JavaScript Modules

ArangoDB uses a Node.js compatible module system. You can use the function require in order to load a module or library. It returns the exported variables and functions of the module.

The global variables global, process, console, Buffer, __filename and __dirname are available throughout ArangoDB and Foxx.

Node compatibility modules

ArangoDB supports a number of modules for compatibility with Node.js, including:

• assert implements basic assertion and testing functions.

• buffer implements a binary data type for JavaScript.

• console is a well known logging facility to all the JavaScript developers. ArangoDB implements most of the Console API, with the exceptions of profile and count.

• events implements an event emitter.

• fs provides a file system API for the manipulation of paths, directories, files, links, and the construction of file streams. ArangoDB implements most Filesystem/A functions.

• module provides direct access to the module system.

• path implements functions dealing with filenames and paths.

• punycode implements conversion functions for punycode encoding.

• querystring provides utilities for dealing with query strings.

• stream provides a streaming interface.

• string_decoder implements logic for decoding buffers into strings.

• url provides utilities for URL resolution and parsing.

• util provides general utility functions like format and inspect.

Additionally ArangoDB provides partial implementations for the following modules:

• net: only isIP, isIPv4 and isIPv6.

• process: only env and cwd; stubs for argv, stdout.isTTY, stdout.write, nextTick.

• timers: stubs for setImmediate, setTimeout, setInterval, clearImmediate, clearTimeout, clearInterval and ref.

• tty: only isatty (always returns false).

• vm: only runInThisContext.

The following Node.js modules are not available at all: child_process, cluster, constants, crypto (but see @arangodb/crypto below), dgram, dns, domain, http (but see @arangodb/request below), https, os, sys, tls, v8, zlib.

ArangoDB Specific Modules

There are a large number of ArangoDB-specific modules using the @arangodb namespace, mostly for internal use by ArangoDB itself. The following however are noteworthy:

• @arangodb provides direct access to the database and its collections.

• @arangodb/crypto provides various cryptography functions including hashing algorithms.

• @arangodb/request provides the functionality for making synchronous HTTP/HTTPS requests.

• @arangodb/foxx is the namespace providing the various building blocks of the Foxx microservice framework.

Bundled NPM Modules

The following NPM modules are preinstalled:

• aqb is the ArangoDB Query Builder and can be used to construct AQL queries with a chaining JavaScript API.

• chai is a full-featured assertion library for writing JavaScript tests.

• dedent is a simple utility function for formatting multi-line strings.

• error-stack-parser parses stacktraces into a more useful format.

• graphql-sync is an ArangoDB-compatible GraphQL server/schema implementation.

• highlight.js is an HTML syntax highlighter.

• i (inflect) is a utility library for inflecting (e.g. pluralizing) words.

• iconv-lite is a utility library for converting between character encodings

• joi is a validation library that is supported throughout the Foxx framework.

• js-yaml is a JavaScript implementation of the YAML data format (a partial superset of JSON).

• lodash is a utility belt for JavaScript providing various useful helper functions.

• minimatch is a glob matcher for matching wildcards in file paths.

• qs provides utilities for dealing with query strings using a different format than the querystring module.

• semver is a utility library for handling semver version numbers.

• sinon is a mocking library for writing test stubs, mocks and spies.

• timezone is a library for converting date time values between formats and timezones.