can you elaborate more on your issue?

Do you want a dynamic routes that are statically generated once or do you want to render them at dynamically at request time per request?

I believe I want dynamic routes that are generated when I build the site.

I have a mysql database with hundreds of product IDs, I want to have a page for each of these products and I think it makes more sense to generate them when building the site. The data on these pages won't change often, but there will be some data points that I'd like to refresh every hour.

ah

then what you're looking for is ISR, a feature of SSG (static site generation)

I've made some progress on the issue.. I was able to setup app/api/products/route.js, and that displays the json data for my product IDs... I'm thinking I can use this to generate the pages statically

you need to set up generateStaticParams()

then return a length of array that you want that route to be available at build time

this is where you check the DB and get the IDs

Ah, great. I was looking at that, but I was getting stuck here, since I didn't have a URL to provide until a few minutes ago:

const posts = await fetch('https://.../posts').then((res) => res.json())

Although I dont know if the app/api/products/ is the best way to do this? I was reading about server actions that can interact with the database without an api? Is that an option?

if its a db to mysql, dont it have a driver to connect directly to your db? or is mysql on remote cloud service?

server actions are only used for runtime server mutation, not build time nor request time. so its irrelevant in this case

ahh, gotcha

It's a azure hosted mysql server. There's a connector I'm using that connects and I can query data I want

So to use generateStaticParams, it sounds like I'm pretty close now that I have my api url working?

yeah?

the API is not Next.js Route Handler right?

Yea, it is. Is that a problem? Should I be doing it differently?

yeah?

Next.js server is not run at build time so you will be hitting an empty endpoint

hence, just fetch to the db directly in generateStaticParams

follow the "dont fetch your own Next.js server in the server" rule

Yea, that'd be my preferred method

ok so its more like const posts = await db.posts.get(...)

in your generateStaticParams

and then map it into the desired array type (check the docs)

and

if you need to refresh it,

hmm okay. I couldn't find anything in the docs about grabbing the data from a database

everything was API based and I don't know how to use a database connection instead

yeah but who provides the API? is it your database provider or Next.js?

fetch() is only preferred if its fetching to external domain/outside of Next.js application

I don't have an API, just my database

allright so you just have Next.js, and Database

does your database has a domain, username, password, port and database name?

Yup, I have all of that

I suggest getting prisma

as an interface between Next.js and your Database

you can set it to MySQL

Interesting, okay. I've heard of it.

then provide environment variable DATABASE_URL to your MySQL database

As of now, I have this function which I confirmed works:

well

But I'm open to prisma if that'll make my life easier

Data Fetching in Next.js only concerns about whether you should fetch or not. If you use fetch, it better be for fetching to external endpoint.

But if you dont use fetch and have like an in built library to connect to Data sources then use that instead of fetch.

And use that directly in any server environment like generateStaticParams

I'm pretty new to this, how can I know what options I have other than fetch? Can I somehow run the query function I have instead?

Othe rthan fetch, its up to the user what they use to conncect to db. In your case its that query function

Or use prisma to make data querying easier

Its whatever library the user uses

Thats why i said you can use the query function directly in generateStaticParams

Or any server components

How can I do that? I haven't found any documentation on running sql on server components

I'm fine with writing sql queries, it's the routing/apis/etc that is making my head spin 😛

Just call the query function directly !!!!

GenerateStaticParams is already on the server, you dont need to create any api or routes. Think of coding in Node.js server

Its already on the server

Server Component are also already run in the server

Gotcha gotcha.

so did you finally realize something after me telling you 5 times of the same thing :v

Lol, it makes sense at a high level. But I'm really bad with javascript. Now that I know it's possible I should be able to figure it out 🙂

Now I gotta figure out how to import the query function and call it correctly

I really appreciate your time, though. You've helped a lot

Its not javascript, you should be thinking of the architecture level, yeah basically at a high level

errr, typescript.

My point still stands

I meant to say, think where the code is run

Right, that makes sense now that you explained it

I get stuck on things like this:

I'm trying to figure out why I can't import this function

itsokay

did you export it?

oh

export async function query({ query, values = [] }) {

Yup, it's exported

it has to be await query

solve for the first error first

oh my lord, that was it

you export a named export query so it has to be import { query }

import abcde is when you export default something but the default export will be renamed to abcde

ahh, I never knew that

Thanks so much!

you're welcome! if you have any question feel free open up a new forum posts