CAP Node.js plugins - part 2 - using the REPL
This blog post accompanies part 2 of a three part video series where we explore the CDS Plugin mechanism in CAP Node.js to find out how it works. In part 1 we looked at the plugin mechanism itself and how it worked. In this part we use the cds REPL to start our CAP service running and to explore it - to introspect it.
For information on the series and links to all resources, see the CAP Node.js Plugins series post.
The examples in this post are based on CAP Node.js at release 8.6 (December 2024).
Picking up from where we left off last time
Now we have a skeleton plugin package set up and wired in (which we did in part 1), we can turn our attention to how they can be used to enhance the standard CAP service processing.
Let's have our plugin bring about some behaviour for a custom annotation we'll add to one of the elements in one of the entities in our service.
Adding a custom annotation
If we annotate an element, for example the genre element of the Books entity, with @loud, that signifies that the value of that element should be returned in UPPER CASE.
Let's annotate Books.genre with @loud in the CDL definition so it looks like this:
service Bookshop {
entity Books {
key ID : Integer;
title : String;
@loud genre : String;
stock : Integer;
}
entity Things {
key ID : Integer;
}
}The idea is that the contents of the genre element should be converted to all capitals before being returned, so that the responses look like this (notice how "SCIENCE FICTION" is presented in all capitals, i.e. in a "loud" shouty fashion).
{
"@odata.context": "$metadata#Books",
"value": [
{
"ID": 1,
"title": "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy",
"genre": "SCIENCE FICTION",
"stock": 42
}
]
}This custom annotation won't have any adverse effect on the standard service provision, but it's available to us when we introspect the service and its makeup.
To see how this completely new and random annotation is handled in general, let's see what the CDS compiler makes of it. Let's ask for the YAML representation of the Core Schema Notation (CSN) for our CDS model:
cds compile . --to yamlThis is what we get:
definitions:
Bookshop: {kind: service}
Bookshop.Books:
kind: entity
elements:
ID: {key: true, type: cds.Integer}
title: {type: cds.String}
genre: {'@loud': true, type: cds.String}
stock: {type: cds.Integer}
Bookshop.Things: {kind: entity, elements: {ID: {key: true, type: cds.Integer}}}
meta: {creator: CDS Compiler v5.6.0, flavor: inferred}
$version: 2.0Note how our new annotation is captured and stored simply as a new property for the element, a property which has the annotation itself as the key and a boolean true as the value:
genre: {'@loud': true, type: cds.String}Using the annotation as the property key means that it won't clash with anything standard. This is so simple that it's easy to gloss over this detail and miss the beauty of the design here.
Starting up the cds REPL and a server instance
We can use the cds REPL to manually and interactively explore the service and everything it contains. The cds REPL has had some recent enhancements in the December 2024 release, so we'll explore some of those throughout this session.
For now, though, there's a cds.test library for writing tests for CAP Node.js services, and we can also use that library directly in the REPL to great effect.
Let's start the REPL with cds repl and enter const test = await cds.test(). The output is what we see from a standard server startup, including the announcement from our fledgling plugin (see Appendix A - Turning down the logging on suppressing this by default). Here's a sample session output (the > symbol is the REPL prompt character):
$ cds repl
Welcome to cds repl v 8.6.0
> const test = await cds.test()
[LOUD] - Starting up ...
[cds] - loaded model from 1 file(s):
services.cds
[cds] - connect to db > sqlite { url: ':memory:' }
> init from data/Bookshop.Books.csv
/> successfully deployed to in-memory database.
[cds] - using auth strategy {
kind: 'mocked',
impl: 'node_modules/@sap/cds/lib/srv/middlewares/auth/basic-auth'
}
[cds] - using new OData adapter
[cds] - serving Bookshop { path: '/odata/v4/bookshop' }
[cds] - server listening on { url: 'http://localhost:33821' }
[cds] - launched at 1/10/2025, 1:02:01 PM, version: 8.6.0, in: 568.775ms
[cds] - [ terminate with ^C ]
>The CAP server is started bound to a random port, rather than the default one. This is so it doesn't clash with a CAP server that you might already have running.
