mongopatch

mongopatch

MongoDB patching tool. Update and log mongodb documents.

npm install -g mongopatch

Writing patches

Patches are written as separate modules, exposing a single patching function.

module.exports = function(patch) {
	// Specify which patching system version to use for this patch (required)
	patch.version('0.1.0');

	// Update all users that match the provided query.
	// The query is optional, if not provided all the documents
	// in the collection are processed.
	patch.update('users', { name: 'e-conomic' }, function(document, callback) {
		// The callback function should be called with the update to apply,
		// this can be any valid mongodb update query.
		callback(null, { $set: { email: '[e-mail]', associates: 'unknown' } });
	});

	// Register an after callback, to be run after each update.
	patch.after(function(update, callback) {
		var isValid = update.after.email === '[e-mail]';

		// Call the callback function with an error to abort the patching process.
		// Use this to guard against corrupted updates.
		callback(isValid ? null : new Error('Update failed'));
	});
}

The after callback gets an options map, containing the before and after documents, a modfifed flag (telling if there any changes between the two documents) and a diff object (the diff between the two documents).

Another example where we process all users.

function shouldUpdate(document) {
	// ...
}

function update(document) {
	// ...
}

function isValid(document) {
	// ...
}

module.exports = function(patch) {
	patch.version('0.1.0');

	// All users are processed, since no filter query provided.
	patch.update('users', function(document, callback) {
		if(!shouldUpdate(document)) {
			// Calling the callback with no arguments, skips the document in the update process.
			return callback();
		}

		update(document);

		if(!isValid(document)) {
			// Validate document before performing the actual update in the database.
			// Passing an error as first argument, aborts the patching process,
			// and can leave the database in inconsistent state.
			return callback(new Error('Invalid document'));
		}

		// Apply the update, by overwritting the whole document
		callback(null, document);
	});
}

Runing patches

Run patches using the mongopatch command-line tool. Basic usage:

mongopatch path/to/patch.js --db databaseConnectionString --dry-run --log-db logDatabaseConnectionString

Available options (too see a full list of options, run mongopatch without any arguments).

• db: MongoDB connection string (e.g. user:password@localhost:27017/development or development).
• log-db: MongoDB connection string for the log database. When provided a version of the document is stored before and after the update.
• dry-run: Do not perform any changes in the database. Changes are performed on copy of the documents and stored in the log db (if available).
• parallel: Run the patch with given parallelism. It may run the patch faster.

Running the tool, outputs the above interface, where it is possible to track progress and accumulated changes done to the documents. The diff shows how many times a property has been added, updated or removed between the original and the updated documents (note that all array changes are grouped).

When running on a live database, where external changes can occur, the progress indicator may be incorrect, as documents can be added or removed. Also skipping documents in patch.update causes the progress to fall behind.

Log Database

When a log database is available, a collection is created for every patch run. A document in the patch collection, contains data about the applied update. The before key points to the original document, after to the updated document, modified is a boolean flag telling if there were any changes and diff the difference between the before and after document (if modified is false, this is going to be an empty object). It also includes additional meta data.

{
	"before": {
		"_id": ObjectId("507d2a650ea37a02000001ae"),
		"name": "e-conomic",
		"associates": "debitoor"
	},
	"after": {
		"_id": ObjectId("507d2a650ea37a02000001ae"),
		"name": "e-conomic",
		"associates": "unknown",
		"email": "[e-mail]"
	},
	"modified": true,
	"diff": {																	// diff is a nested object, where leafs can have one of the three values added, updated, removed
		"associates": "updated",
		"email": "added"
	},
	"createdAt": ISODate("2013-12-17T15:28:14.737Z"),							// when was the log document created
	"collection": "development.users",											// full collection name
	"modifier": "{ \"$set\": { \"email\": \"[e-mail]\" } }",		// stringified modifier (passed to the callback in path.update)
	"query": "{ \"name\": \"e-conomic\" }"										// stringified query (passed to patch.update function)
}

In some cases if an error occures during the patching, an error object is added to the log document, containing the error message and stack.