beforeInsert not being triggered

Pretty much what the title says, a method in a model decorated with @beforeInsert isn’t being triggered, causing a not-null constraint error to get triggered (that not null field should be getting populated by that beforeInsert method).

A repo with this issue can be found here: https://github.com/mogusbi/typedi-error

// user.model.ts

import {BeforeInsert, Column, Entity} from 'typeorm';
import {encryptionService} from '../../services/encryption';
import {BaseEntity} from '../base-entity';

@Entity()
export class User extends BaseEntity {
  @Column() public answer: string;
  @Column() public dob: Date;
  @Column({
    unique: true
  }) public emailAddress: string;
  @Column() public firstName: string;
  @Column() public password: string;
  @Column() public salt: string;
  @Column() public surname: string;
  @Column({
    unique: true
  }) public username: string;

  @BeforeInsert()
  public encrypt (): Promise<string> {
    return this.generateSalt()
      .then(
        () => this.hashAnswer()
      )
      .then(
        () => this.hashPassword()
      );
  }

  public generateSalt (): Promise<string> {
    return encryptionService
      .genSalt()
      .then(
        (salt: string) => this.salt = salt
      )
  }

  public hashAnswer (): Promise<string> {
    return encryptionService
      .hash(this.answer, this.salt)
      .then(
        (hash: string) => this.answer = hash
      );
  }

  public hashPassword (): Promise<string> {
    return encryptionService
      .hash(this.password, this.salt)
      .then(
        (hash: string) => this.password = hash
      );
  }
}

// user.controller.ts

import {Body, HttpCode, JsonController, Post} from 'routing-controllers';
import {IUser, User, UserService} from '../../entities/user';

@JsonController('/user')
export class UserController {
  constructor (
    private userService: UserService
  ) {}

  @Post()
  @HttpCode(201)
  public httpPost (
    @Body({
      required: true
    }) props: IUser
  ): Promise<User> {
    return this.userService.create(props);
  }
}

and an example POST request

{
	"answer": "Test",
	"dob": "1990-07-10T00:00:00+00:00",
	"emailAddress": "[e-mail]",
	"firstName": "Mo",
	"password": "SuperSecurePassword",
	"surname": "Gusbi",
	"username": "mo.gusbi"
}

error being returned:

{
  "name": "error",
  "message": "null value in column \"salt\" violates not-null constraint",
  "stack": "error: null value in column \"salt\" violates not-null constraint\n    at Connection.parseE (/Users/mo/Repos/typedi-error/node_modules/pg/lib/connection.js:567:11)\n    at Connection.parseMessage (/Users/mo/Repos/typedi-error/node_modules/pg/lib/connection.js:391:17)\n    at Socket.<anonymous> (/Users/mo/Repos/typedi-error/node_modules/pg/lib/connection.js:129:22)\n    at emitOne (events.js:96:13)\n    at Socket.emit (events.js:188:7)\n    at readableAddChunk (_stream_readable.js:176:18)\n    at Socket.Readable.push (_stream_readable.js:134:10)\n    at TCP.onread (net.js:548:20)",
  "length": 334,
  "severity": "ERROR",
  "code": "23502",
  "detail": "Failing row contains (47a52ba1-369e-4733-94c0-74c624a5c839, 2017-07-16 19:50:20.3, 2017-07-16 19:50:20.3, 1, Test, 1991-01-25 00:00:00, [e-mail], Mo, Password1!, null, Gusbi, mo.gusbi).",
  "schema": "public",
  "table": "user",
  "column": "salt",
  "file": "execMain.c",
  "line": "1732",
  "routine": "ExecConstraints"
}

[rationalthinker1]

You have to instantiate the Entity and assign the attributes to it and then save.

async create(attributes: DeepPartial<T>) {
    const entity = Object.assign(new User(), attributes);
    return this.repository.save(entity);
}

[mmiszy]

@mogusbi I think this is definitely a bug, but there’s a simple workaround. The problem is that you’re calling persist on an object literal like you do here in src/entities/user/user.service.ts#L14

return this.repository.persist(props);

Instead, create a model instance first and call persist on the instance:

const instance = this.repository.create(props);
return this.repository.persist(instance);

The bug occurs because of how listener.isAllowed method is implemented – it uses instanceof operator and thus doesn’t work with object literals.