sequelize-hierarchy.js

Nested hierarchies for Sequelize

What's it for?

Relational databases aren't very good at dealing with nested hierarchies.

Examples of hierarchies are:

• Nested folders where each folder has many subfolders, those subfolders themselves have subfolders, and so on
• Categories and sub-categories e.g. for a newspaper with sections for different sports, Sports category splits into Track Sports and Water Sports, Water Sports into Swimming and Diving, Diving into High Board, Middle Board and Low Board etc
• Tree structures

To store a hierarchy in a database, the usual method is to give each record a ParentID field which says which is the record one level above it.

Fetching the parent or children of any record is easy, but if you want to retrieve an entire tree/hierarchy structure from the database, it requires multiple queries, recursively getting each level of the hierarchy. For a big tree structure, this is a lengthy process, and annoying to code.

This plugin for Sequelize solves this problem.

Current status

API is stable. All features and options are fairly well tested. Works with all dialects of SQL supported by Sequelize (MySQL, Postgres, SQLite, Microsoft SQL Server).

Requires Sequelize v2.0.0 or later.

Usage

Loading module

To load module:

var Sequelize = require('sequelize-hierarchy')();
// NB Sequelize must also be present in `node_modules`

or, a more verbose form useful if chaining multiple Sequelize plugins:

var Sequelize = require('sequelize');
require('sequelize-hierarchy')(Sequelize);

Initializing hierarchy

Model#isHierarchy( [options] )

var sequelize = new Sequelize('database', 'user', 'password');

var folder = sequelize.define('folder', name: { type: Sequelize.STRING });
folder.isHierarchy();

folder.isHierarchy() does the following:

• Adds a column parentId to Folder model
• Adds a column hierarchyLevel to Folder model (which should not be updated directly)
• Creates a new model folderAncestor which contains the ancestry information
• Creates hooks into standard Sequelize methods (create, update, destroy etc) to automatically update the ancestry table as details in the folder table change
• Creates hooks into Sequelize's Model#find() and Model#findAll() methods so that hierarchies can be returned as javascript object tree structures

The column and table names etc can be modified by passing options to .isHierarchy(). See below for details.

via Sequelize#define() options

Hierarchies can also be created in define():

var folder = sequelize.define('folder', { name: Sequelize.STRING }, { hierarchy: true });

or on an attribute in define():

var folder = sequelize.define('folder', {
	name: Sequelize.STRING,
	parentId: {
		type: Sequelize.INTEGER.UNSIGNED,
		hierarchy: true
	}
});

Retrieving hierarchies

Examples of getting a hierarchy structure:

// get entire hierarchy as a flat list
folder.findAll().then(function(results) {
	// results = [
	//	{ id: 1, parentId: null, name: 'a' },
	//	{ id: 2, parentId: 1, name: 'ab' },
	//	{ id: 3, parentId: 2, name: 'abc' }
	// ]
});

// get entire hierarchy as a nested tree
folder.findAll({ hierarchy: true }).then(function(results) {
	// results = [
	//	{ id: 1, parentId: null, name: 'a', children: [
	//		{ id: 2, parentId: 1, name: 'ab', children: [
	//			{ id: 3, parentId: 2, name: 'abc' }
	//		] }
	//	] }
	// ]
});

// get all the descendents of a particular item
folder.find({ where: { name: 'a' }, include: { model: folder, as: 'descendents', hierarchy: true } }).then(function(result) {
	// result =
	// { id: 1, parentId: null, name: 'a', children: [
	//		{ id: 2, parentId: 1, name: 'ab', children: [
	//			{ id: 3, parentId: 2, name: 'abc' }
	//		] }
	// ] }
});

// get all the ancestors (i.e. parent and parent's parent and so on)
folder.find({
	where: { name: 'abc' },
	include: [ { model: folder, as: 'ancestors' } ],
	order: [ [ { model: folder, as: 'ancestors' }, 'hierarchyLevel' ] ]
}).then(function(result) {
	// results = [
	//	{ id: 3, parentId: 2, name: 'abc', ancestors: [
	//		{ id: 1, parentId: null, name: 'a' },
	//		{ id: 2, parentId: 1, name: 'ab' }
	//	] }
	// ]
});

The forms with { hierarchy: true } are equivalent to using folder.findAll({ include: { model: folder, as: 'children' } }) except that the include is recursed however deeply the tree structure goes.

Accessors

Accessors are also supported:

thisFolder.getParent()
thisFolder.getChildren()
thisFolder.getAncestors()
thisFolder.getDescendents()

Options

The following options can be passed to Model#isHierarchy( options ). Defaults are inherited from sequelize.options.hierarchy if defined in call to new Sequelize().

Aliases for relations

• as: Name of parent association. Defaults to 'parent'
• childrenAs: Name of children association. Defaults to 'children'
• ancestorsAs: Name of ancestors association. Defaults to 'ancestors'
• descendentsAs: Name of descendents association. Defaults to 'descendents'

These affect the naming of accessors e.g. instance.getParent()

Fields

• levelFieldName: Name of the hierarchy depth field. Defaults to 'hierarchyLevel'
• levelFieldType: Type of the hierarchy depth field. Defaults to Sequelize.INTEGER.UNSIGNED
• levelFieldAttributes: Attributes to add to the hierarchy depth field. Defaults to undefined
• primaryKey: Name of the primary key. Defaults to model's primaryKeyAttribute
• foreignKey: Name of the parent field. Defaults to 'parentId'
• foreignKeyAttributes: Attributes to add to the parent field. Defaults to undefined
• throughKey: Name of the instance field in hierarchy (through) table. Defaults to '<model name>Id'
• throughForeignKey: Name of the ancestor field in hierarchy (through) table. Defaults to 'ancestorId'

Hierarchy (through) table

• through: Name of hierarchy (through) model. Defaults to '<model name>ancestor'

• throughTable: Name of hierarchy (through) table. Defaults to '<model name plural>ancestors'

• freezeTableName: When true, through table name is same as through model name. Inherits from sequelize define options

• camelThrough: When true, through model name and table name are camelized (i.e. folderAncestor not folderancestor). Inherits from sequelize define options

Misc

• labels: When true, creates an attribute label on the created parentId and hierarchyLevel fields which is a human-readable version of the field name. Inherits from sequelize define options or false

Rebuilding the hierarchy

Model#rebuildHierarchy( [options] )

To build the hierarchy data on an existing table, or if hierarchy data gets corrupted in some way (e.g. by changes to parentId being made directly in the database not through Sequelize), you can rebuild it with:

folder.rebuildHierarchy()

Tests

Use npm test to run the tests. Requires a database called 'sequelize_test' and a db user 'sequelize_test' with no password.

Changelog

See changelog.md

TODO

• Create more efficient function for bulkCreate (+ alter sequelize bulkCreate to do single multi-row insertion?). Would not affect API or behaviour, just improve performance.

Known issues

• beforeUpdate hook function assumes that item has not been updated since it was originally retrieved from DB
• All hooks should be within transactions

If you discover a bug, please raise an issue on Github. https://github.com/overlookmotel/sequelize-hierarchy/issues

Contribution

Pull requests are very welcome. Please:

• ensure all tests pass before submitting PR
• add an entry to changelog
• add tests for new features
• document new functionality/API additions in README