genus

Genus is a simple library for creating Mongo models in Node. It's original inspiration is Sails` modeling, where models are defined in a folder (/models) with a simple JSON syntax. Genus takes the concept further by emphasizing extendability a great deal more than the original Sails modeling would allow.

Install

Somewhere in your server start

require('genus').init(previouslyEstablishedMongoConnection);

Usage

Register models

module.exports = genus.model('Person', {
    attributes: { // the attributes of the model
        name: {
            type: 'string', // tring, integer, or array
            required: true // is the field required?
        },
        email: {
          type: 'string'
        },
        age: {
          type: 'integer',
      }
    },
    
    // by default every model has count, find, findOne, 
    // save, remove, validate, and clean methods
    
    // you can overwrite one of the default methods
    findOne: function (criteria) {
        return this.super.findOne.call(this, (criteria)).then(function() {
          // Do something special
        });
    },
    
    // or add a new method
    findOneWithName: function (name) {
        return this.super.find.call(this, {name: name});
    }
});

Assuming I named that model file Person.js, I would now be able to access my model via

var Person = require('models/Person.js');
Person.findOneWithName('john')
  .then(function(personNamedJohn) {
    personNamedJohn.name = 'Kelly';
    return Person.save(req.session.userId, personNamedJohn);
  })
  .then(function(personFormerlyKnownAsJohn) {
    // etc
  });

Model default methods

1. count(criteria) - mongo's count
2. findOne(id or criteria) - mongo's findOne
3. find(id or criteria) - mongo's find
4. save(requestorId, itemToBeSaved) - mongo's update (with upsert true if the model is new)
5. remove(criteria) - mongo's remove
6. validate(itemToBeValidated) - validate that a given item fits the model defintion
7. clean(itemToBeCleaned) - return a new item that contains only defined attributes