How to properly reuse connection to Mongodb across NodeJs application and modules

Question

You can create a mongoUtil.js module that has functions to both connect to mongo and return a mongo db instance:

const MongoClient = require( 'mongodb' ).MongoClient;
const url = "mongodb://localhost:27017";

var _db;

module.exports = {

  connectToServer: function( callback ) {
    MongoClient.connect( url,  { useNewUrlParser: true }, function( err, client ) {
      _db  = client.db('test_db');
      return callback( err );
    } );
  },

  getDb: function() {
    return _db;
  }
};

To use it, you would do this in your app.js:

var mongoUtil = require( 'mongoUtil' );

mongoUtil.connectToServer( function( err, client ) {
  if (err) console.log(err);
  // start the rest of your app here
} );

And then, when you need access to mongo somewhere else, like in another .js file, you can do this:

var mongoUtil = require( 'mongoUtil' );
var db = mongoUtil.getDb();

db.collection( 'users' ).find();

The reason this works is that in node, when modules are require'd, they only get loaded/sourced once so you will only ever end up with one instance of _db and mongoUtil.getDb() will always return that same instance.

Note, code not tested.

There are many ways this could be tweaked to accept configuration objects in places, but overall it's similar to how you have your code laid out, albeit with more modern JS syntax. Could easily be rewritten to prototypes and callbacks, if that's your requirement.

mongo.js

const { MongoClient } = require('mongodb');
const config = require('./config');
const Users = require('./Users');
const conf = config.get('mongodb');

class MongoBot {
  constructor() {
    const url = `mongodb://${conf.hosts.join(',')}`;

    this.client = new MongoClient(url, conf.opts);
  }
  async init() {
    await this.client.connect();
    console.log('connected');

    this.db = this.client.db(conf.db);
    this.Users = new Users(this.db);
  }
}

module.exports = new MongoBot();

Users.js

class User {
  constructor(db) {
    this.collection = db.collection('users');
  }
  async addUser(user) {
    const newUser = await this.collection.insertOne(user);
    return newUser;
  }
}
module.exports = User;

app.js

const mongo = require('./mongo');

async function start() {
  // other app startup stuff...
  await mongo.init();
  // other app startup stuff...
}
start();

someFile.js

const { Users } = require('./mongo');

async function someFunction(userInfo) {
  const user = await Users.addUser(userInfo);
  return user;
}

If you are using Express, then you can use mongo-express-req module that allows you to get db connection in request object.

Install

npm install --save mongo-express-req

server.js

var app = require('express')();

var mongoExpressReq = require('mongo-express-req');
app.use(mongoExpressReq('mongodb://localhost/test'));

routes/users.js

app.get('/', function (req, res, next) {
    req.db // => Db object
});

---

Note: mongo-express-req is fork of not maintained express-mongo-db.

Here's how I do it with contemporary syntax, based on go-oleg's example. Mine is tested and functional.

I put some comments in the code.

./db/mongodb.js

 const MongoClient = require('mongodb').MongoClient
 const uri = 'mongodb://user:password@localhost:27017/dbName'
 let _db

 const connectDB = async (callback) => {
     try {
         MongoClient.connect(uri, (err, db) => {
             _db = db
             return callback(err)
         })
     } catch (e) {
         throw e
     }
 }

 const getDB = () => _db

 const disconnectDB = () => _db.close()

 module.exports = { connectDB, getDB, disconnectDB }

./index.js

 // Load MongoDB utils
 const MongoDB = require('./db/mongodb')
 // Load queries & mutations
 const Users = require('./users')

 // Improve debugging
 process.on('unhandledRejection', (reason, p) => {
     console.log('Unhandled Rejection at:', p, 'reason:', reason)
 })

 const seedUser = {
     name: 'Bob Alice',
     email: '[email protected]',
     bonusSetting: true
 }

 // Connect to MongoDB and put server instantiation code inside
 // because we start the connection first
 MongoDB.connectDB(async (err) => {
     if (err) throw err
     // Load db & collections
     const db = MongoDB.getDB()
     const users = db.collection('users')

     try {
         // Run some sample operations
         // and pass users collection into models
         const newUser = await Users.createUser(users, seedUser)
         const listUsers = await Users.getUsers(users)
         const findUser = await Users.findUserById(users, newUser._id)

         console.log('CREATE USER')
         console.log(newUser)
         console.log('GET ALL USERS')
         console.log(listUsers)
         console.log('FIND USER')
         console.log(findUser)
     } catch (e) {
         throw e
     }

     const desired = true
     if (desired) {
         // Use disconnectDB for clean driver disconnect
         MongoDB.disconnectDB()
         process.exit(0)
     }
     // Server code anywhere above here inside connectDB()
 })

./users/index.js

 const ObjectID = require('mongodb').ObjectID

 // Notice how the users collection is passed into the models
 const createUser = async (users, user) => {
     try {
         const results = await users.insertOne(user)
         return results.ops[0]
     } catch (e) {
         throw e
     }
 }

 const getUsers = async (users) => {
     try {
         const results = await users.find().toArray()
         return results
     } catch (e) {
         throw e
     }
 }

 const findUserById = async (users, id) => {
     try {
         if (!ObjectID.isValid(id)) throw 'Invalid MongoDB ID.'
         const results = await users.findOne(ObjectID(id))
         return results
     } catch (e) {
         throw e
     }
 }

 // Export garbage as methods on the Users object
 module.exports = { createUser, getUsers, findUserById }