A high-level, caching, CouchDB client for Node.js
Cradle is an asynchronous javascript client for CouchDB. It is somewhat higher-level than most other CouchDB clients, requiring a little less knowledge of CouchDB's REST API. Cradle also has built-in write-through caching, giving you an extra level of speed, and making document updates and deletion easier. Cradle was built from the love of CouchDB and Node.js, and tries to make the most out of this wonderful marriage of technologies.
The key concept here is the common ground shared by CouchDB and Node.js, that is, javascript. The other important aspect of this marriage is the asynchronous behaviors of both these technologies. Cradle tries to make use of these symmetries, whenever it can.
Cradle's API, although closely knit with CouchDB's, isn't overly so. Whenever the API can be abstracted in a friendlier, simpler way, that's the route it takes. So even though a large part of the Cradle <--> CouchDB
mappings are one to one, some Cradle functions, such as save()
, can perform more than one operation, depending on how they are used.
var cradle = require('cradle');
var db = new(cradle.Connection)().database('starwars');
db.get('vader', function (err, doc) {
doc.name; // 'Darth Vader'
assert.equal(doc.force, 'dark');
});
db.save('skywalker', {
force: 'light',
name: 'Luke Skywalker'
}, function (err, res) {
if (err) {
// Handle error
} else {
// Handle success
}
});
$ npm install cradle
Cradle's API builds right on top of Node's asynch API. Every asynch method takes a callback as its last argument. The return value is an event.EventEmitter
, so listeners can also be optionally added.
new(cradle.Connection)('http://living-room.couch', 5984, {
cache: true,
raw: false,
forceSave: true
});
Defaults to 127.0.0.1:5984
Note that you can also use cradle.setup
to set a global configuration:
cradle.setup({
host: 'living-room.couch',
cache: true,
raw: false,
forceSave: true
});
var c = new(cradle.Connection),
cc = new(cradle.Connection)('173.45.66.92');
var db = c.database('starwars');
db.create(function(err){
/* do something if there's an error */
});
You can check if a database exists with the exists()
method.
db.exists(function (err, exists) {
if (err) {
console.log('error', err);
} else if (exists) {
console.log('the force is with you.');
} else {
console.log('database does not exists.');
db.create();
/* populate design documents */
}
});
db.destroy(cb);
db.get('vader', function (err, doc) {
console.log(doc);
});
If you want to get a specific revision for that document, you can pass it as the 2nd parameter to
get()
.
Cradle is also able to fetch multiple documents if you have a list of ids, just pass an array to get
:
db.get(['luke', 'vader'], function (err, doc) { ... });
db.view('characters/all', function (err, res) {
res.forEach(function (row) {
console.log("%s is on the %s side of the force.", row.name, row.force);
});
});
You can access the key and value of the response with forEach using two parameters. An optional third parameter will return the id like this example.
db.view('characters/all', function (err, res) {
res.forEach(function (key, row, id) {
console.log("%s has view key %s.", row.name, key);
});
});
To use View Generation Options you can use the view Method with three parameters (viewname, options, callback):
db.view('characters/all', {group: true, reduce: true} , function (err, res) {
res.forEach(function (row) {
console.log("%s is on the %s side of the force.", row.name, row.force);
});
});
Lets suppose that you have a design document that you've created:
db.save('_design/user', {
views: {
byUsername: {
map: 'function (doc) { if (doc.resource === "User") { emit(doc.username, doc) } }'
}
}
});
In CouchDB you could query this view directly by making an HTTP request to:
/_design/user/_view/byUsername/?key="luke"
In cradle
you can make this same query by using the .view()
database function:
db.view('user/byUsername', { key: 'luke' }, function (err, doc) {
console.dir(doc);
});
Say you create view for cars that has an array key with make and model
db.save('_design/cars', {
views: {
byMakeAndModel: {
map: function (doc) {
if (doc.resource === 'Car' && doc.make && doc.model) {
var key = [doc.make, doc.model]
emit(key, doc)
}
}
}
}
})
If you want all the cars made by Ford with a model name between Rav4 and later (alphabetically sorted). In CouchDB you could query this view directly by making an HTTP request to:
/_design/cars/_view/byMakeAndModel/?startkey=["Ford"]&endkey=["Ford", "\u9999"]
In cradle
you can make this same query by using the .view()
database function with startkey
and endkey
options.
var util = require('util')
var opts = {
startkey: ['Ford'],
endkey: ['Ford', '\u9999']
}
db.view('cars/', opts, function (err, docs) {
if (err) {
util.error(err)
return
}
util.debug(docs)
});
In the options object you can also optionally specify whether or not to group
and reduce
the output. In this example reduce
must be false since there is no reduce function defined for the cars/byMakeAndModel
. With grouping and reducing the options object would look like:
var opts = {
startkey: ['Ford'],
endkey: ['Ford', '\u9999'],
group: true,
reduce: true
}
In general, document creation is done with the save()
method, while updating is done with merge()
.
db.save('vader', {
name: 'darth', force: 'dark'
}, function (err, res) {
// Handle response
});
db.save({
force: 'dark', name: 'Darth'
}, function (err, res) {
// Handle response
});
db.save('luke', '1-94B6F82', {
force: 'dark', name: 'Luke'
}, function (err, res) {
// Handle response
});
Note that when saving a document this way, CouchDB overwrites the existing document with the new one. If you want to update only certain fields of the document, you have to fetch it first (with get
), make your changes, then resave the modified document with the above method.
