Database
How to Use the Synchronize Option in TypeORM for Effective Database Management
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Overview
TypeORM is a robust ORM that enables developers to handle the databases of a TypeScript/JavaScript application. One of its more useful features is the synchronize option, which makes it possible to keep your database schema up to date with your entities. In this post, we’ll see what synchronize does, when it is appropriate to use, and when it should be avoided.
What is synchronization?
The synchronize option in TypeORM, makes it possible for TypeORM to synchronize the database schema (tables, columns and relationships) with the entity models automatically. After this option is enabled, TypeORM will:
- Create tables for those entities that do not have existing tables.
- Add new columns or update existing ones based on entity revisions.
- Drop columns or tables that have been removed from the entity.
Example:
import { DataSource } from 'typeorm';import { User } from './entities/User';const dataSource = new DataSource({ type: 'postgres', host: 'localhost', port: 5432, username: 'postgres', password: 'password', database: 'test_db', synchronize: true, // Sync schema with entities logging: true, entities: [User], // Your entity classes});dataSource.initialize() .then(() => console.log('Database synchronized')) .catch((error) => console.log('Error:', error));
When To Use synchronize: true
- Development: It is beneficial for rapid iteration during development or in the prototyping stage, where you usually change the structures of entities.
- Testing: Automatically guarantees that the schema of your test database is always up to date with your entities.
When Not To Use synchronize: true
- Production: It might cause data loss when columns or tables are dropped or altered unintentionally in production.
- Uncontrolled Changes: This could lead to unsought schema changes that can break your application in production environments.
Best Practice: Disable in Production
In production, it is standard practice to disable synchronization and utilize migrations for defined schema alterations.
synchronize: process.env.NODE_ENV !== 'production', // Disable in production
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