Validating Mongoose Array Updates with JSON Patch - mongodb

I am currently building an API which uses the JSON patch specification to do partial updates to MongoDB using the Mongoose ORM.
I am using the node module mongoose-json-patch to apply patches to my documents like so:
var patchUpdate = function(req, res){
var patches = req.body;
var id = req.params.id;
User.findById(id, function(err, user){
if(err){ res.send(err);}
user.patch(patches, function(err){
if(err){ res.send(err);}
user.save(function(err){
if(err) {res.send(err);}
else {res.send("Update(s) successful" + user);}
});
});
});
};
My main issues occur when I am trying to remove or replace array elements with the JSON patch syntax:
var patches = [{"op":"replace", "path": "/interests/0", "value":"Working"}]
var user = {
name: "Chad",
interests: ["Walking", "Eating", "Driving"]
}
This should replace the first item in the array ("Walking") with the new value ("Working"), however I can't figure out how to validate what is actually being replaced. If another request removed /interests/0 prior to the patch being applied, "Eating" would be replaced by "Working" instead of "Walking", which would no longer exist in the array.
I would like to be sure that if the client thinks he is editing "Walking", then he will either successfully edit it, or at least get an error.

After running into the same issue like this myself i'll share my solution. The spec (described here) describes six operations, one of which is test. The source describes the test operation as
Tests that the specified value is set in the document. If the test fails, then the patch as a whole should not apply.
To ensure that you're changing the values that you're expecting you should validate the state of the data. You do this by preceeding your replace or remove operation with a test operation, where the value is equal to the expected data state. If the test fails, the following operations will not be executed.
With the test operation your patch data will look like this:
var patches = [
{"op":"test", "path": "/interests/0", "value": currentValue}, //where currentValue is the expected value
{"op":"replace", "path": "/interests/0", "value":"Working"}
]

Related

Query sailsjs blueprint endpoints by id array using request

I'm using the request library to make calls from one sails app to another one which exposes the default blueprint endpoints. It works fine when I query by non-id fields, but I need to run some queries by passing id arrays. The problem is that the moment you provide an id, only the first id is considered, effectively not allowing this kind of query.
Is there a way to get around this? I could switch over to another attribute if all else fails but I need to know if there is a proper way around this.
Here's how I'm querying:
var idArr = [];//array of ids
var queryParams = { id: idArr };
var options: {
//headers, method and url here
json: queryParams
};
request(options, function(err, response, body){
if (err) return next(err);
return next(null, body);
});
Thanks in advance.
Sails blueprint APIs allow you to use the same waterline query langauge that you would otherwise use in code.
You can directly pass the array of id's in the get call to receive the objects as follows
GET /city?where={"id":[1, 2]}
Refer here for more.
Have fun!
Alright, I switched to a hacky solution to get moving.
For all models that needed querying by id arrays, I added a secondary attribute to the model. Let's call it code. Then, in afterCreate(), I updated code and set it equal to the id. This incurs an additional database call, but it's fine since it's called just once - when the object is created.
Here's the code.
module.exports = {
attributes: {
code: {
type: 'string'//the secondary attribute
},
// other attributes
},
afterCreate: function (newObj, next) {
Model.update({ id: newObj.id }, { code: newObj.id }, next);
}
}
Note that newObj isn't a Model object as even I was led to believe. So we cannot simply update its code and call newObj.save().
After this, in the queries having id arrays, substituting id with code makes them work as expected!

