) {
// if you need to add the user ID or something to the order...
orderData.userId = rec.id; // this would be dependent on your DB of choice
// save the order data to the DB
db.save(orderData, callback);
});
}
Sync code goes something like this. step by step - one after other. There can be ifs and loops (for) etc. all of us get it.
fetchUserDataFromDB();
integrateOrderDataAndUserData();
updateOrderData();
Think of async programming with nodejs as event driven. Like UI programming - code (function) is executed when an event occurs. E.g. On click event - framework calls back registered clickHandler.
nodejs async programming can also be thought on these lines. When db query (async) execution completes, your callback is called. When order data is updated, your callback is called. The above code goes something like this:
function nodejsOrderHandler(req,res)
{
var orderData;
db.queryAsync(..., onqueryasync);
function onqueryasync(userdata)
{
// integrate user data with order data
db.update(updateParams, onorderudpate);
}
function onorderupdate(e, r)
{
// handler error
write response.
}
}
javascript closure provides the way to keep state in variables across functions.
There is certainly much more to async programming and there are helper modules that help with basic constructs like chain, parallel, join etc as you write more involved async code. but this probably gives you a quick idea.

To async, or not to async in node.js?

I'm still learning the node.js ropes and am just trying to get my head around what I should be deferring, and what I should just be executing.
I know there are other questions relating to this subject generally, but I'm afraid without a more relatable example I'm struggling to 'get it'.
My general understanding is that if the code being executed is non-trivial, then it's probably a good idea to async it, as to avoid it holding up someone else's session. There's clearly more to it than that, and callbacks get mentioned a lot, and I'm not 100% on why you wouldn't just synch everything. I've got some ways to go.
So here's some basic code I've put together in an express.js app:
app.get('/directory', function(req, res) {
process.nextTick(function() {
Item.
find().
sort( 'date-modified' ).
exec( function ( err, items ){
if ( err ) {
return next( err );
}
res.render('directory.ejs', {
items : items
});
});
});
});
Am I right to be using process.nextTick() here? My reasoning is that as it's a database call then some actual work is having to be done, and it's the kind of thing that could slow down active sessions. Or is that wrong?
Secondly, I have a feeling that if I'm deferring the database query then it should be in a callback, and I should have the actual page rendering happening synchronously, on condition of receiving the callback response. I'm only assuming this because it seems like a more common format from some of the examples I've seen - if it's a correct assumption can anyone explain why that's the case?
Thanks!
You are using it wrong in this case, because .exec() is already asynchronous (You can tell by the fact that is accepts a callback as a parameter).
To be fair, most of what needs to be asynchronous in nodejs already is.
As for page rendering, if you require the results from the database to render the page, and those arrive asynchronously, you can't really render the page synchronously.
Generally speaking it's best practice to make everything you can asynchronous rather than relying on synchronous functions ... in most cases that would be something like readFile vs. readFileSync. In your example, you're not doing anything synchronously with i/o. The only synchronous code you have is the logic of your program (which requires CPU and thus has to be synchronous in node) but these are tiny little things by comparison.
I'm not sure what Item is, but if I had to guess what .find().sort() does is build a query string internally to the system. It does not actually run the query (talk to the DB) until .exec is called. .exec takes a callback, so it will communicate with the DB asynchronously. When that communication is done, the callback is called.
Using process.nextTick does nothing in this case. That would just delay the calling of its code until the next event loop which there is no need to do. It has no effect on synchronicity or not.
I don't really understand your second question, but if the rendering of the page depends on the result of the query, you have to defer rendering of the page until the query completes -- you are doing this by rendering in the callback. The rendering itself res.render may not be entirely synchronous either. It depends on the internal mechanism of the library that defines the render function.
In your example, next is not defined. Instead your code should probably look like:
app.get('/directory', function(req, res) {
Item.
find().
sort( 'date-modified' ).
exec(function (err, items) {
if (err) {
console.error(err);
res.status(500).end("Database error");
}
else {
res.render('directory.ejs', {
items : items
});
}
});
});
});

Meteor blocking clarification

According to the meteor docs, inserts block:
On the server, if you don't provide a callback, then insert blocks
until the database acknowledges the write, or throws an exception if
something went wrong. If you do provide a callback, insert still
returns the ID immediately.
So this would be wrong:
Meteor.methods({
post: function (options) {
return Stories.insert(options)
}
});
I need to do this:
Meteor.methods({
post: function (options) {
return Stories.insert(options, function(){})
}
});
Can somebody confirm that this is the case? The former will block the ENTIRE SERVER until the db returns?
Yeah, it will block, but not the entire server.
In Meteor, your server code runs in a single thread per request, not in the asynchronous callback style typical of Node. We find the linear execution model a better fit for the typical server code in a Meteor application.
So, if you are worried about that it will block the entire server as it will do in typical Node, don't be.

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