PostgreSQL, is a popular open-source object-relational database.
The loopback-connector-postgresql
module is the PostgreSQL connector for the LoopBack framework.
NOTE: The PostgreSQL connector requires PostgreSQL 8.x or 9.x.
In your application root directory, enter this command to install the connector:
$ npm install loopback-connector-postgresql --save
This installs the module from npm and adds it as a dependency to the application's package.json
file.
If you create a PostgreSQL data source using the data source generator as described below, you don't have to do this, since the generator will run npm install
for you.
Use the Data source generator to add a PostgreSQL data source to your application.
The generator will prompt for the database server hostname, port, and other settings
required to connect to a PostgreSQL database. It will also run the npm install
command above for you.
The entry in the application's /server/datasources.json
will look like this:
{% include code-caption.html content="/server/datasources.json" %}
"mydb": {
"name": "mydb",
"connector": "postgresql"
"host": "mydbhost",
"port": 5432,
"url": "postgres://admin:admin@mydbhost:5432/db1?ssl=false",
"database": "db1",
"password": "admin",
"user": "admin",
"ssl": false
}
Edit datasources.json
to add other properties that enable you to connect the data source to a PostgreSQL database.
You can also specify connection pool settings in datasources.json
. For instance you can specify the minimum and the maximum pool size, and the maximum pool client's idle time before closing the client.
Example of datasource.json
:
{
"mypostgresdb": {
"host": "mydbhost",
"port": 5432,
"url": "postgres://admin:password1@mydbhost:5432/db1?ssl=false",
"database": "db1",
"password": "password1",
"name": "mypostgresdb",
"user": "admin",
"connector": "postgresql",
"min": 5,
"max": 200,
"idleTimeoutMillis": 60000,
"ssl": false
}
}
Check out node-pg-pool and node postgres pooling example for more information.
Property | Type | Description |
---|---|---|
connector | String | Connector name, either "loopback-connector-postgresql" or "postgresql" |
database | String | Database name |
debug | Boolean | If true, turn on verbose mode to debug database queries and lifecycle. |
host | String | Database host name |
password | String | Password to connect to database |
port | Number | Database TCP port |
url | String | Use instead of thehost ,port ,user ,password ,
anddatabase properties. For example:'postgres://test:mypassword@localhost:5432/dev'.
|
username | String | Username to connect to database |
min | Integer | Minimum number of clients in the connection pool |
max | Integer | Maximum number of clients in the connection pool |
idleTimeoutMillis | Integer | Maximum time a client in the pool has to stay idle before closing it |
ssl | Boolean | Whether to try SSL/TLS to connect to server |
NOTE: By default, the 'public' schema is used for all tables.
The PostgreSQL connector uses node-postgres as the driver. For more information about configuration parameters, see node-postgres documentation.
A common PostgreSQL configuration is to connect to the UNIX domain socket /var/run/postgresql/.s.PGSQL.5432
instead of using the TCP/IP port. For example:
{
"postgres": {
"host": "/var/run/postgresql/",
"port": "5432",
"database": "dbname",
"username": "dbuser",
"password": "dbpassword",
"name": "postgres",
"debug": true,
"connector": "postgresql"
}
}
The model definition consists of the following properties.
Property | Default | Description |
---|---|---|
name | Camel-case of the database table name | Name of the model. |
options | N/A | Model level operations and mapping to PostgreSQL schema/table |
properties | N/A | Property definitions, including mapping to PostgreSQL column |
For example:
{% include code-caption.html content="/common/models/model.json" %}
{
"name": "Inventory",
"options": {
"idInjection": false,
"postgresql": {
"schema": "strongloop",
"table": "inventory"
}
},
"properties": {
"id": {
"type": "String",
"required": false,
"length": 64,
"precision": null,
"scale": null,
"postgresql": {
"columnName": "id",
"dataType": "character varying",
"dataLength": 64,
"dataPrecision": null,
"dataScale": null,
"nullable": "NO"
}
},
"productId": {
"type": "String",
"required": false,
"length": 20,
"precision": null,
"scale": null,
"id": 1,
"postgresql": {
"columnName": "product_id",
"dataType": "character varying",
"dataLength": 20,
"dataPrecision": null,
"dataScale": null,
"nullable": "YES"
}
},
"locationId": {
"type": "String",
"required": false,
"length": 20,
"precision": null,
"scale": null,
"id": 1,
"postgresql": {
"columnName": "location_id",
"dataType": "character varying",
"dataLength": 20,
"dataPrecision": null,
"dataScale": null,
"nullable": "YES"
}
},
"available": {
"type": "Number",
"required": false,
"length": null,
"precision": 32,
"scale": 0,
"postgresql": {
"columnName": "available",
"dataType": "integer",
"dataLength": null,
"dataPrecision": 32,
"dataScale": 0,
"nullable": "YES"
}
},
"total": {
"type": "Number",
"required": false,
"length": null,
"precision": 32,
"scale": 0,
"postgresql": {
"columnName": "total",
"dataType": "integer",
"dataLength": null,
"dataPrecision": 32,
"dataScale": 0,
"nullable": "YES"
}
}
}
}
See LoopBack types for details on LoopBack's data types.
