Importing thinky

Introduction

This document suggests how to import and use the thinky module. This article just gives hint on how to architect your application. You are free to try another architecture if it works better for your needs.

Architecture

  • We recommend users to create a file util/thinky.js with the following content:
// file: util/thinky.js
var thinky = require('thinky')({
    // thinky's options
})

module.exports = thinky;
  • Then for each model, create a .js file in a models directory. For example to declare a model User:
// file: models/user.js
var thinky = require(__dirname+'/util/thinky.js');
var type = thinky.type;

var User = thinky.createModel("User", {
    id: type.string(),
    name: type.string(),
    age: type.number()
});

module.exports = User;

If you need to create a relation, add it after calling createModel.

Suppose that a User has one Account. You would have two files:

// file: models/account.js
var thinky = require(__dirname+'/util/thinky.js');
var type = thinky.type;

var Account = thinky.createModel("Account", {
    id: type.string(),
    sold: type.number(),
    userId: type.string()
});

module.exports = Account;

var User = require(__dirname+'/models/user.js');
Account.belongsTo(User, "user", "userId", "id");


// file: models/user.js
var thinky = require(__dirname+'/util/thinky.js');
var type = thinky.type;

var User = thinky.createModel("User", {
    id: type.string(),
    name: type.string(),
    age: type.number()
});

module.exports = User;

var Account = require(__dirname+'/models/account.js');
User.hasOne(Account, "user", "id", "userId");
  • Then you can import the model you need anywhere you need.

If you find yourselves importing all your models in multiple files, you can create a file models/all.js with the following content:

// file: models/all.js
module.exports = {
    Account: require(__dirname+'/models/account.js');
    User: require(__dirname+'/models/user.js');
};

Explanations

The reason behind the architecture suggested above comes from the fact that when you execute the module thinky, you create a new instance of thinky.

You should not import and call the module mulitple times as it will result in multiple instances of thinky that will not share the same models.