Developer Guide

In general we prefer simplicity. We standardize on JavaScript (Node.js) and SQL (PostgreSQL) as the languages of implementation and try to minimize the number of complex libraries or frameworks being used. The website is server-side generated pages with minimal client-side JavaScript.

High level view

• The questions and assessments for a course are stored in a git repository. This is synced into the database by the course instructor and DB data is updated or added to represent the course. Students then interact with the course website by doing questions, with the results being stored in the DB. The instructor can view the student results on the website and download CSV files with the data.

• All course configuration is done via plain text files in the git repository, which is the master source for this data. There is no extra course configuration stored in the DB. The instructor does not directly edit course data via the website.

• All student data is all stored in the DB and is not pushed back into the git repository or disk at any point.

Directory layout

• Broadly follow the Express generator layout.

• Top-level files and directories are:

  PrairieLearn
  +-- autograder         # files needed to autograde code on a separate server
  |   `-- ...            # various scripts and docker images
  +-- config.json        # server configuration file (optional)
  +-- cron               # jobs to be periodically executed, one file per job
  |   +-- index.js       # entry point for all cron jobs
  |   `-- ...            # one JS file per cron job, executed by index.js
  +-- docs               # documentation
  +-- exampleCourse      # example content for a course
  +-- lib                # miscellaneous helper code
  +-- middlewares        # Express.js middleware, one per file
  +-- migrations         # DB migrations
  |   +-- ...            # one PGSQL file per migration, executed in order of their timestamp
  +-- package.json       # JavaScript package manifest
  +-- pages              # one sub-dir per web page
  |   +-- partials       # EJS helper sub-templates
  |   +-- instructorHome # all the code for the instructorHome page
  |   +-- userHome       # all the code for the userHome page
  |   `-- ...            # other "instructor" and "user" pages
  +-- public             # all accessible without access control
  |   +-- javascripts    # external packages only, no modifications
  |   +-- localscripts   # all local site-wide JS
  |   `-- stylesheets    # all CSS, both external and local
  +-- question-servers   # one file per question type
  +-- server.js          # top-level program
  +-- sprocs             # DB stored procedures, one per file
  |   +-- index.js       # entry point for all sproc initialization
  |   `-- ...            # one JS file per sproc, executed by index.js
  +-- sync               # code to load on-disk course config into DB
  `-- tests              # unit and integration tests

Unit tests and integration tests

• Tests are stored in the tests/ directory and listed in tests/index.js.

• To run the tests during development, see Running the test suite.

• The tests are run by the CI server on every push to GitHub.

• The tests are mainly integration tests that start with a blank database, run the server to initialize the database, load the testCourse, and then emulate a client web browser that answers questions on assessments. If a test fails then it is often easiest to debug by recreating the error by doing questions yourself against a locally-running server.

• If the PL_KEEP_TEST_DB environment is set, the test database (normally pltest) won't be DROP'd when testing ends. This allows you inspect the state of the database whenever your testing ends. The database will get overwritten when you start a new test.

Debugging server-side JavaScript

• Use the debug package to help trace execution flow in JavaScript. To run the server with debugging output enabled:

  DEBUG=* make dev

• To just see debugging logs from PrairieLearn you can use:

  DEBUG=prairielearn:* make dev

• To insert more debugging output, import debug and use it like this:

  var path = require('path');
  var debug = require('debug')('prairielearn:' + path.basename(__filename, '.js'));
  
  // in some function later
  debug('func()', 'param:', param);

• As of 2017-08-08 we don't have very good coverage with debug output in code, but we are trying to add more as needed, especially in code in lib/.

• UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning errors are frequently due to improper async/await handling. Make sure you are calling async functions with await, and that async functions are not being called from callback-style code without a callbackify(). To get more information, Node >= 14 can be run with the --trace-warnings flag. For example, node_modules/.bin/mocha --trace-warnings tests/index.js.

Debugging client-side JavaScript

• Make sure you have the JavaScript Console open in your browser and reload the page.

Debugging SQL and PL/pgSQL

• Use the psql commandline interface to test SQL separately. A default development PrairieLearn install uses the postgres database, so you should run:

  psql postgres

• To debug syntax errors in a stored procedure, import it manually with \i filename.sql in psql.

• To follow execution flow in PL/pgSQL use RAISE NOTICE. This will log to the console when run from psql and to the server log file when run from within PrairieLearn. The syntax is:

  RAISE NOTICE 'This is logging: % and %',
  var1,
  var2;

• To manually run a function:

  SELECT
    the_sql_function (arg1, arg2);

HTML page generation

• Use Express as the web framework.

