Question

I am looking for help with a design pattern for creating a database connection in my node.js application.

It seems obvious to do:

module1:

var db;
exports.get_db = function(callback) {

  if (db == null) {
    dblibrary.create(connection_params, function(error, conn) {
      if (error == null) {
        db = conn;
        callback(null, db);
      }
    });
  } else {
    callback(null, db);
  }
};

module2:

exports.do_something = function () {
  module1.get_db(function (err, conn) {
    if (err == null) {
      // continue using query
    }
  });
};

It seems painful to have to penalize every single person who wants to get the db connection with the requirement of using a callback.

I could do this:

module1:

var db;

dblibrary.create_connection(connection_params, function (err, conn) {

  if (err != null) {
     console.log("can't create connection");
     console.log(err);
     process.exit();
  } else {
     db = conn;
  }
});

exports.get_db = function() {
  return db;
};

This makes it so that getting the db connection is simple and fast, but means we have to “wait” at node startup time for the connection to be established.

Which is the better design? Is there a better way of doing things?

Answer 1

Best answer I’ve seen for this is:

in start.js:

    function init_done() {

      app.listen(8080);

    }


init_databases(init_done);

in databases.js:

init_databases(init_done_cb) {

  db.create_async(/* connect data */ , function (err, res) {

    if (err == null) init_done_cb();

  });
}

This way you can do the async startup of the database server without that awkward / dangerous waiting period.