Embedding or Referencing

Part of the Databases with MongoDB section of Coddy's Node.js journey. Lesson 18 of 18.

Reviews and ratings both belong to a book, and the best place to store each is different.

Embedding puts related data inside the document, so one read gets the book and its reviews. It suits data read with its parent that stays small. Referencing keeps it in its own collection with the parent's id, as ratings does. It suits data that grows without limit or is queried alone, like an average over every rating.

A document can hold at most 16 MB, so an embedded array needs a cap. Inside $push, $each lists the values to add and $slice: -3 keeps the last three.

await players.updateOne(
    { name: 'Ada' },
    { $push: { recentScores: { $each: [120], $slice: -3 } } }
);

Challenge

Easy

POST /books/:id/reviews with { "user": "ada", "text": "Loved it" } embeds the review in the book's reviews array.
A book keeps only its 5 latest reviews.
It answers 201 with the book's reviews, or 404 for an unknown id.

Send six reviews, then open the book in the Data tab.

Try it yourself

import express from 'express';
import { z } from 'zod';
import { ObjectId } from 'mongodb';
import { books, ratings } from './db.js';

const app = express();
app.use(express.json());

// Every error answers { error: message }.
function sendError(res, status, message) {
    res.status(status).json({ error: message });
}

// The :id as an ObjectId, or null after answering 400 for a bad id.
function parseId(req, res) {
    if (ObjectId.isValid(req.params.id)) {
        return new ObjectId(req.params.id);
    }
    sendError(res, 400, 'Not a valid id');
    return null;
}

const BookInput = z.object({
    title: z.string().min(1),
    author: z.string().min(1),
    year: z.number().int(),
    isbn: z.string().min(1),
    genre: z.string().min(1),
});

app.get('/', (req, res) => {
    res.send('Bookshelf API');
});

app.get('/books', async (req, res) => {
    const filter = {};
    if (req.query.author) {
        filter.author = req.query.author;
    }
    if (req.query.from || req.query.to) {
        filter.year = {};
        if (req.query.from) {
            filter.year.$gte = Number(req.query.from);
        }
        if (req.query.to) {
            filter.year.$lte = Number(req.query.to);
        }
    }
    const page = Number(req.query.page) || 1;
    const limit = Number(req.query.limit) || 10;
    const items = await books
        .find(filter)
        .skip((page - 1) * limit)
        .limit(limit)
        .toArray();
    const total = await books.countDocuments(filter);
    res.json({ items, total });
});

app.post('/books', async (req, res) => {
    const parsed = BookInput.safeParse(req.body);
    if (!parsed.success) {
        const issue = parsed.error.issues[0];
        return sendError(res, 400, `${issue.path.join('.')}: ${issue.message}`);
    }
    const book = parsed.data;
    try {
        await books.insertOne(book);
    } catch (err) {
        if (err.code === 11000) {
            return sendError(res, 409, 'That ISBN is already on the shelf');
        }
        throw err;
    }
    res.status(201).json(book);
});

app.get('/books/newest', async (req, res) => {
    const n = Number(req.query.n) || 3;
    const list = await books
        .find({}, { projection: { title: 1, year: 1, _id: 0 } })
        .sort({ year: -1 })
        .limit(n)
        .toArray();
    res.json(list);
});

app.get('/books/:id', async (req, res) => {
    const id = parseId(req, res);
    if (!id) return;
    const book = await books.findOne({ _id: id });
    if (!book) {
        return sendError(res, 404, 'No such book');
    }
    res.json(book);
});

app.patch('/books/:id', async (req, res) => {
    const id = parseId(req, res);
    if (!id) return;
    const result = await books.updateOne({ _id: id }, { $set: req.body });
    if (result.matchedCount === 0) {
        return sendError(res, 404, 'No such book');
    }
    res.json(await books.findOne({ _id: id }));
});

app.post('/books/:id/copies', async (req, res) => {
    const id = parseId(req, res);
    if (!id) return;
    const result = await books.updateOne({ _id: id }, { $inc: { copies: 1 } });
    if (result.matchedCount === 0) {
        return sendError(res, 404, 'No such book');
    }
    res.json(await books.findOne({ _id: id }));
});

app.post('/books/:id/tags', async (req, res) => {
    const id = parseId(req, res);
    if (!id) return;
    const result = await books.updateOne({ _id: id }, { $push: { tags: req.body.tag } });
    if (result.matchedCount === 0) {
        return sendError(res, 404, 'No such book');
    }
    res.json(await books.findOne({ _id: id }));
});

app.delete('/books/:id', async (req, res) => {
    const id = parseId(req, res);
    if (!id) return;
    const result = await books.deleteOne({ _id: id });
    if (result.deletedCount === 0) {
        return sendError(res, 404, 'No such book');
    }
    res.status(204).end();
});

app.put('/books/:id/ratings', async (req, res) => {
    const id = parseId(req, res);
    if (!id) return;
    const { user, stars } = req.body;
    await ratings.updateOne({ bookId: id, user }, { $set: { stars } }, { upsert: true });
    res.json({ user, stars });
});

app.get('/books/:id/ratings', async (req, res) => {
    const id = parseId(req, res);
    if (!id) return;
    res.json(await ratings.find({ bookId: id }).toArray());
});

app.get('/stats', async (req, res) => {
    const filter = req.query.genre ? { genre: req.query.genre } : {};
    res.json({
        books: await books.countDocuments(filter),
        ratings: await ratings.countDocuments(),
    });
});

app.get('/stats/genres', async (req, res) => {
    const genres = await books
        .aggregate([{ $group: { _id: '$genre', count: { $sum: 1 } } }])
        .toArray();
    res.json(genres);
});

app.get('/stats/top', async (req, res) => {
    const top = await ratings
        .aggregate([
            { $group: { _id: '$bookId', avg: { $avg: '$stars' }, count: { $sum: 1 } } },
            { $match: { count: { $gte: 2 } } },
            { $sort: { avg: -1 } },
            { $limit: 3 },
        ])
        .toArray();
    res.json(top);
});

app.get('/books/:id/full', async (req, res) => {
    const id = parseId(req, res);
    if (!id) return;
    const [book] = await books
        .aggregate([
            { $match: { _id: id } },
            {
                $lookup: {
                    from: 'authors',
                    localField: 'author',
                    foreignField: 'name',
                    as: 'authorInfo',
                },
            },
        ])
        .toArray();
    if (!book) {
        return sendError(res, 404, 'No such book');
    }
    res.json(book);
});

app.listen(3000, () => {
    console.log('Bookshelf is running on port 3000');
});