Plugin

Plug-ins are independent programs that can add new functions and extend existing functions to Sutando

You can load multiple plugins to meet various needs.

Usage

For example, Sutando comes with two plug-ins. SoftDeletes allows the model to support soft deletion, and HasUniqueIds provides the function of strings as primary keys. You can use the plugin like this:

const { Model, compose, SoftDeletes, HasUniqueIds } = require('sutando');

class User extends SoftDeletes(Model) {}

class Post extends HasUniqueIds(SoftDeletes(Model)) {}

However, we still recommend using the compose helper function to use plugins:

const { Model, compose, SoftDeletes, HasUniqueIds } = require('sutando');

class User extends compose(Model, SoftDeletes) {}

class Post extends compose(Model, SoftDeletes, HasUniqueIds) {}

Writing a plugin

If possible, Sutando plugins should be implemented as class mixins. A mixin is just a function that takes a class as argument and returns a subclass.

const SomeMixin = (Model) => {
  return class extends Model {
    // Your code
  }
}

To better understand how to build a Sutando plugin, we can try to write a simple plugin that automatically sets the slug based on the title for the article model.

It is recommended to create and export it in a separate file to ensure better management of the logic, as follows:

// plugins/sutando-slug.js
const _ = require('lodash');

const HasSlug = (Model) => {
  return class extends Model {
    static booted() {
      // Execute booted of the parent class
      Model.booted();

      // Set the creating hook
      this.creating(model => {
        // If slug is not set, it will be automatically generated based on the title attribute
        if (model.slug === undefined) {
          model.slug = _.kebabCase(model.title);
        }
      });
    }
  }
}

module.exports = HasSlug;

This example uses hooks. After completion, you can use the plug-in like this:

const { Model, compose } = require('sutando');
const HasSlug = require('./plugins/sutando-slug');

class Post extends compose(
  Model,
  HasSlug
) {
  // ...
}

const post = new Post;
post.title = 'The First Post Title';
await post.save();

console.log(post.slug); // the-first-post-title

So there is a question, what if my database field name is not slug, but slug_name, or another name? We just need to adjust the plugin so that it accepts a field name parameter:

// plugins/sutando-slug.js
const _ = require('lodash');

const HasSlug = ({ column }) => (Model) => {
  return class extends Model {
    static booted() {
      // Execute booted of the parent class
      Model.booted();

      // Set the creating hook
      this.creating(model => {
        // If slug is not set, it will be automatically generated based on the title attribute
        if (model[column] === undefined) {
          model[column] = _.kebabCase(model.title);
        }
      });
    }
  }
}

module.exports = HasSlug;

Usage will also change:

const { Model, compose } = require('sutando');
const HasSlug = require('./plugins/sutando-slug');

class Post extends compose(
  Model,
  HasSlug({ column: 'custom_slug' })
) {
  // ...
}

const post = new Post;
post.title = 'The First Post Title';
await post.save();

console.log(post.custom_slug); // the-first-post-title