Rest Query

Work in progress, early alpha.

/!\ This documentation is still a work in progress! /!\

Hooks

A hook is a registered function that is triggered when some event occurs.

There are few differences between a classical event (i.e.: the observer pattern) and a Rest Query hook:

• only one hook can be registered by event (by collection for hooks on collection).
• a hook can modify or even interupt the main flow (the hook caller).
• all Rest Query hook are async
• the main flow is suspended, waiting for the hook completion.

Whatever the hook, they are always functions of the form: function( context ) returning a Promise that resolve once completed.

App hooks

App hooks are executed when the Rest Query app is at different stage of execution.

The hook is a function of the form: function( appContext ), appContext being an object, where:

• app App the running App instance

Note that appContext here IS NOT a Context instance, because there are for request to the service.

The current Rest Query stage will wait for the Promise's hook to resolve to continue, if it rejects the Rest Query app will be aborted.

init

This hook is executed once, when Rest Query is starting up, after the config is fully loaded, after any built-in initialization are finished and just before Rest Query starts accepting request.

shutdown

This hook is executed once, when Rest Query is shutting down, before the HTTP module shutdown.

Document hooks

Document hooks are executed when a user issue a request on a document.

NEW: It is now possible to specify an array of hook in the schema, they will be called one after the other (in a serial fashion). If one hook call context.done(), it will prevent default behavior as well as subsequent hooks.

There are two type of hooks, normal or before hooks and after hooks. When a normal hook throw or reject, all the request is aborted, after hooks are run after the default behavior, and thus do not change the final outcome of the request, if it throws or rejects, it does not change the HTTP status, but subsequent after hook will not run.

The hook is a function of the form: function( context ), where:

• context Context an object containing various information on the current request to be processed, see Context

The request processing will wait for the Promise's hook to resolve to continue.

beforeCreate

When:

• a POST request creating a new document (not POST request executing a method)
• a PUT request creating a new document or overwriting a whole document
• executed before the document is inserted, if it rejects the document creation is aborted

The context.hook.incomingDocument contains the document about to be created: it can be altered by the hook.

The context.hook.existingDocument contains the document about to be replaced, it is only set for PUT request overwriting an existing document.

The context.parentObjectNode is the parent objectNode of the resource about to be created (e.g. PUT, POST on a collection).

The context.objectNode is more contextual, for PUT overwriting a document, it is the existing objectNode about to be overwritten, for POST or PUT creating a new document, this is the same than context.parentObjectNode. In fact context.objectNode is always the last existing objectNode during the URL traversal. It is often recommended not to use context.objectNode which is more for Rest Query internal stuff.

If context.linkerObjectNode is set, then the resource about to be created is linked by that objectNode (e.g. PUT on a link).

beforeCreateAfterValidate

When:

• a POST request creating a new document (not POST request executing a method)
• a PUT request creating a new document or overwriting a whole document
• executed before the document is inserted
• it forces a document's validation (which is usually done when saving it to the DB)
• executed after a successful validation, if the hook rejects, the document is dropped, thus never saved to the DB

The context.document contains the freshly created and validated document (but not saved/inserted into the DB, also note that context.hook.incomingDocument does not exist anymore, contrary to the beforeCreate hook, it's already turned into a Document instance).

The context.hook.existingDocument contains the document about to be replaced, it is only set for PUT request overwriting an existing document.

The context.parentObjectNode is the parent objectNode of the resource about to be created (e.g. PUT, POST on a collection).

The context.objectNode is more contextual, for PUT overwriting a document, it is the existing objectNode about to be overwritten, for POST or PUT creating a new document, this is the same than context.parentObjectNode. In fact context.objectNode is always the last existing objectNode during the URL traversal. It is often recommended not to use context.objectNode which is more for Rest Query internal stuff.

If context.linkerObjectNode is set, then the resource about to be created is linked by that objectNode (e.g. PUT on a link).

afterCreate

When:

• a POST request creating a new document (not POST request executing a method)
• a PUT request creating a new document or overwriting a whole document
• executed after the document is inserted

The context.document contains the freshly created document.

The context.objectNode contains the freshly created objectNode.

