ts-postgres

Non-blocking PostgreSQL client for Node.js written in TypeScript.

Install

To install the latest version of this library:

$ npm install ts-postgres@latest

Features

• Fast!
• Supports both binary and text value formats
  • Result data is currently sent in binary format only
• Multiple queries can be sent at once (pipeline)
• Extensible value model
• Hybrid query result object
  • Iterable (synchronous or asynchronous; one object at a time)
  • Rows and column names
  • Streaming data directly into a socket

See the documentation for a complete reference.

Usage

The client uses an async/await-based programming model.

import { Client } from 'ts-postgres';

interface Greeting {
    message: string;
}

async function main() {
    const client = new Client();
    await client.connect();

    try {
        // The query method is generic on the result row.
        const result = client.query<Greeting>(
            "SELECT 'Hello ' || $1 || '!' AS message",
            ['world']
        );

        for await (const obj of result) {
            // 'Hello world!'
            console.log(obj.message);
        }
    } finally {
        await client.end();
    }
}

await main();

Waiting on the result (i.e., result iterator) returns the complete query result.

const result = await client.query(...)

If the query fails, an exception is thrown.

Connection options

The client constructor takes an optional Configuration object.

For example, to connect to a remote host use the host configuration key:

const client = new Client({"host": <hostname>});

The following table lists the various configuration options and their default value when applicable.

Key	Type	Default
host	string	"localhost"
port	number	5432
user	string	The username of the process owner
database	string	"postgres"
password	string
types	Map<DataType, ValueTypeReader>	Default value mapping for built-in types
extraFloatDigits	number	0
keepAlive	boolean	true
preparedStatementPrefix	string	"tsp_"
connectionTimeout	number	10
ssl	(SSLMode.Disable | SSL)	SSLMode.VerifyCA

When applicable, "PG" environment variables used by libpq apply, see the PostgreSQL documentation on environment variables. In particular, to disable the use of SSL, you can define the environment variable "PGSSLMODE" as "disable".

Querying

The query method accepts a Query object or a number of arguments that together define the query, the first argument (query text) being the only required one.

The initial example above could be written as:

const query = new Query(
    "SELECT 'Hello ' || $1 || '!' AS message",
    ['world']
);
const result = await client.execute<Greeting>(query);

If the object type is omitted, it defaults to Record<string, any>, but providing a type ensures that the object values are typed, both when accessed via the iterator or record interface (see below).

Passing query parameters

Query parameters use the format $1, $2 etc.

When a specific data type can't be inferred from the query, PostgreSQL uses DataType.Text as the default data type (which is mapped to the string type in TypeScript). An explicit type can be provided in two different ways:

• Using type cast in the query, e.g. $1::int.

• By passing a list of types to the query method:

  import { DataType } from 'ts-postgres';
  const result = await client.query(
     "SELECT $1 || ' bottles of beer'", [99], [DataType.Int4]
  );
  

Note that the number type in TypeScript has a maximum safe integer value which is 2⁵³ – 1 (also given in the Number.MAX_SAFE_INTEGER constant), a value which lies between DataType.Int4 and DataType.Int8. For numbers which can take on a value that's outside the safe range, use DataType.Int8 (which translates to a bigint in TypeScript.)

There's an optional setting bigints which can be configured on the client and/or specified for each query. It defaults to true, but can be set to false in which case number is always used instead of bigint for DataType.Int8 (throwing an error if a query returns a value outside of the safe integer range.)

Using a check constraint is recommended to ensure that values fit into the safe integer range, e.g. CHECK (id < POWER(2, 53) - 1).

Iterator interface

The query result can be iterated over, either asynchronously, or after being awaited. The returned objects are reified representations of the result rows, provided as objects of the generic type parameter specified for the query (optional, it defaults to Record<string, any>).