We're not actually interested in what's stored in the
testconstant, the assignment is made just to avoid the output ofcds.test()being otherwise emitted in the REPL display and overwhelming us.
At this point we can start querying:
> await SELECT `title, genre` .from `Bookshop.Books`
[
{
title: "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy",
genre: 'Science Fiction'
}
]But instead of querying the data, what we really want to do in this session is explore the service structure, bearing in mind that, usually, a service contains one or more entities, and those entities contain one or more elements (fields).
Instead of using
cds.test()there are features introduced to the cds REPL in the December 2024 release which makes this more comfortable; use either of these approaches:
cds repl --run .in the project directory (cds r -r .is the short version).run .at the REPL prompt
Exploring the cds facade
Just like we used the cds facade to discover the values of cds.root and cds.home in part 1, we can use it to look at the services.
Entering cds. and then hitting <Tab> a couple of times will cause the autocomplete facility to show what's on offer:
> cds.
cds.__proto__ cds.hasOwnProperty cds.isPrototypeOf cds.propertyIsEnumerable
cds.toLocaleString cds.toString cds.valueOf
cds.addListener cds.eventNames cds.getMaxListeners cds.listenerCount
cds.listeners cds.off cds.on cds.once
cds.prependListener cds.prependOnceListener cds.rawListeners cds.removeAllListeners
cds.removeListener cds.setMaxListeners
cds.Association cds.Composition cds.DatabaseService cds.EventContext
cds.MessagingService cds.RemoteService cds.array cds.auth
cds.build cds.clone cds.constructor cds.create
cds.delete cds.disconnect cds.emit cds.entities
cds.event cds.exit cds.foreach cds.import
cds.in cds.insert cds.lazified cds.lazify
cds.localize cds.odata cds.outboxed cds.read
cds.reflect cds.run cds.schema cds.spawn
cds.stream cds.struct cds.transaction cds.tx
cds.txs cds.unboxed cds.update cds.upsert
cds.ApplicationService cds.Event cds.Request cds.Service
cds.User cds.__esModule cds._context cds._edmProviders
cds._events cds._eventsCount cds._local cds._log
cds._maxListeners cds.app cds.assert cds.builtin
cds.cli cds.compile cds.compiler cds.connect
cds.context cds.db cds.debug cds.default
cds.deploy cds.edmxs cds.entity cds.env
cds.error cds.exec cds.extend cds.get
cds.home cds.infer cds.linked cds.load
cds.log cds.middlewares cds.minify cds.model
cds.options cds.parse cds.plugins cds.ql
cds.repl cds.requires cds.resolve cds.root
cds.serve cds.server cds.service cds.services
cds.shutdown cds.test cds.type cds.utils
cds.versionSome of these properties are from the standard JavaScript object mechanism, but some are CAP specific and made available as part of the facade.
That's one way to start to explore. Another is to use one of the cds REPL features: .inspect, which has a .depth setting (the default value is 11, i.e. "very deep!", but can be changed) that can specified explicitly on the fly too.
Let's use this to examine the facade:
> .inspect cds .depth=0
cds: cds {
_events: [Object: null prototype],
_eventsCount: 6,
_maxListeners: undefined,
model: [LinkedCSN],
db: [SQLiteService],
cli: [Object],
root: '/workspaces/project',
services: [Object],
extend: [Function (anonymous)],
version: '8.6.0',
...
User: [Function],
middlewares: [Object],
shutdown: [AsyncFunction: _shutdown],
[Symbol(shapeMode)]: false,
[Symbol(kCapture)]: false
}A first look at the service(s)
If we enter cds.services at the REPL prompt, we'll see an avalanche of information, ending like this:
...
