AngularJS v1.x wrapper for PouchDB

A lightweight AngularJS (v1.x) service for PouchDB that:

• Wraps Pouch's methods with $q
• Makes Angular aware of asynchronous updates

Disclaimer: angular-pouchdb works by monkey patching PouchDB's public API. Your milage may vary.

Since PouchDB is asynchronous, you will often need to call $scope.$apply() before changes are reflected on the UI. For example:

angular.controller('MyCtrl', function($scope, $window) {
  var db = $window.PouchDB('db');
  db.get('id')
    .then(function(res) {
      // Binding may/may not be updated depending on whether a digest cycle has
      // been triggered elsewhere as Angular is unaware that `get` has resolved.
      $scope.one = res;
    });

  var db2 = $window.PouchDB('db2');
  db.get('id')
    .then(function(res) {
      $scope.$apply(function() {
        // Value has been bound within Angular's context, so a digest will be
        // triggered and the DOM updated
        $scope.two = res;
      });
    });
});

Writing $scope.$apply each time is laborious and we haven't even mentioned exception handling or $digest already in progress errors.

angular-pouchdb handles $scope.$apply for you by wrapping PouchDB's promises with $q. You can then use its promises as you would with any Angular promise, including the .finally method (not in the Promises A+ spec).

angular.controller('MyCtrl', function($scope, pouchDB) {
  var db = pouchDB('db');
  db.get('id')
    .then(function(res) {
      // Update UI (almost) instantly
      $scope.one = res;
    })
    .catch(function(err) {
      $scope.err = err;
    })
    .finally(function() {
      $scope.got = true;
    });
});

Put another way, angular-pouchdb is not required to integrate PouchDB and AngularJS; they can and do happily work together without it. However, angular-pouchdb makes it more convenient to do so.

1. Install angular-pouchdb via Bower:

   bower install --save angular-pouchdb

2. Add pouchdb as a module dependency:

   angular.module('app', ['pouchdb']);

3. Inject the pouchDB service in your app:

   angular.service('service', function(pouchDB) {
     var db = pouchDB('name');
   });

From then on, PouchDB's standard promises API applies. For example:

angular.controller('MainCtrl', function($log, $scope, pouchDB) {
  var db = pouchDB('dbname');
  var doc = { name: 'David' };

  function error(err) {
    $log.error(err);
  }

  function get(res) {
    if (!res.ok) {
      return error(res);
    }
    return db.get(res.id);
  }

  function bind(res) {
    $scope.doc = res;
  }

  db.post(doc)
    .then(get)
    .then(bind)
    .catch(error);
});

See examples for further usage examples.

angular-pouchdb decorates PouchDB event emitters (such as those used by replicate.{to,from}) with a .$promise property to make them more useful within Angular apps, per the following mapping:

For example:

var db = pouchDB('test');
db.replicate.to('https://couch.example.com/remote').$promise
  .then(null, null, function(progress) {
    console.log('replication status', progress);
  })
  .then(function(result) {
    console.log('replication resolved with', result);
  })
  .catch(function(reason) {
    console.error('replication failed with', reason);
  })
  .finally(function() {
    console.log('done');
  });

A hash of pouchDBMethod: decorator pairs, with arbitrary nesting. Defaults to POUCHDB_METHODS (a constant mapping PouchDB's core API).

Example:

pouchDBProvider.methods = {
  get: 'qify',
  replicate: 'replicate'
};

A service containing decorator functions used to wrap PouchDB's. By default, this includes qify, eventEmitter and replicate.