Subscribing to Meteor.Users Collection

// in server.js
Meteor.publish("directory", function () {
return Meteor.users.find({}, {fields: {emails: 1, profile: 1}});
});
// in client.js
Meteor.subscribe("directory");
I want to now get the directory listings queried from the client like directory.findOne() from the browser's console. //Testing purposes
Doing directory=Meteor.subscribe('directory')/directory=Meteor.Collection('directory') and performing directory.findOne() doesn't work but when I do directory=new Meteor.Collection('directory') it works and returns undefined and I bet it CREATES a mongo collection on the server which I don't like because USER collection already exists and it points to a new Collection rather than the USER collection.
NOTE: I don't wanna mess with how Meteor.users collection handles its function... I just want to retrieve some specific data from it using a different handle that will only return the specified fields and not to override its default function...
Ex:
Meteor.users.findOne() // will return the currentLoggedIn users data
directory.findOne() // will return different fields taken from Meteor.users collection.
If you want this setup to work, you need to do the following:
Meteor.publish('thisNameDoesNotMatter', function () {
var self = this;
var handle = Meteor.users.find({}, {
fields: {emails: 1, profile: 1}
}).observeChanges({
added: function (id, fields) {
self.added('thisNameMatters', id, fields);
},
changed: function (id, fields) {
self.changed('thisNameMatters', id, fields);
},
removed: function (id) {
self.removed('thisNameMatters', id);
}
});
self.ready();
self.onStop(function () {
handle.stop();
});
});
No on the client side you need to define a client-side-only collection:
directories = new Meteor.Collection('thisNameMatters');
and subscribe to the corresponding data set:
Meteor.subscribe('thisNameDoesNotMatter');
This should work now. Let me know if you think this explanation is not clear enough.
EDIT
Here, the self.added/changed/removed methods act more or less as an event dispatcher. Briefly speaking they give instructions to every client who called
Meteor.subscribe('thisNameDoesNotMatter');
about the updates that should be applied on the client's collection named thisNameMatters assuming that this collection exists. The name - passed as the first parameter - can be chosen almost arbitrarily, but if there's no corresponding collection on the client side all the updates will be ignored. Note that this collection can be client-side-only, so it does not necessarily have to correspond to a "real" collection in your database.
Returning a cursor from your publish method it's only a shortcut for the above code, with the only difference that the name of an actual collection is used instead of our theNameMatters. This mechanism actually allows you to create as many "mirrors" of your datasets as you wish. In some situations this might be quite useful. The only problem is that these "collections" will be read-only (which totally make sense BTW) because if they're not defined on the server the corresponding `insert/update/remove' methods do not exist.
The collection is called Meteor.users and there is no need to declare a new one on neither the server nor the client.
Your publish/subscribe code is correct:
// in server.js
Meteor.publish("directory", function () {
return Meteor.users.find({}, {fields: {emails: 1, profile: 1}});
});
// in client.js
Meteor.subscribe("directory");
To access documents in the users collection that have been published by the server you need to do something like this:
var usersArray = Meteor.users.find().fetch();
or
var oneUser = Meteor.users.findOne();

Mongoose No matching document found using id() method. Error caused by asynchronous delete requests

Making asynchronous requests in a loop to delete documents from an embedded collection:
_.each deletedItem, (item) ->
item.$delete()
Erratically throws this error:
{ message: 'No matching document found.', name: 'VersionError' }
When executing:
var resume = account.resumes.id(id);
resume.remove();
account.save(function (err, acct) {
console.log(err);
if(err) return next(err);
res.send(resume);
});
After logging account.resumes and looking through the _id's of all of the resumes, the document I am attempting to find by id, exists in the collection.
530e57a7503d421eb8daca65
FIND:
{ title: 'gggff', _id: 530e57a7503d421eb8daca65 }
IN:
[{ title: 'asddas', _id: 530e57a7503d421eb8daca61 }
{ title: 'gggff', _id: 530e57a7503d421eb8daca65 }
{ title: 'ewrs', _id: 530e57a7503d421eb8daca64 }]
I assume this has to do with the fact that I am performing these requests asynchronously, or that there is a versioning issue, but I have no idea how to resolve it.
It doesn't make any sense to me how when I log the resumes, I can see the resume I attempt to find, yet if I log:
log(account.resumes.id(id));
I get undefined.
UPDATE
I've discovered that my issue is with versioning.
http://aaronheckmann.blogspot.com/2012/06/mongoose-v3-part-1-versioning.html
But I am still unsure how to resolve it without disabling versioning, which I don't want to do.
In mongodb version 3, documents now have an increment() method which manually forces incrementation of the document version. This is also used internally whenever an operation on an array potentially alters array element position. These operations are:
$pull $pullAll $pop $set of an entire array
changing the version key
The version key is customizable by passing the versionKey option to the Schema constructor:
new Schema({ .. }, { versionKey: 'myVersionKey' });
Or by setting the option directly:
schema.set('versionKey', 'myVersionKey');
disabling
If you don’t want to use versioning in your schema you can disable it by passing false for the versionKey option.
schema.set('versionKey', false);
MongooseJs API docs explicitly warn on disabling versioning, and recommend against it. Your issue is due to workflow. If you're updating your collection from the UI, sending the API request and not refreshing your object with the object from the backend -- then attempt to update it again, you'll encounter the error you are reporting. I suggest either consuming/updating the object scope from the API response, then __v is correctly incremented. Or don't send the __v field on the PUT API request, this way it won't conflict with version on the collection in the database.
Another option is -- when requesting the object from the backend, have the API response not send the __v field, this way you don't have to code logic to NOT send it from the frontend. On all your gets for that collection, do either one of the following (depends how you write your queries):
var model = require('model');
var qry = model.find();
qry.select('-__v');
qry.exec(function(err,results){
if(err) res.status(500).send(err);
if(results) res.status(200).json(results);
});
OR
var model = require('model');
model.find({}, '-__v', function(err,results){
if(err) res.status(500).send(err);
if(results) res.status(200).json(results);
});