• All pages are server-side rendered and we try and minimize the amount of client-side JavaScript. Client-side JS should use jQuery and related libraries. We prefer to use off-the-shelf jQuery plugins where possible.

• Each web page typically has all its files in a single directory, with the directory, the files, and the URL all named the same. Not all pages need all files. For example:

  pages/instructorGradebook
  +-- instructorGradebook.js         # main entry point, calls the SQL and renders the template
  +-- instructorGradebook.sql        # all SQL code specific to this page
  +-- instructorGradebook.ejs        # the EJS template for the page
  `-- instructorGradebookClient.js   # any client-side JS needed

• The above instructorGradebook page is loaded from the top-level server.js with:

  app.use(
    '/instructor/:courseInstanceId/gradebook',
    require('./pages/instructorGradebook/instructorGradebook'),
  );

• The instructorGradebook.js main JS file is an Express router and has the basic structure:

  var ERR = require('async-stacktrace');
  var _ = require('lodash');
  var express = require('express');
  var router = express.Router();
  var sqldb = require('@prairielearn/postgres');
  var sql = sqldb.loadSqlEquiv(__filename);
  
  router.get('/', function (req, res, next) {
    var params = { course_instance_id: res.params.courseInstanceId };
    sqldb.query(sql.user_scores, params, function (err, result) {
      // SQL queries for page data
      if (ERR(err, next)) return;
      res.locals.user_scores = result.rows; // store the data in res.locals
  
      res.render('pages/instructorGradebook/instructorGradebook', res.locals); // render the page
      // inside the EJS template, "res.locals.var" can be accessed with just "var"
    });
  });
  
  module.exports = router;

• Use the res.locals variable to build up data for the page rendering. Many basic objects are already included from the selectAndAuthz*.js middleware that runs before most page loads.

• Use EJS templates (Embedded JavaScript) templates for all pages. Using JS as the templating language removes the need for another ad hoc language, but does require some discipline to not get in a mess. Try and minimize the amount of JS code in the template files. Inside a template the JS code can directly access the contents of the res.locals object.

• Sub-templates are stored in pages/partials and can be loaded as below. The sub-template can also access res.locals as its base scope, and can also accept extra arguments with an arguments object:

  <%- include('../partials/assessment', {assessment: assessment}); %>

HTML style

• Use Bootstrap as the style. As of 2019-12-13 we are using v4.

• Local CSS rules go in public/stylesheets/local.css. Try to minimize use of this and use plain Bootstrap styling wherever possible.

• Buttons should use the <button> element when they take actions and the <a> element when they are simply links to other pages. We should not use <a role="button"> to fake a button element. Buttons that do not submit a form should always start with <button type="button" class="btn ...">, where type="button" specifies that they don't submit.

SQL usage

• Use PostgreSQL and feel free to use the latest features.

• The PostgreSQL manual is an excellent reference.

• Write raw SQL rather than using a ORM library. This reduces the number of frameworks/languages needed.

• Try and write as much code in SQL and PL/pgSQL as possible, rather than in JavaScript. Use PostgreSQL-specific SQL and don't worry about SQL dialect portability. Functions should be written as stored procedures in the sprocs/ directory.

• The sprocs/ directory has files that each contain exactly one stored procedure. The filename is the same as the name of the stored procedure, so the variants_insert() stored procedure is in the sprocs/variants_insert.sql file.

• Stored procedure names should generally start with the name of the table they are associated with and try to use standard SQL command names to describe what they do. For example, variants_insert() will do some kind of INSERT INTO variants, while submission_update_parsing() will do an UPDATE submissions with some parsing data.

• Use the SQL convention of snake_case for names. Also use the same convention in JavaScript for names that are the same as in SQL, so the question_id variable in SQL is also called question_id in JavaScript code.

• Use uppercase for SQL reserved words like SELECT, FROM, AS, etc.

