How to provide a mysql database connection in single file in nodejs

Question

I need to provide the mysql connection for modules. I have a code like this.

var express = require('express'),
app = express(),
server = require('http').createServer(app);

var mysql      = require('mysql');
var connection = mysql.createConnection({
    host     : '127.0.0.1',
    user     : 'root',
    password : '',
    database    : 'chat'
});

connection.connect(function(err) {
    if (err) {
        console.error('error connecting: ' + err.stack);
        return;
    }
});

app.get('/save', function(req,res){
    var post  = {from:'me', to:'you', msg:'hi'};
    var query = connection.query('INSERT INTO messages SET ?', post, function(err, result) {
        if (err) throw err;
    });
});

server.listen(3000);

But how we provide one time mysql connection for all the modules.

Answer 1

You could create a db wrapper then require it. node's require returns the same instance of a module every time, so you can perform your connection and return a handler. From the Node.js docs:

every call to require('foo') will get exactly the same object returned, if it would resolve to the same file.

You could create db.js:

var mysql = require('mysql');
var connection = mysql.createConnection({
    host     : '127.0.0.1',
    user     : 'root',
    password : '',
    database : 'chat'
});

connection.connect(function(err) {
    if (err) throw err;
});

module.exports = connection;

Then in your app.js, you would simply require it.

var express = require('express');
var app = express();
var db = require('./db');

app.get('/save',function(req,res){
    var post  = {from:'me', to:'you', msg:'hi'};
    db.query('INSERT INTO messages SET ?', post, function(err, result) {
      if (err) throw err;
    });
});

server.listen(3000);

This approach allows you to abstract any connection details, wrap anything else you want to expose and require db throughout your application while maintaining one connection to your db thanks to how node require works :)

Answer 2

I took a similar approach as Sean3z but instead I have the connection closed everytime i make a query.

His way works if it's only executed on the entry point of your app, but let's say you have controllers that you want to do a var db = require('./db'). You can't because otherwise everytime you access that controller you will be creating a new connection.

To avoid that, i think it's safer, in my opinion, to open and close the connection everytime.

here is a snippet of my code.

mysq_query.js

// Dependencies
var mysql   = require('mysql'),
    config  = require("../config");

/*
 * @sqlConnection
 * Creates the connection, makes the query and close it to avoid concurrency conflicts.
 */
var sqlConnection = function sqlConnection(sql, values, next) {

    // It means that the values hasnt been passed
    if (arguments.length === 2) {
        next = values;
        values = null;
    }

    var connection = mysql.createConnection(config.db);
    connection.connect(function(err) {
        if (err !== null) {
            console.log("[MYSQL] Error connecting to mysql:" + err+'\n');
        }
    });

    connection.query(sql, values, function(err) {

        connection.end(); // close the connection

        if (err) {
            throw err;
        }

        // Execute the callback
        next.apply(this, arguments);
    });
}

module.exports = sqlConnection;

Than you can use it anywhere just doing like

var mysql_query = require('path/to/your/mysql_query');
mysql_query('SELECT * from your_table where ?', {id: '1'}, function(err, rows)   {
    console.log(rows);
});

UPDATED: config.json looks like

{
        "db": {
        "user"     : "USERNAME",
        "password" : "PASSWORD",
        "database" : "DATABASE_NAME",
        "socketPath": "/tmp/mysql.sock"
    }
}

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

I think that you should use a connection pool instead of share a single connection. A connection pool would provide a much better performance, as you can check here.

As stated in the library documentation, it occurs because the MySQL protocol is sequential (this means that you need multiple connections to execute queries in parallel).

Connection Pool Docs