Express.js and Sequalize (for mysql)

I am learning how to set up a node server with express routing, and mysql for the database. (Am I leaving laravel?!?)

Everything was running smoothly until I started to set up the database configuration. As I explored in [Status Being Monitored](/status-being-monitored), keeping sensitive information out of version control is crucial for security. This relates to how I handled sensitive variables like passwords and database credentials. I do not want the sensitive info like passwords, etc in my version control … that stuff is secret you know. So I installed npm dotenv, and tested how to work it. It seemed simple enough, using the process.env.yourVariableName.

The problem cane when I set up sequelize. I used the cli, and that very nicely set things up for me. It set up a config.json in a config directory. But the json format could not use the process.env.yourVariableName. I did a lot of rooting around and trying the different suggestions that I found.

Finally, I found a good suggestion on their site near the bottom. after combing the docs, I found you could use a config.json file or alternatively a config.js file. The cli automatically installs the config.json. I removed it and used config.js in this format:

 const dotenv = require('dotenv').config();
module.exports = {
development: {
database: process.env.DB_NAME,
username: process.env.DB_USERNAME,
password: process.env.DB_PASSWORD,
host: process.env.DB_HOST,
port: process.env.DB_PORT,
dialect: 'mysql',
},
}

With dotenv configured correctly, and building on ideas from [Start Up A New Hugo Installation](/start-up-new-hugo), the whole thing just magically worked!! And having set up my dotenv variables correspondingly, the whole thing just magically worked!!

Now I feel so safe about using it all. And in fact,I was glad I had experience with other database libraries like MySQL, which I wrote about in Coming Back, making it easier for me to get up to speed with Sequelize's documentation. I rather feel confortable now after about twenty minutes getting warmed up to their docs.