• SQL code should not be inline in JavaScript files. Instead it should be in a separate .sql file, following the Yesql concept. Each filename.js file will normally have a corresponding filename.sql file in the same directory. The .sql file should look like:

  -- BLOCK select_question
  SELECT
    *
  FROM
    questions
  WHERE
    id = $question_id;
  
  -- BLOCK insert_submission
  INSERT INTO
    submissions (submitted_answer)
  VALUES
    ($submitted_answer)
  RETURNING
    *;

From JavaScript you can then do:

var sqldb = require('@prairielearn/postgres');
var sql = sqldb.loadSqlEquiv(__filename); // from filename.js will load filename.sql

// run the entire contents of the SQL file
sqldb.query(sql.all, params, ...);

// run just one query block from the SQL file
sqldb.query(sql.select_question, params, ...);

• The layout of the SQL code should generally have each list in separate indented blocks, like:

  SELECT
    ft.col1,
    ft.col2 AS renamed_col,
    st.col1
  FROM
    first_table AS ft
    JOIN second_table AS st ON (st.first_table_id = ft.id)
  WHERE
    ft.col3 = select3
    AND st.col2 = select2
  ORDER BY
    ft.col1;

• To keep SQL code organized it is a good idea to use CTEs (WITH queries). These are formatted like:

  WITH
    first_preliminary_table AS (
      SELECT
        -- first preliminary query
    ),
    second_preliminary_table AS (
      SELECT
        -- second preliminary query
    )
  SELECT
    -- main query here
  FROM
    first_preliminary_table AS fpt,
    second_preliminary_table AS spt;

DB stored procedures (sprocs)

• Stored procedures are created by the files in sprocs/. To call a stored procedure from JavaScript, use code like:

  const workspace_id = 1342;
  const message = 'Startup successful';
  sqldb.call('workspaces_message_update', [workspace_id, message], (err, result) => {
      if (ERR(err, callback)) return;
      // we could use the result here if we want the return value of the stored procedure
      callback(null);
  });

• The stored procedures are all contained in a separate database schema with a name like server_2021-07-07T20:25:04.779Z_T75V6Y. To see a list of the schemas use the \dn command in psql.

• To be able to use the stored procedures from the psql command line it is necessary to get the most recent schema name using \dn and set the search_path to use this quoted schema name and the public schema:

  set search_path to "server_2021-07-07T20:25:04.779Z_T75V6Y",public;

• During startup we initially have no non-public schema in use. We first run the migrations to update all tables in the public schema, then we call sqldb.setRandomSearchSchemaAsync() to activate a random per-execution schema, and we run the sproc creation code to generate all the stored procedures in this schema. This means that every invocation of PrairieLearn will have its own locally-scoped copy of the stored procedures which are the correct versions for its code. This lets us upgrade PrairieLearn servers one at a time, while old servers are still running with their own copies of their sprocs. When PrairieLearn first starts up it has search_path = public, but later it will have search_path = "server_2021-07-07T20:25:04.779Z_T75V6Y",public so that it will first search the random schema and then fall back to public. The naming convention for the random schema uses the local instance name, the date, and a random string. Note that schema names need to be quoted using double-quotations in psql because they contain characters such as hyphens.

• For more details see sprocs/array_and_number.sql and comments in server.js near the call to sqldb.setRandomSearchSchemaAsync().

DB schema (simplified overview)

• The most important tables in the database are shown in the diagram below (also as a PDF image).

• Detailed descriptions of the format of each table are in the list of DB tables.

• Each table has an id number that is used for cross-referencing. For example, each row in the questions table has an id and other tables will refer to this as a question_id. The only exceptions are the pl_courses table that other tables refer to with course_id and users which has a user_id. These are both for reasons of interoperability with PrairieSchedule.

• Each student is stored as a single row in the users table.

• The pl_courses table has one row for each course, like TAM 212.

• The course_instances table has one row for each semester (“instance”) of each course, with the course_id indicating which course it belongs to.

• Every question is a row in the questions table, and the course_id shows which course it belongs to. All the questions for a course can be thought of as the “question pool” for that course. This same pool is used for all semesters (all course instances).

• Assessments are stored in the assessments table and each assessment row has a course_instance_id to indicate which course instance (and hence which course) it belongs to. An assessment is something like “Homework 1” or “Exam 3”. To determine this we can use the assessment_set_id and number of each assessment row.

• Each assessment has a list of questions associated with it. This list is stored in the assessment_questions table, where each row has a assessment_id and question_id to indicate which questions belong to which assessment. For example, there might be 20 different questions that are on “Exam 1”, and it might be the case that each student gets 5 of these questions randomly selected.

• Each student will have their own copy of an assessment, stored in the assessment_instances table with each row having a user_id and assessment_id. This is where the student's score for that assessment is stored.

• The selection of questions that each student is given on each assessment is in the instance_questions table. Here each row has an assessment_question_id and an assessment_instance_id to indicate that the corresponding question is on that assessment instance. This row will also store the student's score on this particular question.

