How can Couchbase deal with dynamic data models?
I have a database app right now using SQLite and FMDB on iOS and Mac which
lets the user define their own forms to capture whatever kind of data they
need. I have over 20 different types of data they can capture including
Text, Notes, Numbers, Audio Recordings, Photos, and relationships to other
forms.
The way my database is organized is I have a Form object which has an array
of Field objects. A separate object holds the records. Each record can
contain one or more value indexed by the field_id. So that way a user can
decide at any moment to add or remove any field from their form or add as
many forms that they'd like. It's very flexible.
I'm currently trying to convert over from FMDB / SQLite to CouchbaseLite in
order to take advantage of your awesome built-in sync mechanism.
My question is, what is the best way to structure my Couch Document given
the fact that I don't really have a fixed schema from a user's perspective.
So right now if I want to get a value, I first need to know the form, the
record, and the field. All those 3 things will give me the value. I
currently store the values in a separate table indexed by form, record, and
field. But I find that's very inefficient space and query wise. I was
hoping that perhaps using CouchbaseLite (and server) would help me to speed
that up and also have sync support.
Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.
Oh, and I have done some initial work on writing a conversion routine, so
this is what the JSON looks like for an individual record:
{
"01347DCD-9BE7-41AB-8B46-6588F6421FC8": "Brendan Duddridge",
"12BE6A9B-C5F3-4281-A659-DFA787357FD8": "[email protected]",
"14AF6617-A724-4C77-A84B-F33496D68519": "H0H 0H0",
"22F6AE40-08A8-43E2-BE0E-E9AD86252C3D": "Duddridge",
"2879D926-CE7A-44EC-BD8D-610E6AB505E0": "Brendan",
"5FF7E2CB-700D-49D5-8723-04DDA79B8AD4": "Calgary",
"6C15F333-DCFA-43DC-B0A8-61EC02085C17": "Canada",
"6D82B007-62AB-46A0-B5DE-ACCBBA154CCF": "",
"6DAD7D2D-EFF8-44F5-9322-A95DE3C8E3D2": "Tap Zapp Software Inc.",
"85316537-6802-437D-A6E4-37E311400D09": "(403) 555-1212",
"91EEC079-3DA3-4F45-B8D2-42F9D3591B43": "10",
"BBEA5EF1-1AB9-4CE0-8F11-9C23D0BE7ADE": "123 Tap Zapp Place",
"C4E83E9F-4B4C-4268-9372-A2114E8CB833": "http://www.tapforms.com";,
"DB647E15-9006-4DA5-8E29-F076657FA72C": "AB",
"dateCreated": "2014-09-28 09:04:30 +0000",
"dateModified": "2015-04-11 05:24:33 +0000",
"formId": "715BAC6E-6D39-4B65-9E4E-ECDCD45F591D",
"hasAlarm": "0",
"isFavourite": "0",
"primaryKey": "45A98F59-82CF-45E9-BAF9-ED7B496F960F",
"sortOrder": "0",
"type": "FormEntry"
}
Those UUIDs to the left of the values are the Field UUIDs which are
actually the Document IDs for the Field type entries in the CouchbaseLite
database.
What I'm not sure about is how to build views on this kind of data in order
to efficiently query it. Right now in my current model I have each value in
its own row in the database. I have an FTS database I use to search
quickly. It's pretty quick, but the problem is the size of the database is
enormous for the amount of data stored because for each value I store a
bunch of other meta data and essentially each value is stored in the main
table as well as the FTS index table so it can get pretty huge.
I also need to be able to query by any of the fields in the database in a
variety of ways. For example, date ranges, numeric ranges, full text
queries, empty values, not empty values, possibly all combined. An example
might be, give me a list of movies with a rating > 3 that have the word
"Terminator" OR "Hunger" in the movie title. Or another might be a search
for all the records that do or don't have an "I saw this movie" checkbox
selected.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Brendan
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