I am pretty certain there is a way to pass a variable using require.
So it would look something like this:
var model = require('model')(mongoose);
With the above line of code, I want to pass my model file my database information (mongoose), so that if I access the same model with a different database, I can pass it different database information.
However, even if the above syntax is correct, I am not sure what my model file itself would have to look like. Can anyone help me out with this?
module.exports = function (mongoose) {
// . . .
return model;
};
You can pass moongoose by argument to that file
var model = require('model')(mongoose);
Your module will look like this, you can make an object in module.exports and can attach multiple properties to that object and in the end return it from the function
module.exports = function (mongoose) {
model ={};
model.properties = {};
model.yourfunction1 = function(){};
return model;
};
I guess I can't assign anything else to module.exports in this case?
Answer to your comment is explained below
Choosing between module.exports and exports depends on you
For exports
exports.object1 = {};
exports.object2 = {};
For module.exports
module.exports = function(){
myobj={}
myobj.object1 = {};
myobj.object2 = {};
return myobj
}
Now calling it will be different
For exports it will be directly available on file variable
var file = require('./file');
console.log(file.object1);
For module.exports you will execute it like a function by appending function parenthesis so that object can be returned
var file = require('./file')();
console.log(file.myobj.object1);
Related
I'm having trouble understanding the difference between exporting modules like:
module.exports.getUserIP = function getUserIP(req) {
var ip = req.headers['x-forwarded-for'];
return ip;
}
Or just declaring it:
function getUserIP(req) {
// retrieve user IP from req object
// Build this function to be more accurate/use more sources.
var ip = req.headers['x-forwarded-for'];
return ip;
}
and exporting at the bottom:
module.exports = { getUserIP }
or even:
module.exports = {getUserIP:getUserIP}
or
module.exports = {'getUserIP':getUserIP}
My problem is: when i call the function getUserIP from another file:
var mainbody = require('./app.js');//getUserIP is in here.
const gl = require('geoip-lite');
var ax = require('axios');
module.exports.getloc = function getloc(req, ip, property) {
//return location from IP.
if (req) {
var ipGuest = mainbody.getUserIP(req); //HERE
} else {
var ipGuest = ip;
}....
I get an error message:
Error Message
However, when I use the FIRST method to export the function:
module.exports.getUserIP = function getUserIP(req) {
var ip = req.headers['x-forwarded-for'];
return ip;
}
Then it works perfectly.
What's the difference?
Better way is to use
module.exports = { getUserIP: getUserIP }
This way you can just look at the export statement at the end of your file and know which functions are being exported from a particular file
The module.exports = {getUserIP}; is nothing but a shorthand of the above syntax(ES6 Magic). What it typically does is allows you to write this way { getUserIP } if the key name to be same as function/variable name like { getUserIP: getUserIP } where getUserIP can be a variable or a function or a ES6 class.
All the examples you show will work properly, but they do have some different affects.
By default module.exports is already initialized to an empty object. So, when you do something like this:
module.exports.getUserIP = function() {...}
You are assigning a new property to the existing object that module.exports already pointed to. One advantage of this scheme is that you can easily add more properties the same way.
module.exports.getUserRegion = function() {}
This will add one more property to that same object without disturbing the first one you already added.
On the other hand, all of these are identical:
module.exports = {getUserIP: getUserIP}
module.exports = {'getUserIP':getUserIP}
module.exports = { getUserIP } // ES6 shorthand for the previous syntax
and, they all end up with the same result as each other, but they all replace module.exports with a new object that has your one new property in it.
If you then tried to add another property:
module.exports = {getUserRegion};
That would again assign a whole new object to module.exports and you would have just wiped out the object that previously had getUserIP on it. When assigning a new object, you would typically assign an object that had all your properties on it:
module.exports = {getUserIP: function() {...}, getUserRegion: function() {...}};
Thus, not wiping out something you had already put there.
All of your schemes should work fine as long as you aren't overwriting module.exports with a new object and thus overwriting the object that already had some of your methods on it.
To understand this exporting modules concept, just think module.export is a simple object. you can bind anything to that object as do with normal javascript objects.
Finally when you require that module by require('path to js') you will get that exported object. If you export number of items in your module you can return them back by giving the names of the tag.
//in app.js
var x = require("x.js");
var instanceX = new x();
require("./Weather")();
//in Weather.js
instanceX.getName();
In this case instanceX wouldn't exist when referenced from Weather.js. How do I make instanceX accessible in Weather.js?