• Questions can randomize their parameters, so there are many possible variants of each question. These are stored in the variants table with an instance_question_id indicating which instance question the variant belongs to.

• For each variant of a question that a student sees they will have submitted zero or more submissions with a variant_id to show what it belongs to. The submissions row also contains information the submitted answer and whether it was correct.

DB schema (full data)

• See the list of DB tables, with the ER (entity relationship) diagram below (PDF ER diagram).

DB schema conventions

• Tables have plural names (e.g. assessments) and always have a primary key called id. The foreign keys pointing to this table are non-plural, like assessment_id. When referring to this use an abbreviation of the first letters of each word, like ai in this case. The only exceptions are aset for assessment_sets (to avoid conflicting with the SQL AS keyword), top for topics, and tag for tags (to avoid conflicts). This gives code like:

  -- select all active assessment_instances for a given assessment
  SELECT
    ai.*
  FROM
    assessments AS a
    JOIN assessment_instances AS ai ON (ai.assessment_id = a.id)
  WHERE
    a.id = 45
    AND ai.deleted_at IS NULL;

• We (almost) never delete student data from the DB. To avoid having rows with broken or missing foreign keys, course configuration tables (e.g. assessments) can't be actually deleted. Instead they are "soft-deleted" by setting the deleted_at column to non-NULL. This means that when using any soft-deletable table we need to have a WHERE deleted_at IS NULL to get only the active rows.

DB schema modification

See migrations/README.md

JSON syncing

• Edit the DB schema; e.g., to add a require_honor_code boolean for assessments, modify database/tables/assessments.pg:

  @@ -16,2 +16,3 @@ columns
      order_by: integer
  +    require_honor_code: boolean default true
      shuffle_questions: boolean default false

• Add a DB migration; e.g., create migrations/167_assessments__require_honor_code__add.sql:

  @@ -0,0 +1 @@
  +ALTER TABLE assessments ADD COLUMN require_honor_code boolean DEFAULT true;

• Edit the JSON schema; e.g., modify schemas/schemas/infoAssessment.json:

  @@ -89,2 +89,7 @@
              "default": true
  +        },
  +        "requireHonorCode": {
  +            "description": "Requires the student to accept an honor code before starting exam assessments.",
  +            "type": "boolean",
  +            "default": true
          }

• Edit the sync parser; e.g., modify sync/fromDisk/assessments.js:

  @@ -44,2 +44,3 @@ function buildSyncData(courseInfo, courseInstance, questionDB) {
          const allowRealTimeGrading = !!_.get(assessment, 'allowRealTimeGrading', true);
  +        const requireHonorCode = !!_.get(assessment, 'requireHonorCode', true);
  
  @@ -63,2 +64,3 @@ function buildSyncData(courseInfo, courseInstance, questionDB) {
              allow_real_time_grading: allowRealTimeGrading,
  +            require_honor_code: requireHonorCode,
              auto_close: !!_.get(assessment, 'autoClose', true),

• Edit the sync query; e.g., modify sprocs/sync_assessments.sql:

  @@ -44,3 +44,4 @@ BEGIN
              allow_issue_reporting,
  -            allow_real_time_grading)
  +            allow_real_time_grading,
  +            require_honor_code)
              (
  @@ -64,3 +65,4 @@ BEGIN
                  (assessment->>'allow_issue_reporting')::boolean,
  -                (assessment->>'allow_real_time_grading')::boolean
  +                (assessment->>'allow_real_time_grading')::boolean,
  +                (assessment->>'require_honor_code')::boolean
          )
  @@ -83,3 +85,4 @@ BEGIN
              allow_issue_reporting = EXCLUDED.allow_issue_reporting,
  -            allow_real_time_grading = EXCLUDED.allow_real_time_grading
  +            allow_real_time_grading = EXCLUDED.allow_real_time_grading,
  +            require_honor_code = EXCLUDED.require_honor_code
          WHERE

• Edit the sync tests; e.g., modify tests/sync/util.js:

  @@ -128,2 +128,3 @@ const syncFromDisk = require('../../sync/syncFromDisk');
    * @property {boolean} allowRealTimeGrading
  + * @property {boolean} requireHonorCode
    * @property {boolean} multipleInstance

• Add documentation; e.g., the honor code option is described at Assessments -- Honor code.

• Add tests.

Database access

• DB access is via the sqldb.js module. This wraps the node-postgres library.

