Pass function to next function, fire depending on condition. nodejs - node.js

Im using express.js to create a node.js REST server, as a part o this i am also creating a simple session system. I have 3 modules:
app.js
highscoreMan.js
userSession.js
The app.js url for http://localhost/api/highscores now calls userSession with given parameters:
//Get all highscores
app.get('/api/highscores', function (req, res) {
userSession.checkValidity(req.query['username'], req.query['sessionid'], highscoreMan.getAll(req, res));
});
However, in checkValidity the function that i pass is automatically called:
function checkValidity(username, sessionId, callback) {
userSession.findOne({ userid: username, sessionid: sessionId }, function (err, result) {
if (err) {
console.log(err);
}
if(result) {
callback;
}
});
}
I only want to run the function being passed given that i get the proper results from the database(other checks will be added later for session dates etc.). How would i do this?

To delay calling highscoreMan.getAll(), you'll need to make it a statement of another function that can be called later:
app.get('/api/highscores', function (req, res) {
userSession.checkValidity(req.query['username'], req.query['sessionid'], function () {
highscoreMan.getAll(req, res);
});
});
Otherwise, it's being called immediately and its return value is instead being passed to userSession.checkValidity().
Note that you'll also need to adjust checkValidity to call the passed callback:
// ...
if(result) {
callback();
}
// ...

Unless I don't fully understand your problem, couldn't you just do something like this?
if (result && some_validator(result)) {
callback();
}

Related

Unit testing with Supertest, Mocha & Sinon timing out

I am trying to write a unit/integration test where I want to get a list of things in the database. For not it is only a GET, but these tests needs to extend to POST, PUT & DELETE.
The code I have thus far works fine, I can actually get data from the DB, but as soon as I try to stub out the function which is responsable for making the call to the DB, Mocha times out
1 failing
1) /account_types GET 200 List:
Error: timeout of 2000ms exceeded. Ensure the done() callback is being called in this test.
at null. (C:\Code\JS\general_admin_service\node_modules\mocha\lib\runnable.js:215:19)
I understand the done() callback isn't being called because the code is stuck somewhere, however, I do not understand what I am doing wrong.
I used the following references to get where I am:
Testing With Mocha, Sinon.js & Mocking Request
Lessons learned from unit testing with Sinon.JS
My code is as follows:
The Test:
'use strict';
var expect = require('chai').expect,
request = require('supertest'),
chance = require('chance').Chance(),
server = require('../server'),
sinon = require('sinon'),
select = require('../../helpers/data_access/select');
describe("/account_types", function () {
before(function(done){
sinon
.stub(select, "query_list")
.returns([{id: "test"}]);
done();
});
after(function(done){
select
.query_list
.restore();
done();
});
it('GET 200 List', function (done) {
request(server.baseURL)
.get('/api/v1/account_types')
.set('Accept', 'application/json')
.expect('Content-Type', 'application/json')
.expect(200)
.end(function (err, res) {
/* istanbul ignore if */
if (err)
return done(err);
expect(res.body).to.include.keys('result');
expect(res.body.result).to.not.be.null;
expect(res.body.result).to.not.be.undefined;
expect(res.body.result).to.be.an('Array');
expect(res.body.result.length).to.be.above(0);
//expect(select.query_list).to.have.been.calledOnce;
return done();
});
});
});
Restify endpoint:
var select = require('../helpers/data_access/select')
module.exports = function (server) {
var query = "..."
return select.query_list(res, next, db_config, query);
});
};
select.js:
var sql = require('mssql');
module.exports = {
query_list: function (res, next, config, sql_query) {
return query(res, next, config, sql_query, true);
},
query_single: function (res, next, config, sql_query) {
return query(res, next, config, sql_query, false);
}
};
function query(res, next, config, sql_query, isList) {
var connection = new sql.Connection(config);
connection.connect(function (err) {
if (err) {
return on_error(err, res);
}
var request = new sql.Request(connection);
request.query(sql_query, function (err, response) {
connection.close();
if (err) {
return on_error(err, res);
}
if (isList) {
return return_list(res, response, next);
} else {
return return_single(res, response, next);
}
});
});
}
function on_error(error, res, next) {
res.status(500).send(error);
return next();
}
function return_list(res, response, next) {
res.send({result: response});
return next();
}
function return_single(res, response, next) {
res.send({result: response[0]});
return next();
}
What I expect to happen is that because I stub out the query_list function, should I wish to put a console.log(res.body.result); after the expect's I have in place, I should see a return of [{id: "test"}], but it is obviously not getting to that point.
What am I doing wrong?
UPDATE: Added the full select.js file.
As you already make clear in the comments, it's difficult to test code that's deeply nested.
It's usually much better to work with callbacks or promises, so that each piece of your app will handle the part it's responsible for, but not (much) more. So your route handler will handle the request and the response. It's obviously okay to call other functions, like ones that perform database queries, but instead of letting those functions send back a response, you use callbacks that "call back" to the route handler with the query results.
Something like this:
server.get('/api/v1/account_types', function(req, res, next) {
select.query_list(QUERY, function(err, records) {
if (err) return next(err);
res.send({ results : records });
next();
});
});
In terms of using Sinon to test something like this: it really depends on the exact implementation. I can provide a quick example on how to stub the above usage of select.query_list, to make sure that the response contains the correct data.
The basic stub looks like this:
sinon.stub(select, 'query_list').yieldsAsync(null, [ { id : 'test' } ]);
What this does, is when select.query_list() gets call, it will call the first callback argument it receives (it does this by checking each argument to see which is a function) with the arguments null, [ { id : 'test' } ].
Those are the err and records arguments of the callback function passed in the handler. So you can use this to skip the database query entirely and pretend that the query yielded a particular array of records.
From there, res.send() gets called (which was the issue that you initially ran into: it didn't get called at all because it was being performed in a part of your app that wasn't getting called because of your stub) and you can check in your test if the resulting response data is as expected.
It becomes a bit more complicated if you want to stub a function deeper in the call stack, but with the correct Sinon tools (like .yields*, or using spies instead of stubs) it's usually not terribly difficult (provided that all the functions that you want to stub/spy are accessible, that is, exported).