If context.hook.deletedDocument is set, this is the document that have been deleted (this is the same document as context.hook.existingDocument in the beforeCreate hook).

If context.linkerObjectNode is set, then the freshly created resource is linked by that objectNode (e.g. PUT on a link).

beforeModify

When:

• a PATCH request on a document or a document part
• a PUT request on a subpart of a document (it's internally transformed into a PATCH request)
• executed before the document is modified, if it rejects the modification is aborted

The context.hook.incomingPatch contains the patch about to be issued: it can be altered by the hook.

The context.hook.existingDocument is always set, and contains the document that will be patched (before the patch).

The context.objectNode contains the objectNode about to be patched.

afterModify

When:

• a PATCH request on a document or a document part
• a PUT request on a subpart of a document (it's internally transformed into a PATCH request)
• executed after the document is patched

The context.hook.appliedPatch contains the patch that have been applied, it could be different from context.hook.incomingPatch of the beforeModify hook because it was sanitized before being applied.

The context.document contains the document in its final state (after the patch is applied).

The context.objectNode contains the patched objectNode.

beforeDelete

When:

• a DELETE request deleting a document
• executed before the document is modified, if it rejects the document will not be deleted

The context.hook.existingDocument is always set, and contains the document about to be deleted.

The context.objectNode contains the objectNode about to be deleted.

afterDelete

When:

• a DELETE request deleting a document
• executed after the document is deleted

The context.hook.deletedDocument contains the removed document.

The context.objectNode contains the removed objectNode, it can be useful to retrieve some data, but it should not be used to modify or traverse it (e.g. access its children).

search

When:

• a GET request on a Collection with a 'search' parameter in query string
• executed after checking the 'filter' parameter of the query string
• executed before checking for text index, the hook may rewrite the 'filter' or 'search' parameters

The context.input.query.search contains the text search. The context.input.query.filter contains the already checked and fixed filters.

If context.input.query.search is removed, the default search behavior is prevented, so it is possible to replace that by custom CORRECT query filter (those new filters will not be checked/fixed by Rest Query).

Document hooks for specific Collections

Specific hooks are for special collections like Users.

beforeCreateToken

For documents of collection: Users.

When:

• the createToken method is invoked on a user
• executed before the token creation, if it rejects the token creation is aborted

The context.hook.incomingDocument contains the connection document: it can be altered by the hook.

BETA, not well specified yet.

afterCreateToken

For documents of collection: Users.

When:

• the createToken method is invoked on a user
• executed after the token creation

The context.document contains the user for which the token is created. The context.hook.token contains the token data.

BETA, not well specified yet.

beforeRegenerateToken

For documents of collection: Users.

When:

• the regenerateToken method is invoked on a user
• executed before the new token creation, if it rejects the new token creation is aborted

BETA, not well specified yet.

afterRegenerateToken

For documents of collection: Users.

When:

• the regenerateToken method is invoked on a user
• executed after the token creation

The context.document contains the user for which a new token is created. The context.hook.token contains the token.

BETA, not well specified yet.

beforeCreateApiKey

For documents of collection: Users.

When:

• the createApiKey method is invoked on a user
• executed before the API key creation, if it rejects the token creation is aborted

The context.hook.incomingDocument contains the incoming document: it can be altered by the hook.

BETA, not well specified yet.

afterCreateApiKey

For documents of collection: Users.

When:

• the createApiKey method is invoked on a user
• executed after the API key creation

The context.document contains the user for which the API key is created. The context.hook.apiKey contains the API key.

BETA, not well specified yet.

Context

All hooks, collection methods and object methods receive a Context instance as their unique argument. A context contains all data relative to the request in-progress, and is used internally as well. It is of utmost importance to know how work a context, because it's the only input and output for userland code.