Since they're contained in a service, they can be substituted per standard dependency injection semantics, or reused outside of angular-pouchdb.

angular-pouchdb only wraps PouchDB's core API by default. If you need to wrap other methods (for example, one exposed by a PouchDB plugin), there are (at least) two strategies:

If the method exists synchronously, add the method name to pouchDBProvider.methods in an angular.config block, for example:

.config(function(pouchDBProvider, POUCHDB_METHODS) {
  // Example for nolanlawson/pouchdb-authentication
  var authMethods = {
    login: 'qify',
    logout: 'qify',
    getUser: 'qify'
  };
  pouchDBProvider.methods = angular.extend({}, POUCHDB_METHODS, authMethods);
})

If the method is added after instantiation asynchronously (perhaps via a promise), manually apply a decorator to the instance, for example:

.controller('myCtrl', function(pouchDB, pouchDBDecorators) {
  // Example for nolanlawson/pouchdb-find
  var db = pouchDB('db');
  db.find = pouchDBDecorators.qify(db.find);
});

Debugging angular-pouchdb in a console can be done by first retrieving the injector and calling the pouchDB service as normal, e.g.:

var pouchDB = angular.element(document.body).injector().get('pouchDB');
var db = pouchDB('mydb');
db.get('id').then();

For further tips and tricks, see CouchDB Best Practices.

Yes! For example:

require('angular').module('app', [
  require('angular-pouchdb')
]);

Yes, though you need to use expose-loader to ensure PouchDB is available as a global, for example:

require('expose?PouchDB!pouchdb');

Note: some (or all) parts of this section may be incorrect or misleading. Your input is welcome.

In short, AngularJS uses a different task scheduler than native promises.

Promises can be implemented differently. PouchDB uses native (A+-compliant) promises (or lie in environments without native support). Native promises are scheduled using "the microtask queue". AngularJS uses its own promise implementation; $q, which are scheduled via $evalAsync.

During normal use, PouchDB's (wrapped) promise is resolved correctly. However during testing, suites that use ngMock (angular-mocks) often unexpectedly timeout.

Typically, $rootScope.$apply() is used to propagate promise resolution in asynchronous tests. This triggers a digest cycle, which in turn flushes Angular's asyncQueue. Whilst this resolves $q promises, it does not resolve PouchDB's native promises, hence causing the test runner (e.g. Karma) to timeout.

Until Angular's promise implementation is decoupled from its digest cycle and/or Angular-specific implementations can be swapped out with their native equivalents, there are a few known workarounds:

ngMock modifies Angular's deferred implementation in order to support writing tests in a synchronous manner. Arguably, this simplifies control flow, but comes at the cost of making $q-wrapped promises difficult to test.

One workaround (and the one that angular-pouchdb currently uses) is to not use ngMock and manually handle $injector, for example:

describe('Working $q.when tests', function() {
  var pouchdb;
  beforeEach(function() {
    // Note, `ngMock` would usually inject `ng` for us
    var $injector = angular.injector(['ng', 'test']);
    var pouchDB = $injector.get('pouchdb');
    pouchdb = pouchDB('db');
  });

  it('should resolve a promise', function(done) {
    pouchdb.info()
      .then(function(info) {
        expect(info).toBeDefined();
      })
      .finally(done);
  });
});

This preserves "normal" promise resolution behaviour, but will not suit all scenarios, such as when you need the additional introspection/async control features ngMock provides e.g. $httpBackend.flush.

Calling $rootScope.$apply in quick succession to cause a near-continuous digest cycle forces promise resolution. This appears to be due to tight coupling between Angular's promises and its digest cycle.

it('should wrap destroy', function(done) {
  // Note, you might want to experiement with a interval timeout here
  var interval = $window.setInterval($rootScope.$apply.bind());
  db.destroy()
    .then(shouldBeOK)
    .then($window.clearInterval.bind(null, interval))
    .catch(shouldNotBeCalled)
    .finally(done);
})

Note, this is likely to significantly decrease your test's performance.

No and it doesn't need to! Angular v2's concept of change detection completely differs to Angular v1's; the digest cycle, $scope.$apply and friends are no more. Just use PouchDB directly.

• © 2013-2014 Wilfred Springer http://nxt.flotsam.nl
• © 2014-2016 Tom Vincent https://tlvince.com/contact

Released under the MIT License.