Import sql file in node.js and execute against PostgreSQL

Question

I'm looking for an efficient way to take a raw sql file and have it executed synchronously against a postgres database, akin to if you ran it through psql.

I have an sql file which creates all databases, imports data, etc. I need to execute this using node.js but cannot find any module which does this automatically. For the node.js application itself, we use node-postgres ('pg'), knex.js and bookshelf.js. I assume though that pg is best for this.

One alternative I can think of is to read the full file, split it by semicolons, replace newlines with spaces, trim any duplicate space, then feed it into pg one by one in a manner that they're executed sequentially, not asynchronously. I'm a little surprised if this is truly the most efficient way and also if no libraries exist yet to solve this. I'm a little hesitant to jump into it seeing as SQL syntax can itself be a little challenging and I might accidentally mash it up.

Some clarifications in advance:

• psql cannot be used as it's not installed on the target machine
• I've chosen to develop and source control sql statements in sql native form, because it's a lot easier for a DBA to use and manipulate it

Answer 1

You can just separate consequent queries with a semicolon when passed to client.query

That works:

var pg = require('pg');

pg.connect('postgres://test:test@localhost/test', function(err, client, done){
        client.query('CREATE TABLE test (test VARCHAR(255)); INSERT INTO test VALUES(\'test\') ');
        done();
});

And consequently, that works too:

var pg = require('pg');
var fs = require('fs');

var sql = fs.readFileSync('init_database.sql').toString();

pg.connect('postgres://test:test@localhost/test', function(err, client, done){
    if(err){
        console.log('error: ', err);
        process.exit(1);
    }
    client.query(sql, function(err, result){
        done();
        if(err){
            console.log('error: ', err);
            process.exit(1);
        }
        process.exit(0);
    });
});