• For single queries we normally use the following pattern, which automatically uses connection pooling from node-postgres and safe variable interpolation with named parameters and prepared statements:

  var params = {
    course_id: 45,
  };
  sqldb.query(sql.select_questions_by_course, params, function (err, result) {
    if (ERR(err, callback)) return;
    var questions = result.rows;
  });

Where the corresponding filename.sql file contains:

-- BLOCK select_questions_by_course
SELECT
  *
FROM
  questions
WHERE
  course_id = $course_id;

• For queries where it would be an error to not return exactly one result row:

  sqldb.queryOneRow(sql.block_name, params, function (err, result) {
    if (ERR(err, callback)) return;
    var obj = result.rows[0]; // guaranteed to exist and no more
  });

• Use explicit row locking whenever modifying student data related to an assessment. This must be done within a transaction. The rule is that we lock either the variant (if there is no corresponding assessment instance) or the assessment instance (if we have one). It is fine to repeatedly lock the same row within a single transaction, so all functions involved in modifying elements of an assessment (e.g., adding a submission, grading, etc) should call a locking function when they start. All locking functions are equivalent in their action, so the most convenient one should be used in any given situation:

  Locking function	Argument
  assessment_instances_lock	assessment_instance_id
  instance_questions_lock	instance_question_id
  variants_lock	variant_id
  submission_lock	submission_id

• To pass an array of parameters to SQL code, use the following pattern, which allows zero or more elements in the array. This replaces $points_list with ARRAY[10, 5, 1] in the SQL. It's required to specify the type of array in case it is empty:

  var params = {
      points_list: [10, 5, 1],
  };
  sqldb.query(sql.insert_assessment_question, params, ...);

  -- BLOCK insert_assessment_question
  INSERT INTO
    assessment_questions (points_list)
  VALUES
    ($points_list::INTEGER[]);

• To use a JavaScript array for membership testing in SQL use unnest() like:

  var params = {
      id_list: [7, 12, 45],
  };
  sqldb.query(sql.select_questions, params, ...);

  -- BLOCK select_questions
  SELECT
    *
  FROM
    questions
  WHERE
    id IN (
      SELECT
        unnest($id_list::INTEGER[])
    );

• To pass a lot of data to SQL a useful pattern is to send a JSON object array and unpack it in SQL to the equivalent of a table. This is the pattern used by the "sync" code, such as sprocs/sync_news_items.sql. For example:

  let data = [
      {a: 5, b: "foo"},
      {a: 9, b: "bar"}
  ];
  let params = {data: JSON.stringify(data)};
  sqldb.query(sql.insert_data, params, ...);

  -- BLOCK insert_data
  INSERT INTO
    my_table (a, b)
  SELECT
    *
  FROM
    jsonb_to_recordset($data) AS (a INTEGER, b TEXT);

• To use a JSON object array in the above fashion, but where the order of rows is important, use ROWS FROM () WITH ORDINALITY to generate a row index like this:

  -- BLOCK insert_data
  INSERT INTO
    my_table (a, b, order_by)
  SELECT
    *
  FROM
    ROWS
  FROM
    (jsonb_to_recordset($data) AS (a INTEGER, b TEXT))
  WITH
    ORDINALITY AS data (a, b, order_by);

Asynchronous control flow in JavaScript

• New code in PrairieLearn should use async/await whenever possible.

• Older code in PrairieLearn uses the traditional Node.js error handling conventions with the callback(err, result) pattern.

• Use the async library for complex control flow. Versions 3 and higher of async support both async/await and callback styles.

Using async route handlers with ExpressJS

• Express can't directly use async route handlers. Instead we use express-async-handler like this:

  const asyncHandler = require('express-async-handler');
  router.get(
    '/',
    asyncHandler(async (req, res, next) => {
      // can use "await" here
    }),
  );

Interfacing between callback-style and async/await-style functions

• To write a callback-style function that internally uses async/await code, use this pattern:

  const util = require('util');
  function oldFunction(x1, x2, callback) {
      util.callbackify(async () => {
          # here we can use async/await code
          y1 = await f(x1);
          y2 = await f(x2);
          return y1 + y2;
      })(callback);
  }

• To write a multi-return-value callback-style function that internally uses async/await code, we don't currently have an established pattern.

