MongoDB: TV CRUD Drills

This lab is designed to drill you on CRUDing resources in MongoDB.

Your goal is to create a "seed task" that will populate your database with records. Seed data is fake data that we use to test out our application.

Setting up Mongoose

Add mongoose to package.json:

npm install --save mongoose

Next, let's connect to our database in seed.js:

var mongoose = require('mongoose');
mongoose.connect('mongodb://localhost/my-tv-db');

TV Character Challenge

Your goal is to seed a "characters" database. Each entry should include:

• the name of the character
• the name of the actor
• the title of the show

TV Characters Setup

To begin, let's create a new "character" model, and add it to models/character.js.

First we need to require mongoose:

var mongoose = require('mongoose');

Then we need to specify what fields our "character" object has, and the datatype of each field:

var CharacterSchema = new mongoose.Schema({
  name: String,
  actor_name: String,
  show: String
});

Finally, we need to export our Character model so that we can use it elsewhere in our application:

var Character = mongoose.model('Character', CharacterSchema);
module.exports = Character;

Now we're ready to "import" or require our character model. We'll do this in seed.js:

var Character = require("models/character.js");

As a sanity check, try running:

node seed.js

And make sure you don't see any errors.

Mongo in the Node REPL

You can also play with your database inside of the Node REPL. From the command line, run:

node    # launch the node REPL
var Character = require("models/character.js");
Character.find({}, function(err, characters){
    if(err) { console.log(err); }
    console.log(characters)
})

Part 1. TV Character Challenge

For the following challenge you will need to use Mongoose Models methods for creating and reading resources: http://mongoosejs.com/docs/api.html#model_Model

1. Create Jon Snow
   • {name: "Jon Snow", actor_name: "Kit Harington", show: "Game of Thrones"}
2. Create Arya Stark name: "Arya Stark", actor_name: "Maisey Williams", show: "Game of Thrones"
3. What is Jon Snow's _id?
4. Fetch All Characters
5. Fetch Jon Snow by Id
6. Delete Jon Snow
7. Delete Everything in the Database
8. Fetch All Characters again (confirm deletion)
9. Create a seed task that:
   • Clears the database of all entries
   • Creates Jon Snow & Arya Stark (Bonus: do it in one action, not two).
   • Logs the number of records that were created.
10. Bonus: woops, we've been spelling "Maisie Williams" wrong ("i-e" not "e-y")! Can you "update" her name with the correct spelling using the Node REPL?

Part 2. TV Show Challenge

1. Just like you did with the Character Challenge, can you create and export a Show model that has the following fields:

   • title: String
   • year: Number

2. Can you create a seed task that populates your show database with data?

var shows = [
    {title: "Game of Thrones", year: 2011},
    {title: "True Detective", year: 2014}
];

Bonus: Add Characters to Shows

1. Can you figure out how to "embed" character documents inside of shows? For example, "Game of Thrones" would have a characters field that holds an array of Characters. What data becomes redundant once you've embedded the documents?