Develop Reference

Difference between require('module')() and const mod = require('module') mod() in node/express

I have two files: server.js and db.js
server.js looks as such:
...
const app = express();
app.use('/db', db());
app.listen(3000, () => {
console.log('Server started on port 3000')
});
...
and db.js as such:
...
function init() {
const db = require('express-pouchdb')(PouchDB, {
mode: 'minimumForPouchDB'
});
return db;
}
...
This works just fine, and I am able to reach the pouchdb http-api from my frontend. But before, I had const PouchDBExpress = require('pouchdb-express'); in the top of db.js, and the first line in init() looked like this; const db = PouchDBExpress(PouchDB, {. This gave an error in one of the internal files in pouchdb saying cannot set property query on req which only has getters (paraphrasing).
So this made me copy the exaples from pouchdb-servers GitHub examples which requires and invokes pouched-express directly, and everthing worked fine. Is there an explanation for this? I'm glad it works now, but I'm sort of confused as to what could cause this.

The only difference between:
require('module')()
and
const mod = require('module');
mod();
is that in the second case, you retain a reference to the module exports object (perhaps for other uses) whereas in the first one you do not.
Both cases load the module and then call the exported object as a function. But, if the module export has other properties or other methods that you need access to then, obviously, you need to retain a reference to it as in the second option.
For us to comment in more detail about the code scenario that you said did not work, you will have to show us that exact code scenario. Describing what is different in words rather than showing the actual code makes it too hard to follow and impossible to spot anything else you may have inadvertently done wrong to cause your problem.

In require('module')(), you don't retain a reference of the module imported.
While in const mod = require('module'); mod(), you retain a reference and can use the same reference later in your code.
This problem might be due to some other reason like -
Are you using a some another global instance of the db, and your code works in the given case as you are making a local instance
Some other code dependent scenario.
Please provide more details for the same

Express - better pattern for passing data between middleware functions

I just brought up this issue with Express and I am interested in what StackOverflow thinks about it:
https://github.com/strongloop/express/issues/2831
my question is why Express opts to disallow the developer from passing data directly between middleware functions and basically forces you to assign temporary data to the request object in what I have always considered to be a quite awkward assignment.
to be more specific:
passing data between middleware functions usually involves doing this
req.specialData = {}
next();
however, it would be perhaps much easier and more performant (!) if this were possible
next(null,data);
or
function mySpecialMiddleWare(req,res,next,data){}
//now, call the above function
mySpecialMiddleWare(req,res,next, {some:data});
the problem is that Express uses a, what I believe to be, stupid way of determining if the call is to a normal middleware function or the next error first middleware function, by checking to see if the function.length > 3 or function.length === 4...
is there any chance what I am saying makes any sense?
wouldn't it be better/easier/faster/stronger to allow direct passing of data via middleware functions instead of assigning data awkwardly to req ??
perhaps Express already has this capability and I am just misinformed?

my question is why Express opts to disallow the developer from passing data directly between middleware functions and basically forces you to assign temporary data to the request object in what I have always considered to be a quite awkward assignment.
So I think the API is the way it is to encourage most middleware to be modular, re-usable, and loosely coupled. That means the generally should do something without being concerned too much about what other middleware might run before them or after them. In order to achieve this and create an ecosystem of loosely-compatible middleware functions, express keeps the API fairly generic. There are pros and cons to this. But as a direct answer to your first question, I would say to keep the interface simple, consistent, and flexible as well as try to avoid strict ordering dependencies.
As in your case, there might be implicit dependencies between middlewares. Another common example would be typically your session middleware has an implicit dependency that your cookie middleware runs before it. Having these all be implicit can be argued to create bugs and unnecessary troubleshooting. On the other hand, it enables application developers to more easily mix and match middlewares that might otherwise have no awareness of one another.
In hindsight I think both I as well as some of the express maintainers would agree that using function arity (number of expected arguments) for semantic API reasons was an odd and poor choice on TJ's part. I think if the project were to be rewritten a more explicit API would be defined for error handling.
wouldn't it be better/easier/faster/stronger to allow direct passing of data via middleware functions instead of assigning data awkwardly to req ??
Better - this is highly arguable and opinion based. There is a lot to be said for the simplicity of it and the evidence is the huge ecosystem and usage. There are alternatives available such as hapi, restify, etc, though so you might consider them.
Easier - probably not. What's there is pretty easy.
Faster - probably not in any meaningful way. Not sure why you think your version would be faster, but best to bring metrics when you make such claims.
Stronger - If by "stronger" you mean more explicit that's probably true but there's a reason some people still prefer JavaScript even though TypeScript all the way up through Haskell exist and are definitely "stronger" in some sense of the word.

