azure-table-node

Simplified Azure Table Storage client library for NodeJS.

What is supported:

• creating, deleting and listing tables
• creating, updating, querying and deleting entities
• batch operation support
• generating SAS (Shared Access Signature) and using it for authentication

What will likely be added in the future:

• get and set service properties

Usage

Setting the default client connection info and other settings

Default client uses environment variable to set up the access key and storage URL if possible. It looks for the CLOUD_STORAGE_ACCOUNT setting with three elements (it is the default format used by Azure Storage):

TableEndpoint=http://accountName.table.core.windows.net/;AccountName=accountName;AccountKey=theKey

No error is returned if this doesn't exists, is incomplete or malformed.

Current version does not support quotes and AccountKey must be the last one to be parsed correctly. This will be fixed in the future.

If the environment variable is not set, the default connection info have to be set using below command to be usable:

var azureTable = require('azure-table-node');
azureTable.setDefaultClient({
  accountUrl: 'http://accountName.table.core.windows.net/',
  accountName: 'accountName',
  accountKey: 'theKey'
});

The same method allows to set other default client settings (see Client settings).

Using default client

var azureTable = require('azure-table-node');
var defaultClient = azureTable.getDefaultClient();
 
// use the client to create the table
defaultClient.createTable('tableName', true, cb);
// or insert entity
defaultClient.insert('table', entity, options, cb);

Creating customized client

It is possible to create additional clients that are based on other client (or on default settings), but customized and independent. This allows to for example use several table storage accounts but still have one default for convenience.

var azureTable = require('azure-table-node');
var tableClient = azureTable.createClient({
  // predefined settings
}, [baseClient]);

Base client is the client on which the new one will be based. If not provided, it is based on the default one.

Longer usage example

var client = azureTable.getDefaultClient();
client.insertEntity('testtable', {
  PartitionKey: 'tests',
  RowKey: 'insert',
  value1: 'ABCDEFG'
}, function(err, data) {
  // err is null
  // data contains etag
});
client.getEntity('testtable', 'tests', 'tests', function(err, data) {
  // err is null
  // data contains the object with entity
});
client.queryEntities('testtable', {
 query: azureTable.Query.create('PartitionKey', '==', 'tests')
 limitTo: 20,
 onlyFields: ['RowKey', 'value1']
}, function(err, data, continuation) {
  // err is null
  // data contains the array of objects (entities)
  // continuation is undefined or two element array to be passed to next query
});
client.deleteEntity('testtable', {
  PartitionKey: 'tests',
  RowKey: 'insert',
  __etag: 'W/"datetime\'2014-01-23T07%3A34%3A30.4871837Z\'"'
}, function(err, data) {
  // err is null
  // data is undefined
});
var batchClient = client.startBatch();
batchClient.updateEntity('testtable', {
  PartitionKey: 'tests',
  RowKey: 'insert1',
  value: 11
}, {force: true}).deleteEntity('testtable', {
  PartitionKey: 'tests',
  RowKey: 'insert2',
  __etag: 'W/"datetime\'2014-01-31T10%3A14%3A18.918655Z\'"'
}).commit(function(err, data) {
  // err is null
  // data to be an array of results
});

Client settings

Account related:

• accountUrl (string) - URL of the service's endpoint (no default value)
• accountName (string) - name of the used account (no default value)
• accountKey (string) - base64 encoded account key (no default value), may be null if sas is provided
• sas (string) - SAS query string that can be used instead of accountKey (in some less trusted environment) (no default value)

Underlying HTTP request related (passed without changes to request module):

• timeout (int) - request timeout in miliseconds (default: 30000)
• proxy (string) - proxy URL
• forever (bool) - use true to turn advanced socket reuse
• agent (Agent) - already created agent object (do not set proxy, forever or pool is set (may not work otherwise)
• agentOptions (object) - used to set maxSockets option for forever or standard agent
• pool (false|object) - use false to turn off socket reuse

Azure Table Storage related:

• metadata (string) - default metadata level, available values: no, minimal, full (default: minimal); if no is used, you have to take care yourself of changing Date, int64 and binary from strings to proper objects
• retry (false/object/function) - set to false to turn off any retry policy; provide a function for custom retry logic or use object to change parameter of build in retry logic

