Node.js Async/Await module export

Question

I'm kinda new to module creation and was wondering about module.exports and waiting for async functions (like a mongo connect function for example) to complete and exporting the result. The variables get properly defined using async/await in the module, but when trying to log them by requiring the module, they show up as undefined. If someone could point me in the right direction, that'd be great. Here's the code I've got so far:

// module.js

const MongoClient = require('mongodb').MongoClient
const mongo_host = '127.0.0.1'
const mongo_db = 'test'
const mongo_port = '27017';

(async module => {

  var client, db
  var url = `mongodb://${mongo_host}:${mongo_port}/${mongo_db}`

  try {
    // Use connect method to connect to the Server
    client = await MongoClient.connect(url, {
      useNewUrlParser: true
    })

    db = client.db(mongo_db)
  } catch (err) {
    console.error(err)
  } finally {
    // Exporting mongo just to test things
    console.log(client) // Just to test things I tried logging the client here and it works. It doesn't show 'undefined' like test.js does when trying to console.log it from there
    module.exports = {
      client,
      db
    }
  }
})(module)

And here's the js that requires the module

// test.js

const {client} = require('./module')

console.log(client) // Logs 'undefined'

I'm fairly familiar with js and am still actively learning and looking into things like async/await and like features, but yeah... I can't really figure that one out

Answer 1

You have to export synchronously, so its impossible to export client and db directly. However you could export a Promise that resolves to client and db :

module.exports = (async function() {
 const client = await MongoClient.connect(url, {
   useNewUrlParser: true
 });

  const db = client.db(mongo_db);
  return { client, db };
})();

So then you can import it as:

const {client, db} = await require("yourmodule");

(that has to be in an async function itself)

PS: console.error(err) is not a proper error handler, if you cant handle the error just crash

Answer 2

the solution provided above by @Jonas Wilms is working but requires to call requires in an async function each time we want to reuse the connection. an alternative way is to use a callback function to return the mongoDB client object.

mongo.js:

const MongoClient = require('mongodb').MongoClient;

const uri = "mongodb+srv://<user>:<pwd>@<host and port>?retryWrites=true";

const mongoClient = async function(cb) {
    const client = await MongoClient.connect(uri, {
             useNewUrlParser: true
         });
         cb(client);
};

module.exports = {mongoClient}

then we can use mongoClient method in a diffrent file(express route or any other js file).

app.js:

var client;
const mongo = require('path to mongo.js');
mongo.mongoClient((connection) => {
  client = connection;
});
//declare express app and listen....

//simple post reuest to store a student..
app.post('/', async (req, res, next) => {
  const newStudent = {
    name: req.body.name,
    description: req.body.description,
    studentId: req.body.studetId,
    image: req.body.image
  };
  try
  {

    await client.db('university').collection('students').insertOne({newStudent});
  }
  catch(err)
  {
    console.log(err);
    return res.status(500).json({ error: err});
  }

  return res.status(201).json({ message: 'Student added'});
};