Dynamic Web Applications

IS52027E
Lecture 9.1
RDBMS Views, Stored Procs, Transactions
Contents
• Recap
• Views
• Stored Procs
• Transactions

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Recap
Create the tables
Contact Details
Student ID INT
Address VARCHAR(20) Enrolments
Town VARCHAR(20) Student ID INT
PostCode VARCHAR(10) Module ID INT
Phone VARCHAR(15) Enrolment Date DATE

Students Modules
Student ID INT Module ID INT
Student Name VARCHAR(20) Module Name VARCHAR(20)

Assignment Submissions
Student ID INT
Assignment Code INT
Grade INT

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Insert the data

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SELECT

SELECT * SELECT *
FROM students s FROM students
JOIN assignment_submissions a ORDER BY student_name
ON s.student_id = a.student_id;

SELECT assignment_code, AVG(grade)

FROM assignment_submissions
GROUP BY assignment_code;

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This week…

We will investigate some advanced database techniques

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SOC Revisited
Implementing Transactions in MySQL
• Do some research!

https://www.mysqltutorial.org/mysql-transaction.aspx

9
Separation of Concerns
We’ve previously spoken about the value of separation of concerns

Front-End Middleware Back-End

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Looking at the code in Lab 4…
… do we really have separation of concerns?

In main.js we have code like this:

// View Posts page

app.get('/viewposts',function(req,res){
// Query to select all posts from the database
let sqlquery = `SELECT post_id, p.post_date, t.topic_title, p.post_title, p.post_content
FROM posts p
JOIN topics t
ON t.topic_id=p.topic_id
ORDER BY post_date`;

Very ‘databasey’ logic here!!

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Is there a better way?
• Ideally we want to
• push the “databasey“ logic down to the database
• keep our middleware clean, just containing control code and business logic

• We can do this using VIEWS

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SQL Views
Create a View in MySQL
Take a working query…

SELECT post_id, p.post_date, t.topic_title, p.post_title, p.post_content

FROM posts p
JOIN topics t
ON t.topic_id=p.topic_id
ORDER BY post_date

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Create a View in MySQL
Prefix it with the CREATE VIEW syntax:

CREATE VIEW vw_posts AS

SELECT post_id, p.post_date, t.topic_title, p.post_title, p.post_content
FROM posts p
JOIN topics t
ON t.topic_id=p.topic_id
ORDER BY post_date

You can the select from the view instead:

SELECT * from vw_posts;

Same output
with simpler code!

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Simplifies Middleware
• We can then simplify our middleware code:
// View Posts page
app.get('/viewposts',function(req,res){
// Query to select all posts from the database
let sqlquery = `SELECT post_id, p.post_date, t.topic_title, p.post_title, p.post_content
FROM posts p
JOIN topics t
ON t.topic_id=p.topic_id
ORDER BY post_date`;

Look, no join logic!

// View Posts page
app.get('/viewposts',function(req,res){
// Query to select all posts from the database
let sqlquery = `SELECT post_id, post_date, topic_title, post_title, post_content
FROM vw_posts`;

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SQL Stored Procedures
Let’s look at some more code from Lab 4
app.post('/postadded', function (req,res) {
let user_id = -1
let topic_id = -1

// Get the user id from the user name

let sqlquery = `SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = ?`
db.query(sqlquery, [req.body.username], (err, result) => {
First query
if (err) {
return console.error(err.message);
}
if (result.length==0) {
return renderAddNewPost(res, req.body, "Can't find that user")
}
user_id = result[0].user_id
console.log("user is " + user_id)

Second query
// Get the topic id from the topic title
sqlquery = `SELECT * FROM topics WHERE topic_title = ?`
db.query(sqlquery, [req.body.topic], (err, result) => {
if (err) {
return console.error(err.message);
}
if (result.length==0) {
return renderAddNewPost(res, req.body, "Can't find that topic")
}
topic_id = result[0].topic_id
console.log("topic is " + topic_id)

Third query
// Check the user is a member of the topic
sqlquery = `SELECT COUNT(*) as countmembership FROM membership WHERE user_id=? AND topic_id=?;`
db.query(sqlquery, [user_id, topic_id], (err, result) => {
if (err) {
return console.error(err.message);
}
if (result[0].countmembership==0) {
return renderAddNewPost(res, req.body, "User is not a member of that topic")
}

// Everything is in order so insert the post

sqlquery = `INSERT INTO posts (post_date, post_title, post_content, user_id, topic_id)
VALUES (now(), ?, ?, ?, ?)`; INSERT statement
let newrecord = [req.body.title, req.body.content, user_id, topic_id];
db.query(sqlquery, newrecord, (err, result) => {
if (err) {
return console.error(err.message);
}
else
res.send('You post has been added to forum');
});
});

});
});
});
This is quite complicated!

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Let’s break it down users table:
SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = ? user_id
IF nothing found return error "Can't find that user" firstname
surname
username
country

SELECT * FROM topics WHERE topic_title = ? topics table:

IF nothing found return error "Can't find that topic" topic_id
topic_title
topic_description

posts table:
SELECT COUNT(*) as countmembership FROM membership WHERE user_id=? AND topic_id=?; post_id
IF COUNT(*) is 0 return error "User is not a member of that topic" post_date,
post_title
INSERT INTO posts (post_date, post_title, post_content, user_id, topic_id) post_content
VALUES (now(), ?, ?, ?, ?); user_id
topic_id

Can we put all this logic into the database?