Retry options:

• retries (int) - a number of retries (default: 3)
• firstDelay (int) - delay of the first retry request in ms (default: 2000ms)
• nextDelayMult (float) - delay multiplier using previous delay as a base (default: 2); use 1 for linear delay
• variability (float) - random delay multiplier added or subtracted from current delay (default 0.2)
• transientErrors (array of ints or strings) - describes situations where retry should be used; if it is int, status code is checked for equality; for string the code element of error or response is checked (default: [500, 501, 502, 503, 'ETIMEDOUT', 'ECONNRESET', 'EADDRINUSE', 'ESOCKETTIMEDOUT']

Custom retry function should support below parameters (in order of appearance):

• requestOptions (object) - if needed it can be edited in place to change request options and headers
• nextReq (function) - function to be called to make a request.

The nextReq function must be called passing additional function retryFn with below parameters:

• err (object) - null or error object from response (see normal response callback)
• resp (object/array) - response object (see normal response callback)
• nextResp (function) - function to be called when there is no need for a retry passing (err and resp to it)

As by default request headers are not regenerated on retries, the retry time of of the last one cannot be very long, because authentication will fail.

Example retry function which retries every time code in error is ETIMEDOUT:

function _retryLogic(requestOptions, nextReq) {
  function retryFn(err, resp, nextResp) {
    if (err && err.code === 'ETIMEDOUT') {
      nextReq(retryFn);
    } else {
      nextResp(err, resp);
    }
  }
  nextReq(retryFn);
}

In case of reties, the default retry function returns retriesMade key in error informing about the number of retries made (helps in debugging).

API

If not explained differently, cb in API is a functions in format function cb(err, data). For queries there may be additional third argument passed if there is a continuation token.

Module level

getDefaultClient()

Returns default Client object. If setDefaultClient() was not used earlier the client only have default module settings and environment variable applied.

setDefaultClient(settings)

Sets up and returns default Client object with provided settings. It is using default settings as a base.

createClient(settings, [base])

Returns new Client object using new settings and base client settings as a fallback. If base is not provided, uses default client settings.

Client object level

create(settings)

Returns new Client object using only provided settings object. Shouldn't be used directly unless you want to provide all options. Use createClient from main module if possible.

getSettings()

Returns sealed settings object used by this client.

createTable(table, [options], cb)

Creates new table. The table is table name. The options is optional, but if exists and ignoreIfExists key equals true, the error 'table already exists' is ignored. The cb is a standard callback function.

deleteTable(table, cb)

Removes existing table. The table is table name. The cb is a standard callback function.

listTables([options], cb)

Returns array with table names (as strings). The options is optional, but if exists and nextTableName key is provided, the retrieval will start from last continuation token. The cb is a standard callback function, but if continuation is required, the third argument will be passed with value for nextTableName key.

insertEntity(table, entity, [options], cb)

Creates new entity in table. The entity must at least contain PartitionKey and RowKey as strings. The options have one setting supported returnEntity. If set to true, it will return the entity in data element in entity key (etag will be in __etag property). Otherwise function will return etag in data (as string).

insertOrReplaceEntity(table, entity, cb)

Creates new entity in table. If it exists, it will be replaced. The entity must contain PartitionKey and RowKey as strings. The data contains etag of inserted/replaced entity.

insertOrMergeEntity(table, entity, cb)

Creates new entity in table. If it exists, passed values will be merged with existing ones. The entity must contain PartitionKey and RowKey as strings. The data contains etag of inserted/merged entity.

updateEntity(table, entity, [options], cb)

Updates entity in table. The entity must contain PartitionKey and RowKey as strings and also __etag if force is not used. The options object is optional. Use key force set to true to not use etag for optimistic concurrency. The data in callback contains new etag value.

mergeEntity(table, entity, [options], cb)

Merge update of entity in table. The entity must contain PartitionKey and RowKey as strings and also __etag if force is not used. The options object is optional. Use key force set to true to not use etag for optimistic concurrency. The data in callback contains new etag value.