How to handle callbacks in Node.js?

Let's say I have 3 files.
index.js makes a call to the backend like this
$.post('/test/', data, function(response) {
//handle success here
})
routes.js handles the route like this
app.post('/test/', function(req, res){
item.getItems(function(response){
res.json(response);
});
});
items.js is the model which accesses the database and makes a POST request for each item
function getItems(callback) {
database.query('SELECT * from items', function(result){
result.forEach(function(item){
request.post('/api/', item, function(req, res) {
//finished posting item
});
});
});
//callback here doesnt wait for calls to finish
}
where/when should I call the callback passed to getItems() to handle a success/failure in index.js?
Because your request.post() operations are async, you have to use some method of keeping track of when they are all done and then you can call your callback. There are multiple ways of doing that. I'll outline a few:
Manually Keeping Track of Count of Request Operations
function getItems(callback) {
database.query('SELECT * from items', function(result){
var remaining = result.length;
result.forEach(function(item){
request.post('/api/', item, function(err, res) {
--remaining;
//finished posting item
if (remaining === 0) {
callback();
}
});
});
});
}
The main problem with doing this manually is that propagating error in nested async operations is difficult when you get to actually figuring out how you're going to handle errors. This is much easier in the other methods shown here.
Using Promises
// load Bluebird promise library
var Promise = require('bluebird');
// promisify async operations
Promise.promisifyAll(request);
function queryAsync(query) {
return new Promise(function(resolve, reject) {
// this needs proper error handling from the database query
database.query('SELECT * from items', function(result){
resolve(result);
});
});
}
function getItems(callback) {
return queryAsync('SELECT * from items').then(function(result) {
return Promise.map(result, function(item) {
return request.postAsync('/api/', item);
});
});
}
getItems.then(function(results) {
// success here
}, function(err) {
// error here
})
It seems strange that you're making an API request in your server-side code, unless this is some sort of middle tier code that interacts with the API... but you're interacting with a database, so I'm still confused on why you can't just do a database insert, or have a bulk insert API call?
Anyway, if you must do it the way you're asking, I've done this in the past with a recursive method that trims down the result array... I really don't know if this is a good approach, so I'd like to hear any feedback. Something like this:
function recursiveResult(result, successfulResults, callback) {
var item = result.shift();
// if item is undefined, then we've hit the end of the array, so we'll call the original callback
if (item !== undefined) {
console.log(item, result);
// do the POST in here, and in its callback, call recursiveResult(result, successfulResults, callback);
successfulResults.push(item);
return recursiveResult(result, successfulResults, callback);
}
// make sure callback is defined, otherwise, server will crash
else if (callback) {
return callback(successfulResults);
}
else {
// log error... callback undefined
}
}
function getItems(callback) {
var successfulResults = [];
var result = [1, 2, 3, 4];
recursiveResult(result, successfulResults, callback);
}
console.log('starting');
getItems(function(finalResult) {
console.log('done', finalResult);
});

