database - sasjakoning/blok-tech-2022 GitHub Wiki

To save elements online a database is needed. The Tech project of CMD which this feature is a part of highly suggested me to work with MongoDb due to its option to start a free database which is ideal for student projects.

MongoDB

Working with data doesn’t need to be hard

MongoDb is a noSQL database which uses JSON documents. It's data models are flexible and queries are faster than SQL databases.

Mongoose

Along with MongoDB I use Mongoose. Mongoose is a object modeling package for MongoDB which makes creating documents a lot easier. Mongoose also works very well with Express.

Mongoose provides a straight-forward, schema-based solution to model your application data. It includes built-in type casting, validation, query building, business logic hooks and more, out of the box.

Connecting

To connect the MongoDB database to the project, I created a connect.js file.

In this file I write the following code:

    require("dotenv").config();

    const mongoose = require("mongoose");
    const url = process.env.ATLAS_URI;

    const connectDb = async () => {

        try {
            await mongoose.connect(url, {useNewUrlParser: true, useUnifiedTopology: true})

            console.log("db connection succesful")
        } catch (err) {
            console.log(`failed to connect: ${err}`)
            throw err
        }
    }

    module.exports = {
        connectDb
    }

I first require a new file called .env which holds the connection url. a "dotenv" file is a zero-dependency module that loads environment variables into process. Using such a file is more secure than placing your credentials in your connect.js.

After writing the needed code I export the file by using module.exports and require it in my main back-end file.

Now I can communicate with the database through my code.