• To call our own library functions from async/await code, we should provide a version of them with "Async" appended to the name:

  const util = require('util');
  module.exports.existingLibFun = (x1, x2, callback) => {
      callback(null, x1*x2);
  };
  module.exports.existingLibFunAsync = util.promisify(module.exports.myFun);
  
  # in `async` code we can now call existingLibFunAsync() directly with `await`:
  async function newFun(x1, x2) {
      let y = await existingLibFunAsync(x1, x2);
      return 3*y;
  }

• If our own library functions use multiple return values, then the async version of them should return an object:

  const util = require('util');
  module.exports.existingMultiFun = (x, callback) => {
      const y1 = x*x;
      const y2 = x*x*x;
      callback(null, y1, y2); # note the two return values here
  };
  module.exports.existingMultiFunAsync = util.promisify((x, callback) =>
      module.exports.existingMultiFun(x, (err, y1, y2) => callback(err, {y1, y2}))
  );
  
  async function newFun(x) {
      let {y1, y2} = await existingMultiFunAsync(x); # must use y1,y2 names here
      return y1*y2;
  }

• To call a callback-style function in an external library from within an async/await function, use this pattern:

  util = require('util');
  async function g(x) {
    x1 = await f(x + 2);
    x2 = await f(x + 4);
    z = await util.promisify(oldFunction)(x1, x2);
    return z;
  }

• As of 2019-08-15 we are not calling any multi-return-value callback-style functions in external libraries from within async/await functions, but if we need to do this then we could include the bluebird package and use the pattern:

  bluebird = require('bluebird');
  function oldMultiFunction(x, callback) {
      return callback(null, x*x, x*x*x);
  }
  async function g(x) {
      let [y1, y2] = await bluebird.promisify(oldMultiFunction, {multiArgs: true})(x); # note array destructuring with y1,y2
      return y1*y2;
  }

• To call an async/await function from within a callback-style function, use this pattern:

  util = require('util');
  function oldFunction(x, callback) {
    util.callbackify(g)(x, (err, y) => {
      if (ERR(err, callback)) return;
      callback(null, y);
    });
  }

• To call an multi-return-value async/await function from within a callback-style function, use this pattern:

  util = require('util');
  async function gMulti(x) {
      y1 = x*x;
      y2 = x*x*x;
      return {y1, y2};
  }
  function oldFunction(x, callback) {
      util.callbackify(gMulti)(x, (err, {y1, y2}]) => {
          if (ERR(err, callback)) return;
          callback(null, y1*y2);
      });
  }

Stack traces with callback-style functions

• Use the async-stacktrace library for every error handler. That is, the top of every file should have ERR = require('async-stacktrace'); and wherever you would normally write if (err) return callback(err); you instead write if (ERR(err, callback)) return;. This does exactly the same thing, except that it modifies the err object's stack trace to include the current filename/linenumber, which greatly aids debugging. For example:

  // Don't do this:
  function foo(p, callback) {
    bar(q, function (err, result) {
      if (err) return callback(err);
      callback(null, result);
    });
  }
  
  // Instead do this:
  ERR = require('async-stacktrace'); // at top of file
  function foo(p, callback) {
    bar(q, function (err, result) {
      if (ERR(err, callback)) return; // this is the change
      callback(null, result);
    });
  }

• Don't pass callback functions directly through to children, but instead capture the error with the async-stacktrace library and pass it up the stack explicitly. This allows a complete stack trace to be printed on error. That is:

  // Don't do this:
  function foo(p, callback) {
    bar(q, callback);
  }
  
  // Instead do this:
  function foo(p, callback) {
    bar(q, function (err, result) {
      if (ERR(err, callback)) return;
      callback(null, result);
    });
  }

• Note that the async-stacktrace library ERR function will throw an exception if not provided with a callback, so in cases where there is no callback (e.g., in cron/index.js) we should call it with ERR(err, function() {}).

• If we are in a function that does not have an active callback (perhaps we already called it) then we should log errors with the following pattern. Note that the first string argument to logger.error() is mandatory. Failure to provide a string argument will result in error: undefined being logged to the console.

  function foo(p) {
      bar(p, function(err, result) {
          if (ERR(err, e => logger.error('Error in bar()', e);
          ...
      });
  }

• Don't call a callback function inside a try block, especially if there is also a callback call in the catch handler. Otherwise exceptions thrown much later will show up incorrectly as a double-callback or just in the wrong place. For example:

  // Don't do this:
  function foo(p, callback) {
    try {
      let result = 3;
      callback(null, result); // this could throw an error from upstream code in the callback
    } catch (err) {
      callback(err);
    }
  }
  
  // Instead do this:
  function foo(p, callback) {
    let result;
    try {
      result = 3;
    } catch (err) {
      callback(err);
    }
    callback(null, result);
  }

Security model

• We distinguish between authentication and authorization. Authentication occurs as the first stage in server response and the authenticated user data is stored as res.locals.authn_user.