Getting "Function: Bound" when trying to call a method

I'm using the Sails.js MVC and I'm trying to setup a service so I can make a call to an Active Directory server and pass the data for a user back to my controller.
I'm using some internal company modules for this which connect to our servers and pass back a user array with all the data for a selected user.
If I do this by making a function directly in the API controller it works fine, but when doing it by calling through a function from a separate file, rather than returning an array of [Function: bound].
Code from controller (LabController.js):
var adGet = require('../services/adGet');
module.exports = {
test: function (req, res) {
console.log(adGet.userData);
res.view({
user: adGet.userData
});
}
}
Code from the service (adGet.js):
module.exports = {
userData: function (req, res) {
var ad = require('active-directory');
ad.setCredentials({
user: 'username_removed',
password: 'password_removed'
});
ad.getUser(req.session.sisso.idsid).then(function (user) {
return (user);
});
}
}
Any help is greatly appreciated.
There's a few issues here.
First, you're trying to use return in your userData service method to return data, but it's an asynchronous function so that return statement is sending the data anywhere. You need to pass in a callback function as an argument to userData that can be called when the data is ready (i.e. when the database query returns):
module.exports = {
// note the new `cb` argument
userData: function (req, res, cb) {
var ad = require('active-directory');
ad.setCredentials({
user: 'username_removed',
password: 'password_removed'
});
ad.getUser(req.session.sisso.idsid)
.then(function (user) {
// Still nice to use `return` to make sure nothing
// gets executed after this statement, but it's the
// callback function that actually gets the data.
// Note the `null` first argument, indicating no errors.
return cb(null,user);
})
.catch(err) {
return cb(err);
});
}
}
Second, you're sending the adGet.userData function to your view as a local variable, but you're not actually calling it to get the data. And since it's an asynchronous function, you won't be able to call it from your view. You need to call it from within the controller and send the result to the view:
var adGet = require('../services/adGet');
module.exports = {
test: function (req, res) {
// Call service function, passing callback function in as argument
adGet.userData(req, res, function(err, user) {
// Handle errors
if (err) {return res.serverError(err);}
// If all goes well, send user data to view
return res.view({
user: user
});
});
}
}
Less importantly, you could refactor the userData method to not accept req and res as arguments--it's overkill. Save req and res for your controllers whenever possible. It would be better to have userData just expect userId and callback as arguments. Also, unless you've turned global services off using the config/globals.js file, you don't need to require the services file at the top of your controller; the adGet variable will be made available to you automatically.