If you only want to update one or more attributes, and leave the others untouched, you can use the merge()
method:
db.merge('luke', {jedi: true}, function (err, res) {
// Luke is now a jedi,
// but remains on the dark side of the force.
});
Note that we didn't pass a _rev
, this only works because we previously saved a full version of 'luke', and the cache
option is enabled.
If you want to insert more than one document at a time, for performance reasons, you can pass an array to save()
:
db.save([
{ name: 'Yoda' },
{ name: 'Han Solo' },
{ name: 'Leia' }
], function (err, res) {
// Handle response
});
Here we create a design document named 'characters', with two views: 'all' and 'darkside'.
db.save('_design/characters', {
all: {
map: function (doc) {
if (doc.name) emit(doc.name, doc);
}
},
darkside: {
map: function (doc) {
if (doc.name && doc.force == 'dark') {
emit(null, doc);
}
}
}
});
These views can later be queried with db.view('characters/all')
, for example.
Here we create a temporary view. WARNING: do not use this in production as it is extremely slow (use it to test views).
db.temporaryView({
map: function (doc) {
if (doc.color) emit(doc._id, doc);
}
}, function (err, res) {
if (err) console.log(err);
console.log(res);
});
Note: If you must use View Generation Options on your temporary view you can use the three parameter version of the temporaryView() Method - similar to the one described above.
when saving a design document, cradle guesses you want to create a view, mention views explicitly to work around this.
db.save('_design/laws', {
views: {},
validate_doc_update:
function (newDoc, oldDoc, usrCtx) {
if (! /^(light|dark|neutral)$/.test(newDoc.force))
throw({forbidden: {error: "invalid value", reason: "force must be dark, light, or neutral"}})
}
}
});
To remove a document, you call the remove()
method, passing the latest document revision.
db.remove('luke', '1-94B6F82', function (err, res) {
// Handle response
});
If remove
is called without a revision, and the document was recently fetched from the database, it will attempt to use the cached document's revision, providing caching is enabled.
Update handlers can be used by calling the update()
method, specifying the update handler name, and optionally the document id, the query object and the document body object. Only the update handler name is a required function parameter. Note that CouchDB is able to parse query options only if the URI-encoded length is less than 8197 characters. Use the body parameter for larger objects.
db.update('my_designdoc/update_handler_name', 'luke', undefined, { my_param: false }, function (err, res) {
// Handle the response, specified by the update handler
});
var connection = new(cradle.Connection)('https://couch.io', 443, {
auth: { username: 'john', password: 'fha82l' }
});
or providing a self signed CA certificate
var connection = new(cradle.Connection)('https://couch.io', 443, {
auth: { username: 'john', password: 'fha82l' },
ca: fs.readFileSync('path_to_self_signed_ca.crt')
});
or
var connection = new(cradle.Connection)('couch.io', 443, {
secure: true,
auth: { username: 'john', password: 'fha82l' }
});
For a unreliable connection, you can have non-streaming queries automatically retry:
var connection = new(cradle.Connection)('couch.io', 443, {
retries: 3,
retryTimeout: 30 * 1000
});
For a one-time _changes
query, simply call db.changes
with a callback:
db.changes(function (err, list) {
list.forEach(function (change) { console.log(change) });
});
Or if you want to see changes since a specific sequence number:
db.changes({ since: 42 }, function (err, list) {
...
});
The callback will receive the list of changes as an Array. If you want to include
the affected documents, simply pass include_docs: true
in the options.
You can also stream changes, by calling db.changes
without the callback. This API uses the excellent follow library from IrisCouch:
var feed = db.changes({ since: 42 });
feed.on('change', function (change) {
console.log(change);
});
In this case, it returns an instance of follow.Feed
, which behaves very similarly to node's EventEmitter
API. For full documentation on the options available to you when monitoring CouchDB with .changes()
see the follow documentation.