This is the data structure of a context:

• app App the app instance
• input Object contains data that have been passed as input (e.g. by a HTTP client), where:
  • method string the original method used (i.e. the lower-cased HTTP method)
  • pathParts Array the fully parsed path to the resource
  • query Object particular query (filters, populate, params -- for methods, etc...) to apply on the resource
  • document Object (optional) the given document, if any (e.g. the body of a HTTP PUT request)
  • attachmentStreams Object (optional) the given binary stream, if any (e.g. a part of a multipart body of a HTTP PUT request)
• output Object contains data that goes alongside with the main resource about to be sent (e.g. to a HTTP client or to a hook, etc), where:
  • data object or Stream the data that is the response of the request
  • extraData object (optional) extra data result of before-type of hook that further processing may include in the final data object (only few rare methods care)
  • httpStatus (optional) number a particular HTTP status that may overide the default one
  • meta Object (optional) meta-data of the document, common meta data:
    • contentType (optional) string the type of the content, default to application/json
    • filename (optional) string if binary data is about to be sent, this is the name of the file
  • serializer Function (optional) the serializer to use, default to JSON.stringify()
  • serializerArg (optional) an extra argument to pass to the serializer
• performer Performer it represents the entity performing the action, it can retrieve a user (if connected and if it's not a system performer) as well as its group, and is mainly used for rights/access managements
• pathParts Array the remaining and fully parsed path to the resource, different from .input.pathParts, since it only contains the remaining parts
• alter Object contains current schema's alteration
• collectionNode CollectionNode hold current collectionNode
• objectNode ObjectNode (optional) hold current objectNode
• parentObjectNode ObjectNode (optional) hold the parent objectNode of the current objectNode, or the parent objectNode of the current collectionNode
• targetCollectionNode CollectionNode (optional) internal usage only
• ancestors Array internal usage only
• batchOf Array (optional) internal usage only
• getBatchQuery Object (optional) internal usage only
• getBatchOptions Object (optional) internal usage only
• linkerObjectNode ObjectNode (optional) the objectNode that is linking to the current node
• linkerPath (optional) internal usage only
• document Document (optional) the targeted/created/related document in its final state, for object methods it is the same as .objectNode.object
• patch Object (optional) a patch to apply to a document
• isDone boolean true if there is nothing more to do for this request (however, no hook or methods will be called with isDone: true)
• hook Object hook-specific data, may change from one hook to another, so see the hook documentation for details. Some non-exhaustive common properties:
  • incomingDocument Object (optional) a whole document to create or that will overwrite another.
  • incomingPatch Object (optional) a patch to apply on a existing document.
  • appliedPatch Object (optional) a patch that have been applied on a existing document (afterModify)
  • existingDocument Object (optional) if set, it is an existing document about to be patched or overwritten.
  • deletedDocument Object (optional) if set, it is a document that have been deleted or replaced.
• usr Object userland-specific data, can be used to communicate informations from upstream hooks to downstream hooks

Furthermore, the context object has this public methods:

• done(): mark the current request as done/finished, preventing any Rest Query's default behavior
• getUserBatch( methodFilter ): an async function (only works for collection methods) returning the same batch that would be returned by the query if there wasn't any method part in the URL. Query-string filters, sort, limits, skips, populate and so on are also applied. This is useful for collection methods that are not simple namespaced methods, but instead methods that are applied on a batch. Because it is the same batch that would be returned without the method part of the URL, this means that RIGHT MANAGEMENTS ARE ALSO APPLIED, filtering document that are not visible to this specific user. The optional argument methodFilter pass an extra filter passed by the method for its particular usage.
• getRealBatch( methodFilter ): an async function (only works for collection methods), mostly like .getUserBatch() but it returns all documents, even those that the right management would ignore. It should be used for methods that DO NOT RETURN THOSE DOCUMENTS but instead compute things on them, like anonymous statistics. Moreover, no population of any kind is applied, but query-string filters, sort, limits and skips are still valid. This is because we only want the correct document list. The optional argument methodFilter pass an extra filter passed by the method for its particular usage.

Job Runners

A Job Runner is a function of the form: function( jobData , job , app ).

• jobData any the data to be processed by the job runner, this is pure userland
• job Scheduler.Job it is the Job instance calling this runner, it can be used to call the Job's API
• app App it is App instance running the Scheduler

The Scheduler await for this function, so it MUST be async or return a Promise. After awaiting, the job is considered done and no more actions should be hanging.

If it throws, the job is considered failed and may be retried later. If it is a permanent error, the job runner should throw an Error having a fatal property set to true.