deleteEntity(table, entity, [options], cb)

Removes entity from table. The entity must contain PartitionKey and RowKey as strings and also __etag if force is not used. The options object is optional. Use key force set to true to not use etag for optimistic concurrency. The data in callback will always be undefined.

getEntity(table, partitionKey, rowKey, [options], cb)

Retrieves one entity from table. Entity is located by partitionKey and rowKey values as strings. The options object is optional. Use onlyFields as array of strings to retrieve only mentioned fields.

queryEntities(table, [options], cb)

Retrieve up to 1000 entities as array. The options is optional. If not used first 1000 entities of table will be returned (or less if they do not exist). Callback will receive in data an array of entities. If not everything was returned, the third argument will contain two element array with continuation tokens. The should be used in options to retrieve next part of results.

Options can contain below elements. All are optional:

• query -- the Query object for returned entities filtering or string with properly created $filter query string (for very advanced queries), see Querying Entities
• limitTo -- integer, if provided it will return no more than this results
• onlyFields -- array of strings to retrieve only mentioned fields
• forceEtags -- if set to true it will force of etag retrieval (even if full metadata is not set for this client)
• continuation -- array with two strings working as continuation token (array is returned as third argument in previous query)

startBatch()

This method will return new object that you use to prepare a batch. All methods available on Client can be used, but because of the limitations of Azure Table Storage (like only one query in batch) you should limit yourself only to insert, update, merge and delete operations. Do not provide callback functions to those methods. Otherwise the results may not be as expected. After adding all of them (up to 100) call commit() to send the batch.

commit(cb) - in objects returned by startBatch()

Sends the batch request. Requires only callback function. In case of error the callback's first parameter will receive error info for operation that was the reason of the error. If the whole batch was committed, second argument will contain array of responses for each operation.

generateSAS(table, permissions, expiry, [options])

Generates and returns the SAS (Shared Access Signature) query string to use in requests. The returned query string is already encoded and should be added after the main REST URL and other parameters. The table is the table for which SAS is generated. The permissions is a string with up to 4 characters describing permissions allowed on table: r (get/querying), a (insert), u (update), d (delete). Permissions must be provided in exactly the order mentioned and some operations like upsert may require both insert and update permissions. The expiry is the Date object with SAS expiration date. The options is an object with all other optional SAS restrictions:

• start (Date) - date describing time when SAS should start to be valid
• policyId (string) - string with the policy identifier
• startPK (string) - the first partition key that is allowed
• startRK (string) - the first row key that is allowed
• endPK (string) - the last partition key that is allowed
• endRK (string) - the last row key that is allowed

Query object level

The Key part is a string with field name. It can also be a PartitionKey or RowKey, but if only one row is going to be returned without additional filters, it is better to use getEntity() method.

The comparison only allows 6 standard comparison operators passed as strings: ==, !=, <, >, >=, and <=. Passing anything else will end up throwing exception.

The value element can be a string, number, boolean or Date object. Everything else will be converted to string using toString().

create([key, comparison, value])

Creates and returns new Query object. For convenience it can use where() parameters. If all three are provided, Query.create('a', '==', 'b') is equivalent of Query.create().where('a', '==', 'b').

where(key, comparison, value)

Adds first query element. Cannot be used after the first one (will throw exception). Returns Query object.

and(key, comparison, value)

Adds next query element using AND clause. Cannot be used as the first one (will throw exception). Returns Query object.

or(key, comparison, value)

Adds next query element using OR clause. Cannot be used as the first one (will throw exception). Returns Query object.

not()

Will negate next element. Returns Query object.

Running tests

Run the tests using mocha from main project folder. But before that set the environment variable as some tests are relying on default:

set CLOUD_STORAGE_ACCOUNT=TableEndpoint=http://dummy.table.core.windows.net/;AccountName=dummy;AccountKey=DWFdvtgaJ/4okdYJs1sAr1yyvrRe4dAuY5yPg+R+Wsl5wMiX6QOZ+6egJseLXK8YlDASx6eP0bfWV3rgZlgxYA==
mocha