LoopBack Type | PostgreSQL Type |
---|---|
String JSON Text Default |
VARCHAR2 Default length is 1024 |
Number | INTEGER |
Date | TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE |
Boolean | BOOLEAN |
PostgreSQL Type | LoopBack Type |
---|---|
BOOLEAN | Boolean |
VARCHAR CHARACTER VARYING CHARACTER CHAR TEXT |
String |
BYTEA | Node.js Buffer object |
SMALLINT INTEGER BIGINT DECIMAL NUMERIC REAL DOUBLE SERIAL BIGSERIAL |
Number |
DATE TIMESTAMP TIME |
Date |
POINT | GeoPoint |
Note: The node.js driver for postgres by default casts Numeric
type as a string on GET
operation. This is to avoid data precision loss since Numeric
types in postgres cannot be safely converted to JavaScript Number
.
For details, see the corresponding driver issue.
Note The fields you are querying should be setup to use the JSON postgresql data type - see Defining models
Assuming a model such as this:
{
"name": "Customer",
"properties": {
"address": {
"type": "object",
"postgresql": {
"dataType": "json"
}
}
}
}
You can query the nested fields with dot notation:
Customer.find({
where: {
'address.state': 'California'
},
order: 'address.city'
})
The PostgreSQL connector supports model discovery that enables you to create LoopBack models based on an existing database schema using the unified database discovery API. For more information on discovery, see Discovering models from relational databases.
The PostgreSQL connector also supports auto-migration that enables you to create a database schema from LoopBack models using the LoopBack automigrate method.
For more information on auto-migration, see Creating a database schema from models for more information.
LoopBack PostgreSQL connector creates the following schema objects for a given model: a table, for example, PRODUCT under the 'public' schema within the database.
The auto-migrate method:
- Defines a primary key for the properties whose
id
property is true (or a positive number). - Creates a column with 'SERIAL' type if the
generated
property of theid
property is true.
Destroying models may result in errors due to foreign key integrity. First delete any related models by calling delete on models with relationships.
Foreign key constraints can be defined in the model options
. Removing or updating the value of foreignKeys
will be updated or delete or update the constraints in the db tables.
If there is a reference to an object being deleted then the DELETE
will fail. Likewise if there is a create with an invalid FK id then the POST
will fail.
Note: The order of table creation is important. A referenced table must exist before creating a foreign key constraint.
{
"name": "Customer",
"options": {
"idInjection": false
},
"properties": {
"id": {
"type": "String",
"length": 20,
"id": 1
},
"name": {
"type": "String",
"required": false,
"length": 40
}
}
},
{
"name": "Order",
"options": {
"idInjection": false,
"foreignKeys": {
"fk_order_customerId": {
"name": "fk_order_customerId",
"entity": "Customer",
"entityKey": "id",
"foreignKey": "customerId"
}
}
},
"properties": {
"id": {
"type": "String",
"length": 20,
"id": 1
},
"customerId": {
"type": "String",
"length": 20
},
"description": {
"type": "String",
"required": false,
"length": 40
}
}
}
If you have a local or remote PostgreSQL instance and would like to use that to run the test suite, use the following command:
- Linux
POSTGRESQL_HOST=<HOST> POSTGRESQL_PORT=<PORT> POSTGRESQL_USER=<USER> POSTGRESQL_PASSWORD=<PASSWORD> POSTGRESQL_DATABASE=<DATABASE> CI=true npm test
- Windows
SET POSTGRESQL_HOST=<HOST> SET POSTGRESQL_PORT=<PORT> SET POSTGRESQL_USER=<USER> SET POSTGRESQL_PASSWORD=<PASSWORD> SET POSTGRESQL_DATABASE=<DATABASE> SET CI=true npm test
If you do not have a local PostgreSQL instance, you can also run the test suite with very minimal requirements.
- Assuming you have Docker installed, run the following script which would spawn a PostgreSQL instance on your local:
source setup.sh <HOST> <PORT> <USER> <PASSWORD> <DATABASE>
where <HOST>
, <PORT>
, <USER>
, <PASSWORD>
and <DATABASE>
are optional parameters. The default values are localhost
, 5432
, root
, pass
and testdb
respectively.
- Run the test:
npm test