There might be advantages to what Express is doing, however, it is worth noting that Express allows passing data between middlewares using res.locals. With that said, your question inspired me to make this library. Expressjs-plus.
With it, you will be able to pass data between your middlewares easily without having to use the request nor the response object.
You can use regular javascript functions e.g. function(varInResLocals, varInReqParams, callback) instead of express middleware signature.
Here is a working example for you.
var express = require('express');
var ExpressPlus = require('expressjs-plus').ExpressPlus;
var app = express();
// simple handler example
var userHandler = function(param, paramsArray, req, res){
if(param !== 'user') return false;
paramsArray.push("USER WAS FOUND!");
return true;
};
// this handler allows you to pass res.locals properties between your middlewares seemingly,
// it the parameter was found in locals, it attaches it to paramsArray.
var resLocalsHandler = function(param, paramsArray, req, res){
if(param in res.locals){
paramsArray.push(res.locals[param]);
return true;
}else return false;
};
var appPlus = new ExpressPlus(app, [userHandler, resLocalsHandler], []);
var regularFunction = function(user, id, cb){
return cb(null, { response: {user: user, id: id}, status: 200, resLocalsVar: "passVar" });
};
// resLocalsVar was passed in a previous method
var regularFunction2 = function(resLocalsVar, user, id, cb){
// now you can have access to it
console.log(resLocalsVar);
return cb(null);
};
// the responder at the end will use res.locals.status and res.locals.response to issue an HTTP response
app.use(appPlus.GMV(regularFunction), appPlus.GMV(regularFunction2), appPlus.responder);
// adds error handlers, it will add a default error handler along with the list of error handlers passed
// in this case, no error handlers were passed
appPlus.setErrorHandlers();
app.listen(3001, function(){
console.log('Listening!');
});

Nodejs: Global variables across multiple files

I have written my code across several files for my node server.
If I have a file, say basket.js:
var Basket = {
fruits : 0,
addFruit : function() {
fruits++;
},
removeFruit : function() {
fruits--;
},
printFruit : function() {
console.log(this.fruits);
}
}
module.export = Basket;
And I have another file called give.js:
var Basket1 = require("./basket.js");
Basket1.addFruit();
Basket1.printFruit();
And another file called take.js:
var Basket2 = require("./basket.js");
Basket2.removeFruit();
Basket2.printFruit();
Will both files write into the same instance of Basket?
In other words, will they both have control over the property, fruits?
Does node manage race conditions on its own? i.e. if two commands to modify fruit come in at the same time from add and sub, does node know how to handle it?
If I want to make a way in which two files can look at a singleton at the same time and access it, is this the way to go?? Or how else does one do it?

Yes, they will access the same object.
Modules are cached after the first time they are loaded. This means (among other things) that every call to require('foo') will get exactly the same object returned, if it would resolve to the same file.
– Modules docs
No, node does not manage race conditions on its own, because race conditions will not be caused by node itself. Node is single-threaded and thus no code can be executed at the same time as other code. See for example this answer for some more explanation.

I'm a beginner but I think the correct syntax is module.exports not modules.export - if you may correct so that people don't wonder why it does not work like I just did :)

How can i use sinon to stub functions for neo4j Thingdom module

I am having some issues writing some unit tests where i would like to stub out the functionality of the neo4j Thingdom module.
After a few hours of failed attempts i have been searching around the web and the only point of reference i found was a sample project which used to sinon.createStubInstance(neo4j.GraphDatabase); to stub out the entire object. For me, and becuase this seemed to a be a throw away project i wanted a more fine grained approach so i can test that for instance as the Thingdom API outlines when saving a node you create it (non persisted) persist it and then you can index it if you wish which are three calls and could be outlined in multiple specific tests, which i am not sure can be achieved with the createStubInstance setup (i.e. found out if a function was called once).
Example "create node" function (this is just to illustrate the function, i am trying to build it out using the tests)
User.create = function(data, next){
var node = db.createNode(data);
node.save(function(err, node){
next(null,node);
});
};
I am able to stub functions of the top level object (neo4j.GraphDatabase) so this works:
it('should create a node for persistence', function(){
var stub = sinon.stub(neo4j.GraphDatabase.prototype, 'createNode');
User.create({}, res);
stub.calledOnce.should.be.ok;
stub.restore();
});
The issue comes with the next set of test i wish to run which tests if the call to persist the node to the database is called (the node,save) method:
I am not sure if this is possible or it can be achieved but i have tried several variations of the stub and non seem to work (on neo4j.Node, neo4j.Node.prototype) and they all come back with varying errors such as can't wrap undefined etc. and this is probably due to the createNode function generating the node and not my code directly.
Is there something i am glaringly doing wrong, am i missing the trick or can you just not do this? if not what are the best tactics to deal with stuff like this?

