User followers implementation with Sequelize ORM and ExpressJS

followersController.js

import createError from 'http-errors';
import models from '../models';
import Response from '../helpers/responseHandler'; // a wrapper for request.json
import { MESSAGE } from '../helpers/constants'; // an object constant used accross the codebase

/**
 * Class handling followers operation
 *
 * @class FollowersController
 */
class FollowersController {
  /**
   * User followers handler
   *
   * @static
   * @param {object} request - Express Request object
   * @param {object} response - Express Response object
   * @returns {object} Response object
   * @param {Function} next - Express NextFunction
   * @memberof FollowersController
   */
  static async follow(request, response, next) {
    const { user, params: { username } } = request;

    try {
      const { followable, follower } = await FollowersController.validateFollowable(user, username);
      await followable.addFollower(follower);
      return Response.send(response, 200, followable, `${MESSAGE.FOLLOW_SUCCESS} ${username}`);
    } catch (error) {
      next(error);
    }
  }

  /**
   * User unfollow handler
   *
   * @static
   * @param {object} request - Express Request object
   * @param {object} response - Express Response object
   * @returns {object} Response object
   * @param {Function} next - Express NextFunction
   * @memberof FollowersController
   */
  static async unfollow(request, response, next) {
    const { user, params: { username } } = request;

    try {
      const { followable, follower } = await FollowersController.validateFollowable(user, username);
      const existingFollower = await followable.hasFollowers(follower);
      if (!existingFollower) {
        next(createError(400, MESSAGE.UNFOLLOW_ERROR));
      }

      await followable.removeFollower(follower);
      return Response.send(response, 200, followable, `${MESSAGE.UNFOLLOW_SUCCESS} ${username}`);
    } catch (error) {
      next(error);
    }
  }

  /**
   * Validate users to follow
   *
   * @static
   * @param {object} user - Authenticated user object
   * @param {object} username - Username of the user to follow
   * @returns {object} Object holding the information of the followable and follower
   * @memberof FollowersController
   */
  static async validateFollowable(user, username) {
    try {
      const follower = await models.User.findOne({
        where: { id: user.id }
      });
      const profile = await models.Profile.findOne({ where: { username } });
      if (follower.id === profile.userId) {
        throw createError(400, MESSAGE.FOLLOW_ERROR);
      }

      const followable = await profile.getUser();
      if (followable.deletedAt !== null) {
        throw createError(404, MESSAGE.FOLLOW_ERROR);
      }

      return { followable, follower };
    } catch (error) {
      throw error;
    }
  }

  /**
   * Fetch user followers (handler)
   *
   * @static
   * @param {object} request - Express Request object
   * @param {object} response - Express Response object
   * @returns {object} Response object
   * @param {Function} next - Express NextFunction
   * @memberof FollowersController
   */
  static async followers(request, response, next) {
    const { user } = request;
    const routePath = request.path.split('/')[2];
    let followers;

    try {
      const authUser = await models.User.findOne({
        where: { id: user.id }
      });

      if (routePath === 'followers') {
        followers = await authUser.getFollowers();
      } else {
        followers = await authUser.getFollowing();
      }

      return Response.send(response, 400, followers);
    } catch (error) {
      next(error);
    }
  }
}

export default FollowersController;

routes.js

router.post(
  '/profiles/:username/follow',
  middlewares.authenticate,
  followersController.follow
);

router.post(
  '/profiles/:username/unfollow',
  middlewares.authenticate,
  followersController.unfollow
);

router.get(
  '/profiles/followers',
  middlewares.authenticate,
  followersController.followers
);

router.get(
  '/profiles/following',
  middlewares.authenticate,
  followersController.followers
);

User.js

import bcrypt from 'bcryptjs';

/**
 * A model class representing user resource
 *
 * @param {Sequelize} sequelize - Sequelize object
 * @param {Sequelize.DataTypes} DataTypes - A convinient object holding data types
 * @return {Sequelize.Model} - User model
 */
export default (sequelize, DataTypes) => {
  /**
   * @type {Sequelize.Model}
   */
  const User = sequelize.define('User', {
    email: {
      type: DataTypes.STRING,
      allowNull: false,
      unique: true,
      validate: {
        isEmail: { msg: 'Must be a valid email address' }
      }
    },
    password: {
      type: DataTypes.STRING,
      set(value) {
        this.setDataValue('password', bcrypt.hashSync(value, 10));
      }
    },
    isConfirmed: {
      type: DataTypes.BOOLEAN,
      defaultValue: false
    },
    createdAt: {
      type: DataTypes.DATE,
      defaultValue: sequelize.NOW
    },
    updatedAt: {
      type: DataTypes.DATE,
      defaultValue: sequelize.NOW,
      onUpdate: sequelize.NOW
    },
    deletedAt: {
      allowNull: true,
      type: DataTypes.DATE,
    }
  }, {});

  User.associate = (models) => {
    User.hasOne(models.Profile, { foreignKey: 'userId' });
    User.belongsToMany(models.User, {
      foreignKey: 'userId',
      as: 'followers',
      through: models.UserFollowers
    });
    User.belongsToMany(models.User, {
      foreignKey: 'followerId',
      as: 'following',
      through: models.UserFollowers
    });
  };

  /**
   * Validate user password
   *
   * @param {Object} user - User instance
   * @param {string} password - Password to validate
   * @returns {boolean} Truthy upon successful validation
   */
  User.comparePassword = (user, password) => bcrypt.compareSync(password, user.password);

  return User;
};

Hi @mom3d, you can use joinTableAttributes option to remove the association attributes from the output, like so:

const followers = await user.getFollowers({ joinTableAttributes: [] })

Hope you find this helpful.

thank you so much @devdbrandy, but where i could find it in the docs ?

@mom3d you can look up the Associating Objects section on the Docs, depending on your version of sequelize.
https://sequelize.org/v5/manual/associations.html#associating-objects