How does Sails.js manages data without saving in database

Question

I am very new to MVC and Sails.js. I just started learning it yesterday and tried to learn it by doing something. But I am having some confusions regarding Sails models.

After creating the application, I configured the database in config/connection.js. Then I created a blueprint api named user. Next thing I did is I started the server and loaded following url:

http://localhost:1337/user/create?user=Mr.X

I didn't configure anything in api/models/user.js. So it is not supposed to save any data in database. When I browse my database as expectedly I can't see any record. But when I load the following url:

http://localhost:1337/user/

I can see the record of Mr.X there. And even if I restart the server the record of Mr.X is still there. What I can't understand is, how is it happening? How is Sails saving this data without affecting the configured database? Is it normal thing in all MVC frameworks or just Sails do that?

Answer 1

I'm guessing that you set up a connection in config/connections.js, but didn't specify a default connection in config/models.js, so your app is still using the default localDiskDb connection. You can see this database by opening the .tmp/localDiskDb.db file in your project. It's a pretty handy development tool.

See the docs for config/models.js for more info on global model settings. You can also set a connection on a per-model by basis using the connection property in the model's class file (e.g. api/models/User.js).