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50.003 - Express.js and MySQL

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this unit, you should be able to

  1. Use MySQL to manage a relational database
  2. Integrate the restful API with MySQL as the database.
  3. Use view to present user requested information

Relational Databases

From the previous unit, we learn that Relational Database is an alternative to provide a logical model (and physical model) to a database design. Relational Database, informally speaking, represent data in terms of relations (or tables). A table is a set of records that have the same set of attributes.

For instance, given the ER diagram

We could

  1. represent the staff entity as a table
id name
1 aaron
2 betty

id is the primary key 2. reprsent the dept entity as a table

code
HR

code is the primary key.

  1. represent the Work relationship as a table
id code
1 HR
2 HR

id and code together form the primary key.

  1. represent the Manage relationship as a table
id code
2 HR

either id or code can be the primary key.

Sometimes, we just represent the above using a simpler schema representation for documentation purposes.

  • staff(id, name)
  • dept(code)
  • work(id, code)
  • manage(id, code)

Next let's implement the above logical design using MySQL

MySQL

To install MySQL,

  • If you are using windows or Mac, you can download and install from 
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    https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/
  • If you are using Ubuntu or Ubuntu subsystem in Windows 
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    sudo apt install mysql-server

To create a database in MySQL, we can use the mysql client shell or, if you prefer something with UI, you can install and use MySQL Workbench (graphical tool to work with mysql instead on terminal)

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sudo mysql
Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.

mysql> create database staffdir;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.04 sec)

mysql> use staffdir;
Database changed
mysql>
For Mac users, if `sudo mysql` does not work, try to run these instead 
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echo 'export PATH=/usr/local/mysql/bin:$PATH' >> ~/.bash_profile
. ~/.bash_profile
sudo mysql -u root -p

In the above we login to the mysql client as the root user. In the MySQL Shell, we create a database name staffdir. You can use SHOW DATABASES; command to check if it is created. Some databases are already created when you install mysql. We then use use command to switch the current working database to staffdir.

Data Definition Language

As a standard option for SQL compatible database, MySQL offers a subset of the language to enable the user to define the database tables, AKA Data Definition Language.

First let's create the staff table and the dept table

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CREATE TABLE staff(
    id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY,
    name VARCHAR(255)
);

CREATE TABLE dept(
    code CHAR(2) PRIMARY KEY
);

The CREATE TABLE statement specifies the table name (preceding the bracket), and the attributes (inbetween the brackets). We have to define the type of the attribute, INTEGER as integer, VARCHAR(255) as a variable length character array with max length 255. In addition, we specify the primary key using the PRIMARY KEY keyword. PRIMARY KEY and FOREIGN KEY are used to establish a relationship between two tables.

Note that SQL statements are case insensitive.

Next we consider the tables for the two relationships,

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CREATE TABLE work(
    id INTEGER,
    code CHAR(2),
    PRIMARY KEY (id, code),
    FOREIGN KEY (id) REFERENCES staff(id),
    FOREIGN KEY (code) REFERENCES dept(code)
);

CREATE TABLE manage(
    id INTEGER UNIQUE,
    code CHAR(2) PRIMARY KEY,
    FOREIGN KEY (id) REFERENCES staff(id),
    FOREIGN KEY (code) REFERENCES dept(code)
);

Since the attributes of the work table (similarly, manage) are dependent on those defined in the entities tables, namely staff and dept. There must be some kind of integrity checking to be done by the database (also called Referential Integrity). The FOREIGN KEY keyword specifies that id in work must be an existing id in staff table. Similar observation applies to the code attribute. The implication of PRIMARY KEY (id, code) is that there must be no rows which have similar id and code in work table.

The database will return an error if a record with id not existing in staff being inserted into work or a record with id used work being deleted from staff.

To drop a table, we can use a DROP TABLE statement

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DROP TABLE manage;

For the full set of DDL operations for MySQL,

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https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/innodb-online-ddl-operations.html

Data Manipulation Language

To insert records into the tables, we use the INSERT statements

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INSERT INTO staff (id, name) VALUES (1, "aaron"), (2, "betty");
INSERT INTO dept (code) VALUES ("HR");
INSERT INTO work (id, code) VALUES (1, "HR"), (2, "HR");
INSERT INTO manage (id, code) VALUES (2, "HR");

To retrieve the records from a table, we use the SELECT statement

For instance

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SELECT * FROM work;

returns the list of records (id and code) in the work table.

The query below

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SELECT id FROM work where code = "HR";

returns the list of staff id from the HR department.

The query below

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-- find all names of staff who are working in the HR department
SELECT staff.name FROM work INNER JOIN staff ON work.id=staff.id
WHERE work.code="HR";

finds the list of staff names from the HR department.

We can also perform aggregation.

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SELECT count(id), code FROM work
GROUP BY code;

finds the number of staff for each department. Aggregation operation in SQL generally requires you to define how to do the grouping and what is the function applied. In the example above, we group by code and apply count function.

To update a set of records in a table, we use the UPDATE statement.

For example the following statement change the name of staff with id = 2 to "beatrice".