Testing Express and Mongoose with Mocha

I'm trying to test my REST API endpoint handlers using Mocha and Chai, the application was built using Express and Mongoose. My handlers are mostly of the form:
var handler = function (req, res, next) {
// Process the request, prepare the variables
// Call a Mongoose function
Model.operation({'search': 'items'}, function(err, results) {
// Process the results, send call next(err) if necessary
// Return the object or objects
return res.send(results)
}
}
For example:
auth.getUser = function (req, res, next) {
// Find the requested user
User.findById(req.params.id, function (err, user) {
// If there is an error, cascade down
if (err) {
return next(err);
}
// If the user was not found, return 404
else if (!user) {
return res.status(404).send('The user could not be found');
}
// If the user was found
else {
// Remove the password
user = user.toObject();
delete user.password;
// If the user is not the authenticated user, remove the email
if (!(req.isAuthenticated() && (req.user.username === user.username))) {
delete user.email;
}
// Return the user
return res.send(user);
}
});
};
The problem with this is that the function returns as it calls the Mongoose method and test cases like this:
it('Should create a user', function () {
auth.createUser(request, response);
var data = JSON.parse(response._getData());
data.username.should.equal('some_user');
});
never pass as the function is returning before doing anything. Mongoose is mocked using Mockgoose and the request and response objects are mocked with Express-Mocks-HTTP.
While using superagent and other request libraries is fairly common, I would prefer to test the functions in isolation, instead of testing the whole framework.
Is there a way to make the test wait before evaluating the should statements without changing the code I'm testing to return promises?
You should use an asynchronous version of the test, by providing a function with a done argument to it.
For more details refer to http://mochajs.org/#asynchronous-code.
Since you don't want to modify your code, one way to do that could be by using setTimeout in the test to wait before to call done.
I would try something like this:
it('Should create a user', function (done) {
auth.createUser(request, response);
setTimeout(function(){
var data = JSON.parse(response._getData());
data.username.should.equal('some_user');
done();
}, 1000); // waiting one second to perform the test
});
(There might be better way)
Apparently, express-mocks-http was abandoned a while ago and the new code is under node-mocks-http. Using this new library it is possible to do what I was asking for using events. It's not documented but looking at the code you can figure it out.
When creating the response object you have to pass the EventEmitter object:
var EventEmitter = require('events').EventEmitter;
var response = NodeMocks.createResponse({eventEmitter: EventEmitter});
Then, on the test, you add a listener to the event 'end' or 'send' as both of them are triggered when the call to res.send. 'end' covers more than 'send', in case you have calls other than res.send (for example, res.status(404).end().
The test would look something like this:
it('Should return the user after creation', function (done) {
auth.createUser(request, response);
response.on('send', function () {
var data = response._getData();
data.username.should.equal('someone');
data.email.should.equal('asdf2#asdf.com');
done();
});
});

Using Waterline find method with promisses

I'm stuck when it comes to returning response, from method that includes database call.
Here's sample of what I need...
service.js
module.exports = {
getUserStatus: function(userId){
return User
.find()
.where({userId: userId)
.exec(function(err, user){
return user.status;
}
}
}
In this service.js, I should fetch user's status and if I console.log(user.status) inside exec method, that is printed OK (I got status).
The problem is I need this result outside service.js:
controller.js
// this code is extracted from longer file, just for demo purpose.
// userService is required 'service.js'
index: function(req, res) {
var status = userService.getUserStatus(req.session.User.id);
console.log(status);
return res.view({userStatus: status});
}
If I console.log(status) here, it will be undefined.
I guess that it has something to do with promises and stuff (because of the async calls), but not sure what is the right way to do it.
getUserStatus contains asynchronous code, so it needs a callback:
module.exports = {
getUserStatus: function(userId, cb){
User.findOne().where({userId: userId}).exec(function(err, user){
if (err) return cb(err);
return cb(null, user.status);
});
}
}
then in the code that uses it:
index: function(req, res) {
userService.getUserStatus(req.session.User.id, function(err, status) {
// If an error was returned from the service, bail out
if (err) {return res.serverError(err);}
console.log(status);
return res.view({userStatus: status});
});
}
Note the use of findOne instead of find; find will return an array.
An alternative would be to return a promise from the service function, and chain your controller code with .then() and .fail():
module.exports = {
getUserStatus: function(userId, cb){
return User.findOne().where({userId: userId});
}
}
index: function(req, res) {
userService.getUserStatus(req.session.User.id)
.then(function(user) {
console.log(user.status);
return res.view({userStatus: user.status});
})
.fail(function(err) {
return res.serverError(err);
});
});
}
It's a matter of preference, but I think the first method is better especially in your case, since it allows the service call to deliver just the status, rather than the whole user object. In general, getting used to the standard (err, result) callback method in Node will serve you well.

Resources