Cradle supports writing, reading, and removing attachments. The read and write operations can be either buffered or streaming
You can buffer the entire attachment body and send it all at once as a single request. The callback function will fire after the attachment upload is complete or an error occurs
Syntax
db.saveAttachment(idData, attachmentData, callbackFunction)
Example Say you want to save a text document as an attachment with the name 'fooAttachment.txt' and the content 'Foo document text'
var doc = <some existing document>
var id = doc._id
var rev = doc._rev
var idAndRevData = {
id: id,
rev: rev
}
var attachmentData = {
name: 'fooAttachment.txt',
'Content-Type': 'text/plain',
body: 'Foo document text'
}
db.saveAttachment(idAndRevData, attachmentData, function (err, reply) {
if (err) {
console.dir(err)
return
}
console.dir(reply)
})
You can use a read stream to upload the attachment body rather than buffering the entire body first. The callback function will fire after the streaming upload completes or an error occurs
Syntax
var doc = savedDoc // <some saved couchdb document which has an attachment>
var id = doc._id
var rev = doc._rev
var idAndRevData = {
id: id,
rev: rev
}
var attachmentData = {
name: attachmentName // something like 'foo.txt'
'Content-Type': attachmentMimeType // something like 'text/plain', 'application/pdf', etc.
body: rawAttachmentBody // something like 'foo document body text'
}
var readStream = fs.createReadStream('/path/to/file/')
var writeStream = db.saveAttachment(idData, attachmentData, callbackFunction)
readStream.pipe(writeStream)
When the streaming upload is complete the callback function will fire
Example Attach a pdf file with the name 'bar.pdf' located at path './data/bar.pdf' to an existing document
var path = require('path')
var fs = require('fs')
// this document should already be saved in the couchdb database
var doc = {
_id: 'fooDocumentID',
_rev: 'fooDocumentRev'
}
var idData = {
id: doc._id,
rev: doc._rev
}
var filename = 'bar.pdf' // this is the filename that will be used in couchdb. It can be different from your source filename if desired
var filePath = path.join(__dirname, 'data', 'bar.pdf')
var readStream = fs.createReadStream
// note that there is no body field here since we are streaming the upload
var attachmentData = {
name: 'fooAttachment.txt',
'Content-Type': 'text/plain'
}
db.saveAttachment(idData, attachmentData, function (err, reply) {
if (err) {
console.dir(err)
return
}
console.dir(reply)
}, readStream)
You can buffer the entire attachment and receive it all at once. The callback function will fire after the download is complete or an error occurs. The second parameter in the callback will be the binary data of the attachment
Syntax
db.getAttachment(documentID, attachmentName, callbackFunction)
Example Say you want to read back an attachment that was saved with the name 'foo.txt'
var doc = <some saved document that has an attachment with name *foo.txt*>
var id = doc._id
var attachmentName = 'foo.txt'
db.getAttachment(id, attachmentName, function (err, reply) {
if (err) {
console.dir(err)
return
}
console.dir(reply)
})
You can stream the attachment as well. If the attachment is large it can be useful to stream it to limit memory consumption. The callback function will fire once the download stream is complete. Note that there is only a single error parameter passed to the callback function. The error is null is no errors occured or an error object if there was an error downloading the attachment. There is no second parameter containing the attachment data like in the buffered read example
Syntax
var readStream = db.getAttachment(documentID, attachmentName, callbackFunction)
Example Say you want to read back an attachment that was saved with the name 'foo.txt'. However the attachment foo.txt is very large so you want to stream it to disk rather than buffer the entire file into memory
var doc = <some saved document that has an attachment with name *foo.txt*>
var id = doc._id
var attachmentName = 'foo.txt'
var downloadPath = path.join(__dirname, 'foo_download.txt')
var writeStream = fs.createWriteStream(downloadPath)
var readStream = db.getAttachment('piped-attachment', 'foo.txt', function (err) { // note no second reply paramter
if (err) {
console.dir(err)
return
}
console.dir('download completed and written to file on disk at path', downloadPath)
})
readStream.pipe(writeStream)
You can remove uploaded attachments with a _id and an attachment name
Syntax
db.removeAttachment(documentID, attachmentName, callbackFunction)
Example Say you want to remove an attachment that was saved with the name 'foo.txt'
var doc = <some saved document that has an attachment with name *foo.txt*>
var id = doc._id
var attachmentName = 'foo.txt'
db.removeAttachment(id, attachmentName, function (err, reply) {
if (err) {
console.dir(err)
return
}
console.dir(reply)
})
new(cradle.Connection)().*
databases()
: Get list of databasesconfig()
: Get server configinfo()
: Get server informationstats()
: Statistics overviewactiveTasks()
: Get list of currently active tasksuuids(count)
: Get count list of UUIDsreplicate(options)
: Replicate a database.
new(cradle.Connection)().database('starwars').*
info()
: Database informationall()
: Get all documentscompact()
: Compact databaseviewCleanup()
: Cleanup old view datareplicate(target, options)
: Replicate this database totarget
.
After cloning the repo and installing all dependencies (using npm install
) you can run all tests using vows:
$ node test/helpers/seed.js
$ vows --spec