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UPDATE staff SET name = "beatrice" WHERE id = 2;

To delete a set of records in a table, we use the DELETE statement.

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DELETE FROM manage WHERE code = "HR";

Express.js with MySQL

Let's create a similar project structure

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mkdir my_mysql_app
cd my_mysql_app
npx express-generator --view=ejs
npm i
npm i mysql2

Next login to mysql client shell and create a database and a databse user;

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CREATE DATABASE echo;
CREATE USER 'pichu'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'pikaP!'; -- we may replace % by hostname/ip to restrict the access
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON echo.* TO 'pichu'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

You can run SELECT * FROM mysql.user; to check if a new user has been created. The first statement creates a database named echo. The second statement create a database user with name pichu located at the localhost with password as pikaP!. The third statement grants all the privileges on the echo database to this user. The last statement ensure all the privilege updates are written to the disk.

Go to the express.js project root folder, namely my_mysql_app, create a sub folder with name models. In folder models, create a db.js file with the following content.

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const mysql = require("mysql2");

let pool = mysql
  .createPool({
    host: "localhost",
    user: "pichu",
    database: "echo",
    password: "pikaP!",
    connectionLimit: 10,
  })
  .promise();

async function cleanup() {
  await pool.end();
}

module.exports = { pool, cleanup };

In the second statement, we create a connection pool to the mysql database. A connection pool allows us to have multiple connections from multiple threads to access the database.

The rest are similar to the one we learned using mongodb.

Next in the same folder (models), create a file named message.js with the following content.

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const db = require("./db.js");

const tableName = "message";

class Message {
  constructor(msg, time) {
    this.msg = msg;
    this.time = time;
  }
}

async function sync() {
  try {
    db.pool.query(`
        CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS ${tableName} (
            msg VARCHAR(255),
            time DATETIME PRIMARY KEY
        )
        `);
  } catch (error) {
    console.error("database connection failed. " + error);
    throw error;
  }
}

async function all() {
  try {
    const [rows, fieldDefs] = await db.pool.query(`
            SELECT msg, time FROM ${tableName}
        `);
    var list = [];
    for (let row of rows) {
      let message = new Message(row.msg, row.time);
      list.push(message);
    }
    return list;
  } catch (error) {
    console.error("database connection failed. " + error);
    throw error;
  }
}

async function insertOne(message) {
  try {
    const [rows, fieldDefs] = await db.pool.query(
      `
            INSERT INTO ${tableName} (msg, time) VALUES (?, ?)
        `,
      [message.msg, message.time]
    );
  } catch (error) {
    console.error("database connection failed. " + error);
    throw error;
  }
}

async function insertMany(messages) {
  for (let message of messages) {
    await insertOne(message);
  }
}

module.exports = { Message, all, sync, insertOne, insertMany };

Similar to how my_mongo_app, we define a class Message to model each message received and saved. MySQL data must be stored in a table with schema definition. We define a sync function which creates the table in the database if it is not there. This function will be called in the app.js when the web app starts. We provide a set of functions.

  • Function all retrieves all the messages from the table.
  • Function insertOne inserts a message using the INSERT statement. In this case we find two ?s in the statement, these two question marks are the placeholders for the verified values. In this case message.msg and message.time will be subsituted in the statement if they are valid. The mysql2 library will verify that the values substituting ? do not contain illegal characters which might cause issues.
  • Function insertMany inserts a list of messages.

Next we create a routes/echo.js file with the following content,

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const express = require("express");
const model = require("../models/message.js");
var router = express.Router();

/* GET echo listing. */

router.get("/:msg", async function (req, res, next) {
  const msg = req.params.msg;
  const message = new model.Message(msg, new Date());
  await model.insertMany([message]);
  const messages = await model.all();
  console.log(messages);
  res.send(`${JSON.stringify(messages)}`);
});

module.exports = router;

which is similar to what we have seen in the my_mongo_app.

Finally, in the app.js file, we include the following

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var logger = require("morgan");
// adding the following
const db = require("./models/db.js");
const process = require("process");

process.on("SIGINT", db.cleanup);
process.on("SIGTERM", db.cleanup);
const message = require("./models/message.js");
message.sync();
// end

We imported the db.js file we created and process library so that we can register the db.cleanup function as the callback when the web app terminates. We also imported the message model module so that we can call message.sync() to make sure the table exists.

Finally we add the following to app.js so that we can call the echo router on the URL path /echo.

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var echoRouter = require("./routes/echo");
app.use("/echo", echoRouter);

Cohort Exercise

Given the ER diagram below,

give the step-by-step explanation on how we can implement API which returns the count of staff from each department.

http://127.0.0.1:3000/dept/count which yields

[{"count":2,"dept":"HR"}].

Exercise (Not Graded)

Can you modify the echo router so that it will return the most recent 3 messages?

In the above example, we incorporate the model layer to the web app. The models abstract away the underlying database operations in forms of function calls and class object instantiation.

Alternatively, we could use the sequelize library to help us to generate some of these codes. You are encouraged to check out the sequelize library.

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https://sequelize.org/