A possible solution is to return a stubbed or mocked object, giving you control on what happens after the node is created:
it('should create a node for persistence and call save', function () {
var stubbedNode = {
save: sinon.stub().yields(undefined, stubbedNode)
};
var stub = sinon.stub(neo4j.GraphDatabase.prototype, 'createNode').returns(stubbedNode);
User.create({}, res);
stub.calledOnce.should.be.ok;
stub.restore();
stubbedNode.save.calledOnce.should.be.ok;
});

We couldn't do it directly, the way the module is setup it doesn't work to well with Sinon. What we are doing is simply abstracting the module away and wrapping it in a simple facade/adapter which we are able to stub on our unit tests.
As we are not doing anything bar calling the neo4j module in that class we are integration (and will validate when regression testing) testing that part to make sure we are hitting the neo4j database.

Node.js global variable property is purged

my problem is not about "memory leakage", but about "memory purge" of node.js (expressjs) app.
My app should maintain some objects in memory for the fast look-up's during the service. For the time being (one or two days) after starting the app, everthing seemed fine, until suddenly my web client failed to look-up the object bacause it has been purged (undefined). I suspect Javascript GC (garbage collection). However, as you can see in the psedu-code, I assigned the objects to the node.js "global" variable properties to prevent GC from purging them. Please give me some clue what caused this problem.
Thanks much in advance for your kind advices~
My node.js environments are node.js 0.6.12, expressjs 2.5.8, and VMWare cloudfoundry node hosting.
Here is my app.js pseudo-code :
var express = require("express");
var app = module.exports = express.createServer();
// myMethods holds a set of methods to be used for handling raw data.
var myMethods = require("myMethods");
// creates node.js global properties referencing objects to prevent GC from purging them
global.myMethods = myMethods();
global.myObjects = {};
// omited the express configurations
// creates objects (data1, data2) inside the global.myObjects for the user by id.
app.post("/createData/:id", function(req, res) {
// creates an empty object for the user.
var myObject = global.myObjects[req.prams.id] = {};
// gets json data.
var data1 = JSON.parse(req.body.data1);
var data2 = JSON.parse(req.body.data2);
// buildData1 & buildData2 functions transform data1 & data2 into the usable objects.
// these functions return the references to the transformed objects.
myObject.data1 = global.myMethods.buildData1(data1);
myObject.data2 = global.myMethods.buildData2(data2);
res.send("Created new data", 200);
res.redirect("/");
});
// returns the data1 of the user.
// Problem occurs here : myObject becomes "undefined" after one or two days running the service.
app.get("/getData1/:id", function(req, res) {
var myObject = global.myObjects[req.params.id];
if (myObject !== undefined) {
res.json(myObject.data1);
} else {
res.send(500);
}
});
// omited other service callback functions.
// VMWare cloudfoundry node.js hosting.
app.listen(process.env.VCAP_APP_PORT || 3000);

Any kind of cache system (whether is roll-your-own or a third party product) should account for this scenario. You should not rely on the data always being available on an in-memory cache. There are way too many things that can cause in-memory data to be gone (machine restart, process restart, et cetera.)
In your case, you might need to update your code to see if the data is in cache. If it is not in cache then fetch it from a persistent storage (a database, a file), cache it, and continue.

Exactly like Haesung I wanted to keep my program simple, without database. And like Haesung my first experience with Node.js (and express) was to observe this weird purging. Although I was confused, I really didn't accept that I needed a storage solution to manage a json file with a couple of hundred lines. The light bulb moment for me was when I read this
If you want to have a module execute code multiple times, then export a function, and call that function.
which is taken from http://nodejs.org/api/modules.html#modules_caching. So my code inside the required file changed from this
var foo = [{"some":"stuff"}];
export.foo;
to that
export.foo = function (bar) {
var foo = [{"some":"stuff"}];
return foo.bar;
}
And then it worked fine :-)

Then I suggest to use file system, I think 4KB overhead is not a big deal for your goals and hardware. If you familiar with front-end javascript, this could be helpful https://github.com/coolaj86/node-localStorage