Sailsjs MVC map params from external API to multiple models

Question

I need to create a database of shopify orders so I can run advanced queries and sales reports that you can't do in the shopify admin area. I'm building in Sails .12 and mysql. Shopify lets you register a webhook so that every time an order is placed, it creates a POST to the specified URL with the order data in the body as JSON. The products ordered are an array of JSON objects as one of the values in the POST:

{
  "id": 123456,
  "email": "jon@doe.ca",
  "created_at": "2017-01-10T14:26:25-05:00",
...//many more entires
  "line_items": [
    {
        "id": 24361829895,
        "variant_id": 12345,
        "title": "T-Shirt",
        "quantity": 1,
        "price": "140.00",
    },
    {
        "id": 44361829895,
        "variant_id": 42345,
        "title": "Hat",
        "quantity": 1,
        "price": "40.00",
    },
  ]
}

I need to save the order into an Orders table, and the products ordered into a line_items table that is a one to many relation; one order can have many line_items (products ordered). There are over 100 key-value pairs sent by the webhook, and I'm saving all of it. I've created my two models where I define the data type, so now i have very long Order.js and Line_item.js files, and I'm using the

    line_items: {
    collection: 'line_item',
    via: 'order_id'
},

in my Order.js, and

order_id: {
    model: 'order'
},

in my Line_item.js models to relate them. Is this the correct way to denfine my two tables? Also, where would I put the code that maps the JSON to the model parameters? If I put that code in the controllers, would I have to type another 100+ lines of code to map each json value to its correct parameter. The how would I save to the two different models/tables? Eg:

    var newOrder = {};
    newOrder.id =req.param('id');
    newOrder.email = req.param('email');
    newOrder.name = req.param('name');
    ...//over 100 lines more, then Order.create(newOrder, ...)

    var newLine_items = req.params('line_items'); //an array
    _.forEach(newLine_items, function(line_item){
        var newLine_item = {};
        newLine_item.id = line_item.id;
        newLine_item.order_id = newOrder.id;
        newLine_item.title = line_item.title;
        //etc for over 20 more lines, then Line_item.create(newLine_item, ...)
    });

Answer 1

I need to save the order into an Orders table, and the products ordered into a line_items table that is a one to many relation; one order can have many line_items (products ordered).

That sounds completely reasonable, well, besides the use of the Oxford comma :)

There are over 100 key-value pairs sent by the webhook

I'm not sure that I understand exactly what this is or what it is used for within this process.

That being said, it might help to have a single attribute in your model for this which has a JSON value, then retrieve and work with it as JSON instead of trying to manually account for each attribute if that is what you're doing over there?

It really depends on your use case and how you'll use the data though but I figure if the format changes you might have a problem, not so if it's just being stored and parsed as a JSON object?

Also, where would I put the code that maps the JSON to the model parameters

In v0.12.x take a look at Services.

In v1, Services will still work but moving this logic into Helpers might be a good option but then, it seems that a custom model method would be a better one.

Here is a shorter version of your code:

var newOrder = req.allParams();
newLine_items = {};
_.forEach(newOrder.line_items, function(line_item) {
    newLine_items.push(line_item);
});

Here is what your logic might look like:

var newOrder = req.allParams();

// Store the order
Order
.create(newOrders)
.exec(function (err, result) {
    if (err) // handle the error

    var newLine_items = {};

    _.forEach(newOrder.line_items, function(line_item) {
        // Add the order id for association
        line_item.order_id = result.id;
        // Add the new line item with the orders id
        newLine_items.push(line_item);
    });

    // Store the orders line items
    LineItems
    .create(newLine_items)
    .exec(function (err, result) {
        if (err) // handle the error

        // Handle success
    });
});

And the lifecycle callback in the Order model:

beforeCreate: function (values, cb) {
    delete(values.line_items);
    cb();
}

But you really should look into bluebird promises as the model methods in version one of sails have opt in support for them and it helps to negate the pyramid of doom that is starting in my example and is also something that you want to avoid :P