what is the default value of MONGOHQ_URL in mongo db (used in angularjs)

Question

I was referring to how angular js connects to mongo db. So while setting the url and port for the 'db' object, I found code like below:

var path = require('path'),
rootPath = path.normalize(__dirname + '/../..');

module.exports = {
    root: rootPath,
    port: process.env.PORT || 3000,
    db: process.env.MONGOHQ_URL    
}

Will someone please let me know what is this path here for? And also, what is the default value of MONGOHQ_URL here?

From the link http://docs.mongohq.com/languages/nodejs.html , I came to know mongo url can be set to :

var MONGOHQ_URL="mongodb://user:pass@server.mongohq.com:port_name/db_name"

Am I right?

Thanks, Sabari

Answer 1

The MONGOHQ_URL in your code snippet comes from the shell environment. For example, in bash you would add that to your ~/.bash_profile:

export MONGOHQ_URL="mongodb://user:pass@server.mongohq.com:port_name/db_name"

... or include on your command line when starting the node app:

MONGOHQ_URL="mongodb://user:pass@server.mongohq.com:port_name/db_name" node app.js

Another common approach with Node.js is to use something like dotenv, which will load environment variables from a .env directory in your project.

And also, what is the default value of MONGOHQ_URL here?

There is no default; you need to define this if you want to connect to a MongoHQ instance.