How to use MongoDB transaction using Mongoose?

Question

I am using MongoDB Atlas cloud(https://cloud.mongodb.com/) and Mongoose library.

I tried to create multiple documents using transaction concept, but it is not working. I am not getting any error. but, it seems rollback is not working properly.

app.js

//*** more code here

var app = express();

require('./models/db');

//*** more code here

models/db.js

var mongoose = require( 'mongoose' );

// Build the connection string
var dbURI = 'mongodb+srv://mydb:pass@cluster0-****.mongodb.net/mydb?retryWrites=true';

// Create the database connection
mongoose.connect(dbURI, {
  useCreateIndex: true,
  useNewUrlParser: true,
});

// Get Mongoose to use the global promise library
mongoose.Promise = global.Promise;

models/user.js

const mongoose = require("mongoose");

const UserSchema = new mongoose.Schema({
  userName: {
    type: String,
    required: true
  },
  pass: {
    type: String,
    select: false
  }
});

module.exports = mongoose.model("User", UserSchema, "user");

myroute.js

const db = require("mongoose");
const User = require("./models/user");

router.post("/addusers", async (req, res, next) => {

    const SESSION = await db.startSession();

    await SESSION.startTransaction();

    try {

          const newUser = new User({
            //*** data for user ***
          });
          await newUser.save();

          //*** for test purpose, trigger some error ***
          throw new Error("some error");

          await SESSION.commitTransaction();

          //*** return data 

    } catch (error) {
            await SESSION.abortTransaction();
    } finally {
            SESSION.endSession();
    }    

 });

Above code works without error, but it still creates user in the DB. It suppose to rollback the created user and the collection should be empty.

I don't know what I have missed here. Can anyone please let me know whats wrong here?

app, models, schema and router are in different files.

Answer 1

You need to include the session within the options for all read/write operations which are active during a transaction. Only then are they actually applied to the transaction scope where you are able to roll them back.

As a bit more complete listing, and just using the more classic Order/OrderItems modelling which should be pretty familiar to most people with some relational transactions experience:

const { Schema } = mongoose = require('mongoose');

// URI including the name of the replicaSet connecting to
const uri = 'mongodb://localhost:27017/trandemo?replicaSet=fresh';
const opts = { useNewUrlParser: true };

// sensible defaults
mongoose.Promise = global.Promise;
mongoose.set('debug', true);
mongoose.set('useFindAndModify', false);
mongoose.set('useCreateIndex', true);

// schema defs

const orderSchema = new Schema({
  name: String
});

const orderItemsSchema = new Schema({
  order: { type: Schema.Types.ObjectId, ref: 'Order' },
  itemName: String,
  price: Number
});

const Order = mongoose.model('Order', orderSchema);
const OrderItems = mongoose.model('OrderItems', orderItemsSchema);

// log helper

const log = data => console.log(JSON.stringify(data, undefined, 2));

// main

(async function() {

  try {

    const conn = await mongoose.connect(uri, opts);

    // clean models
    await Promise.all(
      Object.entries(conn.models).map(([k,m]) => m.deleteMany())
    )

    let session = await conn.startSession();
    session.startTransaction();

    // Collections must exist in transactions
    await Promise.all(
      Object.entries(conn.models).map(([k,m]) => m.createCollection())
    );

    let [order, other] = await Order.insertMany([
      { name: 'Bill' },
      { name: 'Ted' }
    ], { session });

    let fred = new Order({ name: 'Fred' });
    await fred.save({ session });

    let items = await OrderItems.insertMany(
      [
        { order: order._id, itemName: 'Cheese', price: 1 },
        { order: order._id, itemName: 'Bread', price: 2 },
        { order: order._id, itemName: 'Milk', price: 3 }
      ],
      { session }
    );

    // update an item
    let result1 = await OrderItems.updateOne(
      { order: order._id, itemName: 'Milk' },
      { $inc: { price: 1 } },
      { session }
    );
    log(result1);

    // commit
    await session.commitTransaction();

    // start another
    session.startTransaction();

    // Update and abort
    let result2 = await OrderItems.findOneAndUpdate(
      { order: order._id, itemName: 'Milk' },
      { $inc: { price: 1 } },
      { 'new': true, session }
    );
    log(result2);

    await session.abortTransaction();

    /*
     * $lookup join - expect Milk to be price: 4
     *
     */

    let joined = await Order.aggregate([
      { '$match': { _id: order._id } },
      { '$lookup': {
        'from': OrderItems.collection.name,
        'foreignField': 'order',
        'localField': '_id',
        'as': 'orderitems'
      }}
    ]);
    log(joined);


  } catch(e) {
    console.error(e)
  } finally {
    mongoose.disconnect()
  }

})()

So I would generally recommend calling the variable session in lowercase, since this is the name of the key for the "options" object where it is required on all operations. Keeping this in the lowercase convention allows for using things like the ES6 Object assignment as well:

const conn = await mongoose.connect(uri, opts);

...

let session = await conn.startSession();
session.startTransaction();

Also the mongoose documentation on transactions is a little misleading, or at least it could be more descriptive. What it refers to as db in the examples is actually the Mongoose Connection instance, and not the underlying Db or even the mongoose global import as some may misinterpret this. Note in the listing and above excerpt this is obtained from mongoose.connect() and should be kept within your code as something you can access from a shared import.

