pg.connect is undocumented

[seishun]

The pg.connect function is not mentioned in the README or the wiki. But the function exists and it's present in a lot of example code on the Internet.

Is it deprecated? Is using new pg.Pool() preferred to pg.connect? Or are they both fully supported? Either way, it would be nice to have this function mentioned somewhere, so that people know which way to write their own code.

[charmander]

Yes, pg.Pool instances are preferred to pg.connect.

[brianc]

Yeah pg.connect is soft deprecated. I'm probably not going to remove it for a long time, but I'd recommend using an instance of a pool instead of pg.connect - global singletons like pg.connect are generally a nasty design pattern. My self from 6 years ago didn't think that one all the way through. :p SO the thinking goes don't document it anymore, mark it deprecated in a future version, and eventually remove it and roll out a monkey-patch into a separate node-module so if you absolutely need backwards compatibility you can install it still. I hate breaking backwards compatibility.

[seishun]

Thank you for the clarification.

SO the thinking goes don't document it anymore

I think it would be better to document it. A simple mention like "pg.connect is an old thing, don't use it" would be enough to avoid confusion by newcomers.

[charmander]

SO the thinking goes don't document it anymore, mark it deprecated in a future version, and eventually remove it and roll out a monkey-patch into a separate node-module so if you absolutely need backwards compatibility you can install it still.

Can that future version be the next version? =)

[pstef]

I prefer to have a single connection from the application's perspective. This is because I already use a connection pooler that is external from this perspective. It seems to me that using pg's built-in connection pooler would buy me nothing at the expense of introducing concepts that my application doesn't need.

[charmander]

@pstef You would want pg.Client, then. pg.connect uses a singleton pool.

[brianc]

I added this to the docs milestone so I'll include it as deprecated when I write them up.

[Yitzi2]

Question: What would then be the proper equivalent to the code shown at https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/heroku-postgresql#connecting-in-node-js?
EDIT: It looks like the connection syntax at https://node-postgres.com/features/connecting#connection-uri explains things. You may want to contact Heroku and suggest they edit their guide to use non-deprecated features, though (I figure it'll count for more if coming from the library author).

[charmander]

pg.connect has been removed; is this okay to close?

[brianc]

👍 definitely good to close