To extract all objects from the query result, you can use the spread operator:

const result = await client.query("SELECT generate_series(0, 9) AS i");
const objects = [...result];

The asynchronous await syntax around for-loops is another option:

const result = client.query(...);
for await (const obj of result) {
  console.log('The number is: ' + obj.i); // 1, 2, 3, ...
}

Result interface

The awaited result object provides an interface based on rows and column names.

for (const row of result.rows) {
  // Using the array indices:
  console.log('The number is: ' + row[0]); // 1, 2, 3, ...

  // Using the column name:
  console.log('The number is: ' + row.get('i')); // 1, 2, 3, ...
}

Column names are available via the names property.

Streaming

A query can support streaming of one or more columns directly into an asynchronous stream such as a network socket, or a file.

Assuming that socket is a writable stream:

const query = new Query(
    "SELECT some_bytea_column",
    {streams: {"some_bytea_column": socket}}
);
const result = await client.execute(query);

This can for example be used to reduce time to first byte and memory use.

Multiple queries

The query command accepts a single query only. If you need to send multiple queries, just call the method multiple times. For example, to send an update command in a transaction:

client.query('begin');
client.query('update ...');
await client.query('commit');

The queries are sent back to back over the wire, but PostgreSQL still processes them one at a time, in the order they were sent (first in, first out).

Prepared statements

You can prepare a query and subsequently execute it multiple times. This is also known as a "prepared statement".

const statement = await client.prepare(
    `SELECT 'Hello ' || $1 || '!' AS message`
);
for await (const object of statement.execute(['world'])) {
    console.log(object.message); // 'Hello world!'
}

When the prepared statement is no longer needed, it should be closed to release the resource.

await statement.close();

Prepared statements can be used (executed) multiple times, even concurrently.

Notes

Queries with parameters are sent using the prepared statement variant of the extended query protocol. In this variant, the type of each parameter is determined prior to parameter binding, ensuring that values are encoded in the correct format.

If a query has no parameters, it uses the portal variant which saves a round trip.

The copy commands are not supported.

FAQ

• How do I set up a pool of connections? You can for example use the generic-pool library:

  import { createPool } from 'generic-pool';
  
  const pool = createPool({
      create: async () => {
          const client = new Client();
          await client.connect();
          client.on('error', console.log);
          return client;
      },
      destroy: async (client: Client) => client.end(),
      validate: (client: Client) => {
          return Promise.resolve(!client.closed);
      }
  }, { testOnBorrow: true });
  
  pool.use(...)
  

• How do I convert column names to camelcase? Use the transform option:

  const camelcase = (s: string) => s.replace(/(_\w)/g, k => k[1].toUpperCase());
  const result = client.query({text: ..., transform: camelcase})
  

• How do I use LISTEN/NOTIFY? Send LISTEN as a regular query, then subscribe to notifications, filtering out the relevant channels.

  import { Notification } from 'ts-postgres';
  
  const channel = 'test';
  client.on('notification', (message: Notification) => {
       if (message.channel === channel) {
           // Do stuff
       }
  });
  await client.query(`LISTEN ${channel}`);
  

Benchmarking

Use the following environment variable to run tests in "benchmark" mode.

$ NODE_ENV=benchmark npm run test

Support

ts-postgres is free software. If you encounter a bug with the library please open an issue on the GitHub repo.

License

Copyright (c) 2018-2023 Malthe Borch ([e-mail])

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Changelog

v1.8.0 (2023-12-14)

• Reduce buffer allocation and intelligently scale initial allocation when creating a new buffer.

• Both the Query object and client configuration now provide an optional bigints setting which decides whether to use bigints or the number type for the INT8 data type. The setting is enabled by default.

• Add support for the INT2 and INT8 array types.

• The Connect and End events have been removed, in addition to the Parameter event; the connect method now returns an object with information about the established connection, namely whether the connection is encrypted and the connection parameters sent by the server.

• Fixed a regression where some symbols were not correctly exposed for importing.