There are a number of different ways to approach this in module design. One simple way is to just pass the variable to the weather.js constructor:
//in app.js
var x = require("x.js");
var instanceX = new x();
require("./Weather")(instanceX);
//in Weather.js
var instanceX;
module.exports = function(ix) {
instanceX = ix;
}
// then elsewhere in the module
instanceX.getName();
I refer to this as the "push" model because you're pushing things to the module that you want to share with it.
My module.exports = foo is returning a blank object {}. Can anyone explain this?
Only if i use exports = module.exports = foo that my object isn't blank.
module.exports is the variable that matters when defining exports. It's the actual object that will be returned from the require('moduleName') statement.
For convenience, node predefines exports as an alias essentiallly via:
var exports = module.exports;
That way you can then assign to either module.exports or just to exports. So, you can do either of these and they create the same result because module.exports === exports:
module.exports.myFunc1 = function() {};
module.exports.myFunc2 = function() {};
or this:
exports.myFunc1 = function() {};
exports.myFunc2 = function() {};
But, when you redefine module.exports by assigning a new object to it, then exports is no longer the same object as module.exports.
module.exports = {
myFunc1: function() {},
myFunc2: function() {}
};
Now, exports !== module.exports because you assigned a new object to module.exports and exports still points to the original module.exports.
So, to preserve the way it was originally (in case any other code in your module refers to exports, it is common to make sure that exports is again the same as module.exports with code like this:
module.exports = exports = {
myFunc1: function() {},
myFunc2: function() {}
};
If the code in your module never refers to exports itself, then you do not need to use it in any way because only module.exports actually matters to the outside world.
There is two ways to fullfill exports for your module. Choose whatever you like.
1) You can use add multiple properties to your module like that:
exports.foo = function () {};
exports.bar = function () {};
2) You can define single object like class, for example.
module.exports = Module;
function Module () {}
exports is just an alias for module.exports.
Use it when you want to return a object from your module, fullfilled with multiple properties.
Use module.exports when you want to return just a single value from your module.
If you define your module with module.exports, export itself becomes just a predefined variable, and you don't need to rewrite it.
All this you can find in docs
http://nodejs.org/api/modules.html#modules_the_module_object
'this' does not appear to refer to the instantiated budget controller object. Instead it seems to refer to the global object. Does anyone know why this is?
I've defined a budget model. Injected into the controller and I'm attempting to simply generate a random 6 char string when I hit /budgets in my app. Instead this.DEFAULT_SLUG_LENGTH is undefined and I can't figure out why.
This is a dumbed down test case illustrating the issue with 'this'. I have a similar problem when referencing the injected this.budget within another function to query the db based on the slug value.
//models/budget.js
var Schema = require('jugglingdb').Schema;
var schema = new Schema('postgres',{url:process.env.DATABASE_URL});
var Budget = schema.define('budgets',{
total: Number,
slug: String
});
module.exports = Budget;
====================
//controllers/budget.js
function BudgetController (budget) {
this.budget = budget;
};
BudgetController.prototype.DEFAULT_SLUG_LENGTH = 6;
BudgetController.prototype.generateSlug = function (req,res) {
var slug = "";
var possible = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789";
for (var i = 0; i < this.DEFAULT_SLUG_LENGTH; i++) {
slug += possible.charAt(Math.floor(Math.random() * possible.length));
}
res.send(slug);
};
module.exports = BudgetController;
===================
//app.js
var express = require('express');
var app = express();
app.use(express.bodyParser());
// models
var Budget = require('./models/budget');
// controllers
var BudgetController = require('./controllers/budget');
var budgetCtrl = new BudgetController(Budget);
// routes
app.get('/budgets',budgetCtrl.generateSlug);
app.listen(process.env.PORT || 4730);
If I manually instantiate the model/controller in the node repl, the generateSlug method works fine. If I restructure my code so that the BudgetController is a function that returns an object {} with methods, that seems to work fine. Is there some issue with my use of prototype/new ?
express takes functions and invokes them without a preceding object, so if you want to use an object method bound to a specific this as an express route handler function, you need to bind it:
app.get('/budgets', budgetCtrl.generateSlug.bind(budgetCtrl));
I am new to node.js and mongo db. What I am trying to do is to call the ordered function in my model.js from index.js but I have a complain
object function model() has no method ordered()
routes/index.js
var pics_ = models.Picture.ordered();
model.js
Picture.prototype.ordered = function() {
var ordered = mongoose.Picture.find().sort({points:-1}).toArray()
console.log(ordered);
return ordered;
};
If you want to add methods to your models, you should use the Mongoose supported ways for doing that. See http://mongoosejs.com/docs/methods-statics.html