Nodejs Promise TypeError: Cannot read property 'then' of undefined

Question

I got error when i try to access function of controller in my route. I used mongoose,express.

error:

TypeError: Cannot read property 'then' of undefined at /private/var/www/html/sms/server/routes/user.routes.js:70:9 at Layer.handle [as handle_request] (/private/var/www/html/sms/node_modules/express/lib/router/layer.js:95:5) at next (/private/var/www/html/sms/node_modules/express/lib/router/route.js:137:13) at Route.dispatch (/private/var/www/html/sms/node_modules/express/lib/router/route.js:112:3) at Layer.handle [as handle_request] (/private/var/www/html/sms/node_modules/express/lib/router/layer.js:95:5) at /private/var/www/html/sms/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:281:22 at Function.process_params (/private/var/www/html/sms/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:335:12) at next (/private/var/www/html/sms/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:275:10) at Function.handle (/private/var/www/html/sms/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:174:3) at router (/private/var/www/html/sms/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:47:12) at Layer.handle [as handle_request] (/private/var/www/html/sms/node_modules/express/lib/router/layer.js:95:5) at trim_prefix (/private/var/www/html/sms/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:317:13) at /private/var/www/html/sms/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:284:7 at Function.process_params (/private/var/www/html/sms/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:335:12) at next (/private/var/www/html/sms/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:275:10) at /private/var/www/html/sms/server.js:65:3 POST /api/user/create 500 27.274 ms - 16 (node:11300) UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: Unhandled promise rejection (rejection id: 1): Error: This email is already exists. Please enter another email. (node:11300) [DEP0018] DeprecationWarning: Unhandled promise rejections are deprecated. In the future, promise rejections that are not handled will terminate the Node.js process with a non-zero exit code.

here is my code:-

user.cont.js

function create(data) {
  User.findOne({ email: data.email })
    .exec((err, doc) => {
      if (err) {
        return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
          return reject(err);
        })
      } else {
        if (doc) {
          return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
            return reject(new Error('This email is already exists. Please enter another email.'));
          })
        } else {
          const user = new User(data);
          return user.save()
        }
      }

    })

}


export default { getUsers, create };

user.route.js

router.post('/create', (req, res, next) => {
        UserCtrl.create(req.body)
            .then(savedUser => res.json(savedUser)) . // here error is generated
            .catch(e => next(e));
    });

Answer 1

You should wrap the whole User.findOne() call in a Promise, like so:

function create(data) {
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    User.findOne({ email: data.email })
      .exec((err, doc) => {
        if (err) return reject(err)
        if (doc) return reject(new Error('This email is already exists. Please enter another email.'))
        const user = new User(data)
        user.save((err) => {
          if (err) return reject(err)
          resolve()
        })
      })
  })
}

You also need to resolve the promise, otherwise the callbacks in your UserCtrl.then() calls will never be called. I also added error handling in case something goes wrong with saving a new User to the database.

Answer 2

You could refactor your controller and route code to be like like this as well.

user.cont.js

function create(req, res, next){
   User.findOne({email: req.body.email})
    .then((err, user) => {

      if(user){

        const newUser = User.create(req.body,  (newUser, err) => {
          if(err) res.send(err);

          delete newUser.password;
          res.json(newUser)
        })
      }


    }).catch((err) => {
       res.send(err)
    })


}

Since User.findOne already returns a promise you can call .then on it, also make sure you delete the user's password if they have one before you return it to the client for security reasons!

Note you can also call a .then on the create function, maybe you could refactor that to use .then for practice :)

---

user.route.js

router.post('/create', UserCtrl.create)

Now your routes code looks a lot cleaner and you are following separation of concerns much better!