• The authentication flow is:

  1. We first redirect to a remote authentication service (either Shibboleth or Google OAuth2 servers). For Shibboleth this happens by the “Login to PL” button linking to /pl/shibcallback for which Apache handles the Shibboleth redirections. For Google the “Login to PL” button links to /pl/auth2login which sets up the authentication data and redirects to Google.

  2. The remote authentication service redirects back to /pl/shibcallback (for Shibboleth) or /pl/auth2callback (for Google). These endpoints confirm authentication, create the user in the users table if necessary, set a signed pl_authn cookie in the browser with the authenticated user_id, and then redirect to the main PL homepage. This cookie is set with the HttpOnly attribute, which prevents client-side JavaScript from reading the cookie.

  3. Every other page authenticates using the signed browser pl_authn cookie. This is read by middlewares/authn.js which checks the signature and then loads the user data from the DB using the user_id, storing it as res.locals.authn_user.

• Similar to unix, we distinguish between the real and effective user. The real user is stored as res.locals.authn_user and is the user that authenticated. The effective user is stored as res.locals.user. Only users with role = TA or higher can set an effective user that is different from their real user. Moreover, users with role = TA or higher can also set an effective role and mode that is different to the real values.

• Authorization occurs at multiple levels:

  • The course_instance checks authorization based on the authn_user.
  • The course_instance authorization is checked against the effective user.
  • The assessment checks authorization based on the effective user, role, mode, and date.

• All state-modifying requests must (normally) be POST and all associated data must be in the body. GET requests may use query parameters for viewing options only.

State-modifying POST requests

• Use the Post/Redirect/Get pattern for all state modification. This means that the initial GET should render the page with a <form> that has no action set, so it will submit back to the current page. This should be handled by a POST handler that performs the state modification and then issues a redirect back to the same page as a GET:

  router.post('/', function (req, res, next) {
    if (req.body.__action == 'enroll') {
      var params = {
        course_instance_id: req.body.course_instance_id,
        user_id: res.locals.authn_user.user_id,
      };
      sqldb.queryOneRow(sql.enroll, params, function (err, result) {
        if (ERR(err, next)) return;
        res.redirect(req.originalUrl);
      });
    } else {
      return next(new error.HttpStatusError(400, `unknown __action: ${req.body.__action}`));
    }
  });

• To defeat CSRF (Cross-Site Request Forgery) we use the Encrypted Token Pattern. This stores an HMAC-authenticated token inside the POST data.

• All data modifying requests should come from form elements like:

  <form name="enroll-form" method="POST">
    <input type="hidden" name="__action" value="enroll" />
    <input type="hidden" name="__csrf_token" value="<%= __csrf_token %>" />
    <input type="hidden" name="course_instance_id" value="56" />
    <button type="submit" class="btn btn-info">Enroll in course instance 56</button>
  </form>

• The res.locals.__csrf_token variable is set and checked by early-stage middleware, so no explicit action is needed on each page.

Logging errors

• We use Winston for logging to the console and to files. To use this, require lib/logger and call logger.info(), logger.error(), etc.

• To show a message on the console, use logger.info().

• To log just to the log files, but not to the console, use logger.verbose().

• All logger functions have a mandatory first argument that is a string, and an optional second argument that is an object containing useful information. It is important to always provide a string as the first argument.

Coding style

ESLint and Prettier are used to enforce consistent code conventions and formatting throughout the codebase. See .eslintrc.js and .prettierrc.json in the root of the PrairieLearn repository to view our specific configuration. The repo includes an .editorconfig file that most editors will detect and use to automatically configure things like indentation. If your editor doesn't natively support an EditorConfig file, there are plugins available for most other editors.

For Python files, Black, isort, and flake8 are used to enforce code conventions, and Pyright is used for static typechecking. See pyproject.toml in the root of the PrairieLearn repository to view our specific configuration. We encourage all new Python code to include type hints for use with the static typechecker, as this makes it easier to read, review, and verify contributions.

To lint the code, use make lint. This is also run by the CI tests.

To automatically fix lint and formatting errors, run make format.

Question-rendering control flow

• The core files involved in question rendering are lib/question-render.js, lib/question-render.sql, and pages/partials/question.ejs.

