Interdependent Transactions with pg-promise

Question

I am trying to build an app involves posts and tags for posts. For these I have a post, tags and post_tag table. tags has the tags I have defined before hand and in somewhere in the app is suggested to the user on the front-end. post_tag table holds the post and tag ids as pairs on each row.

I use express.js and postgreql and pg-promise.

As far as I know I need a transactional query(ies) for a create post operation.

Also I need a mechanism to detect if a tag was not in tags table when the user created the post, so that I can insert it on the fly, and I have a tag_id for each tag that is neccessary to use in insertion of the post_id and tag_id into post_tag table. Otherwise, I will have a foreign key error since I need to post_tag table's columns post_id and tag_id to reference posts and tags table id columns, respectively.

Here is the url function I use for this I have used so far unsuccessful:

privateAPIRoutes.post('/ask', function (req, res) {
    console.log('/ask req.body: ', req.body);
    // write to posts
    var post_id = ''
    var post_url = ''
    db.query(
        `
            INSERT INTO
                posts (title, text, post_url, author_id, post_type)
            VALUES
                ($(title), $(text), $(post_url), $(author_id), $(post_type))
            RETURNING id
        `,
        {
            title: req.body.title,
            text: req.body.text,
            post_url: slug(req.body.title),
            author_id: req.user.id,
            post_type: 'question'
        } // remember req.user contains decoded jwt saved by mw above.
    )
        .then(post => {
            console.log('/ask post: ', post);
            post_id = post.id
            post_url = post.post_url


            // if tag deos not exist create it here
            var tags = req.body.tags;
            console.log('2nd block tags1', tags);
            for (var i = 0; i < tags.length; i++) {
                if (tags[i].id == undefined) {
                    console.log('req.body.tags[i].id == undefined', tags[i].id);                        
                    var q1 = db.query("insert into tags (tag) values ($(tag)) returning id", {tag: tags[i].label})
                                .then(data => {
                                    console.log('2nd block tags2', tags);
                                    tags[i].id = data[0].id 


                                    // write to the post_tag
                                    db.tx(t => {
                                        var queries = [];
                                        for (var j = 0; j < tags.length; j++) {

                                            var query = t.query(
                                                `
                                                    INSERT INTO
                                                        post_tag (post_id, tag_id)
                                                    VALUES
                                                        ($(post_id), $(tag_id))
                                                `,
                                                {
                                                    post_id: post_id,
                                                    tag_id: tags[j].id
                                                }
                                            )
                                            queries.push(query);
                                        }   
                                        return t.batch(queries)
                                    })
                                        .then(data => {
                                            res.json({post_id: post_id, post_url: post_url})
                                        })
                                        .catch(error => {
                                            console.error(error);
                                        })
                                })
                                .catch(error => {
                                    console.error(error);
                                });
                }
            }
        })
        .catch(error => {
            console.error(error);
        })
});

Answer 1

The main problem you have - you can't use the root-level db object inside a task or transaction. Trying to create a new connection while inside a transaction breaks the transaction logic. You would need to use t.tx in such cases. However, in your case I don't see that you need it at all.

corrected code:

privateAPIRoutes.post('/ask', (req, res) => {
    console.log('/ask req.body: ', req.body);
    db.tx(t => {
        return t.one(
            `
        INSERT INTO
        posts (title, text, post_url, author_id, post_type)
        VALUES
        ($(title), $(text), $(post_url), $(author_id), $(post_type))
        RETURNING *
        `,
            {
                title: req.body.title,
                text: req.body.text,
                post_url: slug(req.body.title),
                author_id: req.user.id,
                post_type: 'question'
            } // remember req.user contains decoded jwt saved by mw above.
        )
            .then(post => {
                console.log('/ask second query: post[0]: ', post);
                console.log('/ask second query: tags: ', req.body.tags);
                console.log('/ask second query: tags[0]: ', req.body.tags[0]);

                // the key piece to the answer:
                var tagIds = req.body.tags.map(tag => {
                    return tag.id || t.one("insert into tags(tag) values($1) returning id", tag.label, a=>a.id);
                });

                return t.batch(tagIds)
                    .then(ids => {
                        var queries = ids.map(id => {
                            return t.one(
                                `
                                INSERT INTO post_tag (post_id, tag_id)
                                VALUES ($(post_id), $(tag_id))
                                RETURNING post_id, tag_id
                                `,
                                {
                                    post_id: post.id,
                                    tag_id: id
                                }
                            )
                        });
                        return t.batch(queries);
                    });
            });
    })
        .then(data => {
            // data = result from the last query;
            console.log('/api/ask', data);
            res.json(data);

        })
        .catch(error => {
            // error
        });
});

The key here is simply to iterate through the tag id-s, and for the ones that are not set - use an insert. Then you settle them all by passing the array into t.batch.

---

Other recommendations:

• You should use method one when executing an insert that returns the new record columns.
• You should use try/catch only once there, on the transaction. This is relevant to how to use promises, and not just for this library
• You can place your queries into external SQL files, see Query Files

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To understand conditional inserts better, see SELECT->INSERT