Alternately you can even grab this in modular code via the mongoose.connection property, at any time after a connection has been established. This is usually safe inside things such as server route handlers and the like since there will be a database connection by the time that code is called.

The code also demonstrates the session usage in the different model methods:

let [order, other] = await Order.insertMany([
  { name: 'Bill' },
  { name: 'Ted' }
], { session });

let fred = new Order({ name: 'Fred' });
await fred.save({ session });

All the find() based methods and the update() or insert() and delete() based methods all have a final "options block" where this session key and value are expected. The save() method's only argument is this options block. This is what tells MongoDB to apply these actions to the current transaction on that referenced session.

In much the same way, before a transaction is committed any requests for a find() or similar which do not specify that session option do not see the state of the data whilst that transaction is in progress. The modified data state is only available to other operations once the transaction completes. Note this has effects on writes as covered in the documentation.

When an "abort" is issued:

// Update and abort
let result2 = await OrderItems.findOneAndUpdate(
  { order: order._id, itemName: 'Milk' },
  { $inc: { price: 1 } },
  { 'new': true, session }
);
log(result2);

await session.abortTransaction();

Any operations on the active transaction are removed from state and are not applied. As such they are not visible to resulting operations afterwards. In the example here the value in the document is incremented and will show a retrieved value of 5 on the current session. However after session.abortTransaction() the previous state of the document is reverted. Note that any global context which was not reading data on the same session, does not see that state change unless committed.

That should give the general overview. There is more complexity that can be added to handle varying levels of write failure and retries, but that is already extensively covered in documentation and many samples, or can be answered to a more specific question.

---

Output

For reference, the output of the included listing is shown here:

Mongoose: orders.deleteMany({}, {})
Mongoose: orderitems.deleteMany({}, {})
Mongoose: orders.insertMany([ { _id: 5bf775986c7c1a61d12137dd, name: 'Bill', __v: 0 }, { _id: 5bf775986c7c1a61d12137de, name: 'Ted', __v: 0 } ], { session: ClientSession("80f827fe077044c8b6c0547b34605cb2") })
Mongoose: orders.insertOne({ _id: ObjectId("5bf775986c7c1a61d12137df"), name: 'Fred', __v: 0 }, { session: ClientSession("80f827fe077044c8b6c0547b34605cb2") })
Mongoose: orderitems.insertMany([ { _id: 5bf775986c7c1a61d12137e0, order: 5bf775986c7c1a61d12137dd, itemName: 'Cheese', price: 1, __v: 0 }, { _id: 5bf775986c7c1a61d12137e1, order: 5bf775986c7c1a61d12137dd, itemName: 'Bread', price: 2, __v: 0 }, { _id: 5bf775986c7c1a61d12137e2, order: 5bf775986c7c1a61d12137dd, itemName: 'Milk', price: 3, __v: 0 } ], { session: ClientSession("80f827fe077044c8b6c0547b34605cb2") })
Mongoose: orderitems.updateOne({ order: ObjectId("5bf775986c7c1a61d12137dd"), itemName: 'Milk' }, { '$inc': { price: 1 } }, { session: ClientSession("80f827fe077044c8b6c0547b34605cb2") })
{
  "n": 1,
  "nModified": 1,
  "opTime": {
    "ts": "6626894672394452998",
    "t": 139
  },
  "electionId": "7fffffff000000000000008b",
  "ok": 1,
  "operationTime": "6626894672394452998",
  "$clusterTime": {
    "clusterTime": "6626894672394452998",
    "signature": {
      "hash": "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=",
      "keyId": 0
    }
  }
}
Mongoose: orderitems.findOneAndUpdate({ order: ObjectId("5bf775986c7c1a61d12137dd"), itemName: 'Milk' }, { '$inc': { price: 1 } }, { session: ClientSession("80f827fe077044c8b6c0547b34605cb2"), upsert: false, remove: false, projection: {}, returnOriginal: false })
{
  "_id": "5bf775986c7c1a61d12137e2",
  "order": "5bf775986c7c1a61d12137dd",
  "itemName": "Milk",
  "price": 5,
  "__v": 0
}
Mongoose: orders.aggregate([ { '$match': { _id: 5bf775986c7c1a61d12137dd } }, { '$lookup': { from: 'orderitems', foreignField: 'order', localField: '_id', as: 'orderitems' } } ], {})
[
  {
    "_id": "5bf775986c7c1a61d12137dd",
    "name": "Bill",
    "__v": 0,
    "orderitems": [
      {
        "_id": "5bf775986c7c1a61d12137e0",
        "order": "5bf775986c7c1a61d12137dd",
        "itemName": "Cheese",
        "price": 1,
        "__v": 0
      },
      {
        "_id": "5bf775986c7c1a61d12137e1",
        "order": "5bf775986c7c1a61d12137dd",
        "itemName": "Bread",
        "price": 2,
        "__v": 0
      },
      {
        "_id": "5bf775986c7c1a61d12137e2",
        "order": "5bf775986c7c1a61d12137dd",
        "itemName": "Milk",
        "price": 4,
        "__v": 0
      }
    ]
  }
]