• The above files are all called/included by each of the top-level pages that needs to render a question (e.g., pages/instructorQuestionPreview, pages/studentInstanceQuestion, etc). Unfortunately the control-flow is complicated because we need to call lib/question-render.js during page data load, store the data it generates, and then later include the pages/partials/question.ejs template to actually render this data.

• For example, the exact control-flow for pages/instructorQuestion is:

  1. The top-level page pages/instructorQuestion/instructorQuestion.js code calls lib/question-render.getAndRenderVariant().

  2. getAndRenderVariant() inserts data into res.locals for later use by pages/partials/question.ejs.

  3. The top-level page code renders the top-level template pages/instructorQuestion/instructorQuestion.ejs, which then includes pages/partials/question.ejs.

  4. pages/partials/question.ejs renders the data that was earlier generated by lib/question-render.js.

Question open status

• There are three levels at which “open” status is tracked, as follows. If open = false for any object then it will block the creation of new objects below it. For example, to create a new submission the corresponding variant, instance_question, and assessment_instance must all be open.

  Variable	Allow new instance_questions	Allow new variants	Allow new submissions
  assessment_instance.open	✓	✓	✓
  instance_question.open		✓	✓
  variant.open			✓

Errors in question handling

• We distinguish between two different types of student errors:

  1. The answer might be not be gradable (submission.gradable = false). This could be due to a missing answer, an invalid format (e.g., entering a string in a numeric input), or a answer that doesn't pass some basic check (e.g., a code submission that didn't compile). This can be discovered during either the parsing or grading phases. In such a case the submission.format_errors object should store information on what was wrong to allow the student to correct their answer. A submission with gradable = false will not cause any updating of points for the question. That is, it acts like a saved-but-not-graded submission, in that it is recorded but has no impact on the question. If gradable = false then the score and feedback will not be displayed to the student.

  2. The answer might be gradable but incorrect. In this case submission.gradable = true but submission.score = 0 (or less than 1 for a partial score). If desired, the submission.feedback object can be set to give information to the student on what was wrong with their answer. This is not necessary, however. If submission.feedback is set then it will be shown to the student along with their submission.score as soon as the question is graded.

• There are three levels of errors that can occur during the creation, answering, and grading of a question:

  Error level	Caused	Stored	Reported	Effect
  System errors	Internal PrairieLearn errors	On-disk logs	Error page	Operation is blocked. Data is not saved to the database.
  Question errors	Errors in question code	issues table	Issue panels on the question page	variant.broken_at != null or submission.broken == true. Operation completes, but future operations are blocked.
  Student errors	Invalid data submitted by the student (unparsable or ungradable)	submission.gradable set to false and details are stored in submission.format_errors	Inside the rendered submission panel	The submission is not assigned a score and no further action is taken (e.g., points are changed for the instance question). The student can resubmit to correct the error.

• The important variables involved in tracking question errors are:

  Variable	Error level	Description
  variant.broken_at	Question error	Set to NOW() if there were question code errors in generating the variant. Such a variant will be not have render() functions called, but will instead be displayed as This question is broken.
  submission.broken	Question error	Set to true if there question code errors in parsing or grading the variant. After submission.broken is true, no further actions will be taken with the submission.
  issues table	Question error	Rows are inserted to record the details of the errors that caused variant.broken != null or submission.broken == true to be set to true.
  submission.gradable	Student error	Whether this submission can be given a score. Set to false if format errors in the submitted_answer were encountered during either parsing or grading.
  submission.format_errors	Student error	Details on any errors during parsing or grading. Should be set to something meaningful if gradable = false to explain what was wrong with the submitted answer.
  submission.graded_at	None	NULL if grading has not yet occurred, otherwise a timestamp.
  submission.score	None	Final score for the submission. Only used if gradable = true and graded_at is not NULL.
  submission.feedback	None	Feedback generated during grading. Only used if gradable = true and graded_at is not NULL.

• Note that submission.format_errors stores information about student errors, while the issues table stores information about question code errors.

• The question flow is shown in the diagram below (also as a PDF image).

  

JavaScript equality operator

You should almost always use the === operator for comparisons; this is enforced with an ESLint rule.

The only case where the == operator is frequently useful is for comparing entity IDs that may be coming from the client/database/etc. These may be either strings or numbers depending on where they're coming from or how they're fetched. To make it abundantly clear that ids are being compared, you should use the idsEqual utility:

const { idsEqual } = require('./lib/id');

console.log(idsEqual(12345, '12345'));
// > true