breeze-client

Breeze data management for JavaScript clients.
See the docs for more info about what Breeze does and how to use it.

Install from npm

npm install breeze-client@next

Build using ng-packagr

Run npm run build. This will create files in the '\dist' dir. The directory structure is the Angular Package Format.

adapter-*/                Breeze adapter definitions (*.d.ts) for ajax, data service, model library, and uri builder
bundles/                  Breeze and adapter libraries in UMD
esm5/                     Breeze and adapter libraries as ES5 modules (separate source files)
esm2015/                  Breeze and adapter libraries as ES6 modules (separate source files)
fesm5/                    Breeze and adapter libraries as ES5 modules (combined source files)
fesm2015/                 Breeze and adapter libraries as ES6 modules (combined source files)
spec/                     TypeScript definition files (.d.ts) for tests
src/                      TypeScript definition files (.d.ts) for source
breeze-client.d.ts        TypeScript definition file (links to the files in src/) 
breeze-client.metadata.json      Metadata for Angular AOT
index.d.ts                Main entry point
LICENSE                   MIT
package.json              Package metadata
public_api.d.ts           Main entry point

It will also create breeze-client-{version}.tgz in the main directory. This file can then be installed in a project using

npm install ..\{path}\breeze-client-{version}.tgz

Build API Docs

Run npm run typedoc. This will create a '\docs' dir. click on the 'index.html' in this folder to see the docs.

Breaking Changes

API is almost identical to the original (breezejs 1.x) but small changes are noted below:

• Breeze no longer depends upon Q.js. But it does depend on a ES6 promise implementation. i.e. the existence of a global Promise object. The setQ function is now a no-op.
• The names of the enum values no longer have "Symbol" at the end. E.g. EntityStateSymbol is now EntityState.
• The DataServiceOptions interface is now DataServiceConfig to be consistent with other naming
• The initializeAdapterInstances method is removed; use the singular config.initializeAdapterInstance method.

Adapter Changes

The names of the adapter files have changed. E.g. breeze.dataService.webApi is now adapter-data-service-webapi, and the locations have changed due to Angular-compatible bundling.

Also, the aggressive tree-shaking of tsickle/terser/webpack in Angular 8 removes the functions that the Breeze adapters use to register themselves! So you need to register them yourself.

If you have this:

import 'breeze-client/breeze.dataService.webApi';
import 'breeze-client/breeze.modelLibrary.backingStore';
import 'breeze-client/breeze.uriBuilder.odata';
import { BreezeBridgeHttpClientModule } from 'breeze-bridge2-angular';

Replace it with this:

import { DataServiceWebApiAdapter } from 'breeze-client/adapter-data-service-webapi';
import { ModelLibraryBackingStoreAdapter } from 'breeze-client/adapter-model-library-backing-store';
import { UriBuilderODataAdapter } from 'breeze-client/adapter-uri-builder-odata';
import { AjaxHttpClientAdapter } from 'breeze-client/adapter-ajax-httpclient';

Note that now you do not need breeze-bridge2-angular, because the AjaxHttpClientAdapter is now part of the breeze-client package.

Then, in your constructor function (for your module or Entity Manager Provider):

constructor(http: HttpClient) {
    // the order is important
    ModelLibraryBackingStoreAdapter.register();
    UriBuilderODataAdapter.register();
    AjaxHttpClientAdapter.register(http);
    DataServiceWebApiAdapter.register();
}

The above has been tested on Angular 7 and 8, and should work for earlier versions.

Note that if you are using Breeze .NET Core on the server, you should use UriBuilderJsonAdapter instead of UriBuilderODataAdapter.

For apps that use global JavaScript libraries, the UMD versions are still available, under the bundles directory:

<script src="node_modules/breeze-client/bundles/breeze-client.umd.js"></script>
<script src="node_modules/breeze-client/bundles/breeze-client-adapter-model-library-backing-store.umd.js"></script>
<script src="node_modules/breeze-client/bundles/breeze-client-adapter-data-service-webapi.umd.js"></script>
<script src="node_modules/breeze-client/bundles/breeze-client-adapter-ajax-angularjs.umd.js"></script>

Compile Notes

In general we have avoided using null parameters in favor of undefined parameters thoughout the API. This means that signatures will look like

a(p1: string, p2?: Entity)

as opposed to

a(p1: string, p2?: Entity | null);

This IS deliberate. In general, with very few exceptions input parameters will rarely say 'p: x | null'. The only exceptions are where we need to be able to pass a null parameter followed by one or more non null params. This is very rare. SaveEntities(entities: Entity[] | null, ...) is one exception.

Note that this is not a breaking change because the underlying code will always check for either a null or undefined. i.e. 'if (p2 == null) {' so this convention only affects typescript consumers of the api. Pure javascript users can still pass a null in ( if they want to)

Note that it is still acceptable for api calls to return a null to indicate that nothing was found. i.e. like getEntityType().

Jasmine tests

The tests are found in the spec directory. There are three ways to run them.

1) From command line:

run npm install jasmine -g ( global install).

run npm run test from top level breeze-client dir.

2) From VS code debugger:

add this section to 'launch.json'

{
    "name": "Debug Jasmine Tests",
    "type": "node",
    "request": "launch",
    "program": "${workspaceRoot}/node_modules/jasmine/bin/jasmine.js",
    "stopOnEntry": false,
    "args": [
        
    ],
    "cwd": "${workspaceRoot}",
    "sourceMaps": true,
    "outDir": "${workspaceRoot}/dist"
}    

Run npm install jasmine (local install)

Set breakpoint and hit Ctrl-F5.

3) From Chrome debugger:

See Debugging Node.js with Chrome DevTools.

1. Open Chrome and go to chrome://inspect

2. Click on the link that says Open dedicated DevTools for Node

3. Put a debugger; statement in your code where you want to start debugging

4. Run your Jasmine tests in debug mode

   npm run debug

5. Go back to the browser. The --inspect-brk (part of the npm run debug script) tells the debugger to break on the first line of the first script. You're stopped inside of Jasmine. Now set your breakpoints, and click the arrow (or hit F8) to continue.

Legacy Tests

The original breeze.js repo contains thousands of tests, some of which are end-to-end and require a server backend. The tests are in breeze.js/test/internal/, and they expect to find a breeze.debug.js file in the neighboring directory, breeze.js/test/breeze/.

The breeze.debug.js file is a UMD module containing the main breeze-client code and certain adapters. To build it, run

npm run copy-to-breezejs

That will create (or overwrite!) ../breeze.js/test/breeze/breeze.debug.js.

Then you can launch the server, navigate to the test page, and run the test suite.