Mongoose - update after populate (Cast Exception)

I am not able to update my mongoose schema because of a CastERror, which makes sence, but I dont know how to solve it.
Trip Schema:
var TripSchema = new Schema({
name: String,
_users: [{type: Schema.Types.ObjectId, ref: 'User'}]
});
User Schema:
var UserSchema = new Schema({
name: String,
email: String,
});
in my html page i render a trip with the possibility to add new users to this trip, I retrieve the data by calling the findById method on the Schema:
exports.readById = function (request, result) {
Trip.findById(request.params.tripId).populate('_users').exec(function (error, trip) {
if (error) {
console.log('error getting trips');
} else {
console.log('found single trip: ' + trip);
result.json(trip);
}
})
};
this works find. In my ui i can add new users to the trip, here is the code:
var user = new UserService();
user.email = $scope.newMail;
user.$save(function(response){
trip._users.push(user._id);
trip.$update(function (response) {
console.log('OK - user ' + user.email + ' was linked to trip ' + trip.name);
// call for the updated document in database
this.readOne();
})
};
The Problem is that when I update my Schema the existing users in trip are populated, means stored as objects not id on the trip, the new user is stored as ObjectId in trip.
How can I make sure the populated users go back to ObjectId before I update? otherwise the update will fail with a CastError.
see here for error
I've been searching around for a graceful way to handle this without finding a satisfactory solution, or at least one I feel confident is what the mongoosejs folks had in mind when using populate. Nonetheless, here's the route I took:
First, I tried to separate adding to the list from saving. So in your example, move trip._users.push(user._id); out of the $save function. I put actions like this on the client side of things, since I want the UI to show the changes before I persist them.
Second, when adding the user, I kept working with the populated model -- that is, I don't push(user._id) but instead add the full user: push(user). This keeps the _users list consistent, since the ids of other users have already been replaced with their corresponding objects during population.
So now you should be working with a consistent list of populated users. In the server code, just before calling $update, I replace trip._users with a list of ObjectIds. In other words, "un-populate" _users:
user_ids = []
for (var i in trip._users){
/* it might be a good idea to do more validation here if you like, to make
* sure you don't have any naked userIds in this array already, as you would
*/in your original code.
user_ids.push(trip._users[i]._id);
}
trip._users = user_ids;
trip.$update(....
As I read through your example code again, it looks like the user you are adding to the trip might be a new user? I'm not sure if that's just a relic of your simplification for question purposes, but if not, you'll need to save the user first so mongo can assign an ObjectId before you can save the trip.
I have written an function which accepts an array, and in callback returns with an array of ObjectId. To do it asynchronously in NodeJS, I am using async.js. The function is like:
let converter = function(array, callback) {
let idArray;
async.each(array, function(item, itemCallback) {
idArray.push(item._id);
itemCallback();
}, function(err) {
callback(idArray);
})
};
This works totally fine with me, and I hope should work with you as well

How to put embedded document from one document into another document using Mongoose?

What I'm trying to do should be straight forward but for some reason I'm having real difficulties figuring this out. I have the following Mongoose schemas (simplified).
var Status = new Schema({
name : { type: String, required: true },
description : { type: String }
});
var Category = new Schema({
statuses : [Status], // contains a list of all available statuses
// some other attributes
});
var Book = new Schema({
statuses : [Status], // preferably this would not be an array but a single document, but Mongoose doesn't seem to support that
// some other attributes
});
Now, I want to do the following:
Retrieve the Category document
Find a particular embedded Status document (based on request param)
Assign that particular embedded Status document to a particular Book document. I want to replace the existing Book status as at any given time there should only be one status set for a book.
Here is what I'm currently doing:
mongoose.model('Category').findOne({_id: id}, function(err, category){
if(err) next(err);
var status = category.statuses.id(statusId); // statusId available via closure
book.statuses[0] = status; // book available via closure; trying to replace the existing status here.
book.save(function(err){
if(err) next(err);
next();
});
});
The above seems to run fine and I don't get any errors. However, the new status is not saved to the document. Next time I output the updated Book document, it will still have the old status. I debugged this and the find() methods as well as setting the status seems to be fine.
The only thing I can think of right now is that somehow the status value I'm assigning is not in the right format to be saved with Mongoose. Although, I would expect some kind of error message then.
Or maybe there is a better way to do all of this anyway?
It could be because you are trying to copy an embedded document, which itself could have an ObjectId associated with it. Trying to save the duplicate Status within the Book would create two embedded documents with the same ObjectId. Try creating a new Status object and copying the fields.
It is hard to find docs on ObjectsIds for embedded documents, but they are mentioned here: http://mongoosejs.com/docs/embedded-documents.html.