Layer {
handle: [Function (anonymous)],
name: '',
params: undefined,
path: undefined,
keys: [],
regexp: /^\/?(?=\/|$)/i { fast_star: false, fast_slash: true },
route: undefined
}
],
path: '/odata/v4/bookshop'
}
},
path: '/odata/v4/bookshop',
'$linkProviders': [ [Function (anonymous)] ]
}
} Good, but too much.
We can see from the closing brace that we can probably treat it as an object. Evaluating typeof(cds.services) confirms this:
> typeof(cds.services)
objectWe can use standard JavaScript affordances to look at the keys. Let's try:
> Object.keys(cds.services)
[ 'db', 'Bookshop' ]You'd be right to guess that the first key represents the database service. And the second key points to the value that represents our Bookshop service.
We can confirm this as follows:
> Object.values(cds.services).map(x => [x.name, x.kind])
[ [ 'db', 'sqlite' ], [ 'Bookshop', 'app-service' ] ]We could also achieve this by reifying
cds.servicesas an array, like this:[...cds.services].map(x => [x.name, x.kind]). See later for more on the rest parameter syntax (...).
In fact, this "basic info" of name and kind is going to be useful again shortly, so let's create a helper function thus:
const basicInfo = x => [x.name, x.kind]We can use it like this: [...cds.services].map(basicInfo).
Anyway, let's keep going. In CAP, everything is a service, which explains why we see the SQLite database mechanism appearing here too. But we're interested in our Bookshop service, which incidentally has the kind value of app-service.
Digging deeper into the Bookshop service
To make it more convenient for us to work with, let's get a handle on that service object using a destructuring assignment like this:
> { Bookshop } = cds.servicesLet's have a look at what's available in this service object, with Object.keys(Bookshop):
> Object.keys(Bookshop)
[
'_handlers', 'name',
'options', 'kind',
'model', 'definition',
'namespace', 'operations',
'entities', '_datasource',
'endpoints', '_adapters',
'path', '$linkProviders'
]That's a good start, but we can also use the .inspect feature with the depth set to the "shallowest" value (0) to look at more or less the same information, but with more hints as to the nature of each of the properties, in a less generic JavaScript context and a more specific CAP context:
> .inspect Bookshop .depth=0
Bookshop: ApplicationService {
name: 'Bookshop',
options: [Object],
kind: 'app-service',
model: [LinkedCSN],
handlers: [EventHandlers],
definition: [service],
namespace: 'Bookshop',
actions: [Function: children] LinkedDefinitions,
entities: [LinkedDefinitions],
endpoints: [Array],
_adapters: [Object],
path: '/odata/v4/bookshop',
'$linkProviders': [Array]
}We want to dig down through the entities to the elements, so let's now examine the entities property.
If we start typing Bookshop.entities at the prompt we should see the REPL already start eagerly returning a value which represents a function that returns a LinkedDefinitions object:
> Bookshop.entities
{ [Function: children] LinkedDefinitions Books: entity { kind: 'entity', elements: [LinkedDefinitions] } }We already got a clue about this from the output above - the
entitiesproperty was shown as being an array ofLinkedDefinitions.
So while we can't have that expression emit the entities directly (basically because it's an iterable), we can resolve them into an array with ..., which is the rest parameter syntax.
Since the August 2024 release of CAP Node.js (8.2.1) this conversion to array is now required because of some important changes made to LinkedDefinitions.
Let's do that now with entities = [...Bookshop.entities] which will also emit a summary of the value of the new entities variable created:
> entities = [...Bookshop.entities]
[
entity {
kind: 'entity',
elements: LinkedDefinitions {
ID: Integer { key: true, type: 'cds.Integer' },
title: String { type: 'cds.String' },
genre: String { '@loud': true, type: 'cds.String' },
stock: Integer { type: 'cds.Integer' }
}
},
entity {
kind: 'entity',
elements: LinkedDefinitions {
ID: Integer { key: true, type: 'cds.Integer' }
}
}
]We can also use JavaScript's
for ... instatement, or thefor ... ofstatement, both of which can work with iterables, as can the rest parameter syntax here too.