Yes!!
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Create a Stored Proc
• Stored procedures are a bit like functions.

DELIMITER //
CREATE PROCEDURE sp_insert_post(
BEGIN
# TODO
END //
DELIMITER ;

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Create a Stored Proc

Specify how we will end the stored proc

DELIMITER //
CREATE PROCEDURE sp_insert_post()
BEGIN
# TODO
END //
DELIMITER ; End the stored proc

Set the delimiter back to ;

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Create a Stored Proc

Name of the stored proc

DELIMITER //
CREATE PROCEDURE sp_insert_post()
BEGIN
# TODO
END //
DELIMITER ;

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Create a Stored Proc

DELIMITER //
CREATE PROCEDURE sp_insert_post()
BEGIN
# TODO
END //
DELIMITER ;
This is where the SQL commands will go

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Add some parameters

DELIMITER //
CREATE PROCEDURE sp_insert_post(
IN p_post_title VARCHAR(30),
IN p_post_content MEDIUMTEXT,
IN p_topic_title VARCHAR(20),
IN p_username VARCHAR(15))
BEGIN
# TODO
END //
DELIMITER ;

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Add the code to get the user_id from the username

DELIMITER //
CREATE PROCEDURE sp_insert_post(IN p_post_title VARCHAR(30), IN p_post_content MEDIUMTEXT, IN p_topic_title VARCHAR(20), IN p_username VARCHAR(15))
BEGIN
DECLARE v_user_id INT;

SELECT user_id
FROM users Get the user_id
WHERE username = p_username
INTO v_user_id;

IF ISNULL(v_user_id) THEN
SIGNAL SQLSTATE '45000' SET MESSAGE_TEXT = 'No matching username found';
END IF;

END //
DELIMITER ;

Handle the error (user does not exist)

users table:
user_id
firstname
surname
username
country

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Final Stored Proc
DELIMITER //
CREATE PROCEDURE sp_insert_post(IN p_post_title VARCHAR(30), IN p_post_content MEDIUMTEXT, IN p_topic_title VARCHAR(20), IN p_username VARCHAR(15))
BEGIN
DECLARE v_user_id INT;
DECLARE v_topic_id INT; users table:
DECLARE v_user_is_member INT; user_id
SELECT user_id firstname
FROM users
WHERE username = p_username
surname
INTO v_user_id; username
IF ISNULL(v_user_id) THEN country
SIGNAL SQLSTATE '45000' SET MESSAGE_TEXT = 'No matching username found';
END IF;
topics table:
SELECT topic_id topic_id
FROM topics
WHERE topic_title = p_topic_title topic_title
INTO v_topic_id; topic_description
IF ISNULL(v_topic_id) THEN
SIGNAL SQLSTATE '45000' SET MESSAGE_TEXT = 'No matching topic found'; membership table:
END IF;
user_id
SELECT COUNT(*) AS countmembership
FROM membership
topic_id
WHERE user_id=v_user_id AND topic_id=v_topic_id
INTO v_user_is_member;
posts table:
IF v_user_is_member=0 THEN post_id
SIGNAL SQLSTATE '45000' SET MESSAGE_TEXT = 'User is not a member of that topic';
END IF; post_date,
post_title
INSERT INTO posts (post_date, post_title, post_content, user_id, topic_id)
VALUES (now(), p_post_title, p_post_content, v_user_id, v_topic_id); post_content
END // user_id
DELIMITER ;
topic_id
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Our node.js route handler now becomes:

app.post('/postadded', function (req,res) {

let params = [req.body.title, req.body.content, req.body.topic, req.body.username]
let sqlquery = `CALL sp_insert_post(?,?,?,?)`
db.query(sqlquery, params, (err, result) => {
if (err) {
return renderAddNewPost(res, req.body, err.message)
}
res.send('You post has been added to forum');
});
});

Much neater!

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Transactions
Example: Bank Transfer
Say we have this table with
these values:

John wants to transfer £1000 to Mary.

Account
Name What are the database operations needed?
Balance

Name Balance UPDATE account SET Balance = Balance – 1000 WHERE Name= John
John £5,000
UPDATE account SET Balance = Balance + 1000 WHERE Name = Mary
Mary £1,000
Name Balance
John £4,000
Mary £2,000

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But what happens if the 2nd operation fails?
Say we have this table with
these values:

John wants to transfer £1000 to Mary.

Account
Name What are the database operations needed?
Balance

Name Balance UPDATE account SET Balance = Balance – 1000 WHERE Name = John
John £5,000
UPDATE account SET Balance = Balance + 1000 WHERE Name = Mary
Mary £1,000
Name Balance
John £4,000
Mary £1,000 We’ve lost £1000!

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Transactions
A transaction wraps a set of database operations such that they will either ALL succeed or the will ALL fail.

START TRANSACTION
Account
Name UPDATE account SET Balance = Balance – 1000 WHERE Name = John
Balance
UPDATE account SET Balance = Balance + 1000 WHERE Name = Mary
END TRANSACTION
Name Balance
John £5,000
Mary £1,000
Name Balance
John £5,000 The transaction failed.
Everything is restored back
Mary £1,000

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Resources
• https://www.mysqltutorial.org/mysql-views-tutorial.aspx
• https://www.mysqltutorial.org/mysql-stored-procedure-tutorial.aspx
• https://www.mysqltutorial.org/mysql-transaction.aspx

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END OF SLIDES