There are two entities in the services.cds file, and they are Books and Things. Therefore there are two elements in the entities array.
We can confirm that with entities.length:
> entities.length
2Looking at individual entities and their elements
Let's look at some of the aspects of the entities using our useful basic info function:
> entities.map(basicInfo)
[ [ 'Bookshop.Books', 'entity' ], [ 'Bookshop.Things', 'entity' ] ]We can also examine the elements of the first entity (Bookshop.Books) like this:
> entities[0].elements
LinkedDefinitions {
ID: Integer { key: true, type: 'cds.Integer' },
title: String { type: 'cds.String' },
genre: String { '@loud': true, type: 'cds.String' },
stock: Integer { type: 'cds.Integer' }
}
>Notice that the entities[0].elements property is shown as being of a LinkedDefinitions type, which is, as we have found out already, not an array per se, but an iterable.
So let's explore, like this:
> for (let el of entities[0].elements) console.log(el.name, Object.keys(el))
ID [ 'key', 'type' ]
title [ 'type' ]
genre [ '@loud', 'type' ]
stock [ 'type' ]These are the elements (fields) of our Book entity. And look - there's our custom @loud annotation on the genre element!
Identifying the elements annotated with @loud
Let's define a function loudElements that we can use when mapping over the entities to return a list of entities and any corresponding elements that have been annotated with @loud:
const loudElements = en => ({
name: en.name,
entity: en,
elements: [...en.elements].filter(el => el['@loud']).map(el => el.name)
})This takes an entity en, and returns an object with three properties:
- the entity's name
- the entire entity object
- a list of zero or more element names that have the
@loudannotation
This was both possible and easy because of the wonderfully beautiful and simple way annotations are processed and stored.
Now, we can map this function over the list of entities, which should return something like this (pay particular attention to the value of the elements property in each of the array items):
> entities.map(loudElements)
[
{
name: 'Bookshop.Books',
entity: entity {
kind: 'entity',
elements: LinkedDefinitions {
ID: Integer { key: true, type: 'cds.Integer' },
title: String { type: 'cds.String' },
genre: String { '@loud': true, type: 'cds.String' },
stock: Integer { type: 'cds.Integer' }
}
},
elements: [ 'genre' ]
},
{
name: 'Bookshop.Things',
entity: entity {
kind: 'entity',
elements: LinkedDefinitions {
ID: Integer { key: true, type: 'cds.Integer' }
}
},
elements: []
}
]We only annotated the genre element of the Books entity, so this makes sense.
This way we can identify those entities upon which we need to focus.
Wrapping up
This post just scratches the surface of the power that the cds REPL gives us as developers, to explore, understand, manipulate and write code against the services and other artifacts presented in what we're building, both in our user space, but also in the CAP framework's "kernel" space (see the Kernel space and user space section of Five reasons to use CAP).
In the third and final part to this series we can use the knowledge we've gained from this cds REPL session to write our actual plugin!
Appendix A - Turning down the logging
The reason this line appears each and every time we start up the service, even in the REPL:
[LOUD] - Starting up ...is because by default, the log('Starting up ...') call here in our plugin file loud/cap-plugin.js:
const cds = require('@sap/cds')
const log = cds.log('LOUD')
log('Starting up ...')emits at a level that finds its way to the server output by default.
Switching this to an explicit call to log.debug('Starting up ...'), which is at lower more detailed level that is not output by default, means that we don't see this line any more, except if we explicitly ask to see debug output, using the DEBUG environment variable, for example like this:
DEBUG=LOUD cds watchor even (turning everything up to 11):
DEBUG=all cds watch- ← Previous
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