Sketching out a consumer API.

2016-07-18 15:26:51 -07:00 · 2016-07-18 15:26:51 -07:00 · 972ebb386c
commit 972ebb386c
1 changed files with 73 additions and 0 deletions
--- a/Consumer-API.md
+++ b/Consumer-API.md
@ -0,0 +1,73 @@
+# Datomish consumer API
+
+This is a **draft** for discussion purposes.
+
+## Goals:
+* The database itself should store everything it needs for basic operation. You should be able to open a database and run queries against its data without having full knowledge of its schemas. Tooling benefits from self-describing data. Applications should not routinely need to coordinate out-of-band.
+* Databases can be opened read-only or read-write. Read-only databases can only be queried.
+* Checking that your application schema is congruent (that is: if you assert datoms based on that schema, everything still makes sense) with the database schema set should be relatively cheap. This will be done on each startup.
+* Concurrent consumers within the same process — *e.g.*, browser add-ons — should be aware of each other's schema changes.
+* Extending a database with new attributes should be easy, routine, and cheap.
+* Upgrading schema fragments in certain directions (e.g., enabling or disabling indexing) should be possible.
+* Upgrading schema fragments in other directions (e.g., changing cardinality) should be possible with some effort — *e.g.*, by providing a transformer function that takes the current schema and transaction log and fills a new transaction log, allowing Datomish to rebuild the database to match. This is expected to be expensive and requires coordination with other consumers, and is thus not recommended.
+
+## Example in modern JS
+
+```
+class Consumer {
+
+  // All schema fragments implicitly have:
+  // * ':db/ident' implied by the key.
+  // * ':db/id': #db/id[:db.part/db],
+  // * ':db.install/_attribute' :db.part/db,
+  // And default to cardinality: many.
+  schemaFragments: {
+    ':user/email': {
+      ':db/valueType': ':db.type/string',
+      ':db/unique': 'db.unique/identity',          // Only one user can have each email.
+      ':db/index': true,
+      ':db.install/_attribute' :db.part/db,
+    },
+    ':user/name': {
+      ':db/valueType': ':db.type/string',
+      ':db/cardinality': ':db.cardinality/one',   // A user can have only one name.
+    },
+    ':user/bio':
+      ':db/valueType': ':db.type/string',
+      ':db/cardinality': ':db.cardinality/one',
+      ':db/fulltext': true,                       // Bios are searchable in full.
+      ':db/noHistory': true,                      // Be explicit that we don't keep old bios.
+    },
+  },
+
+  async open() {
+    const db = await Datomish.open("/path/to/foo.kb", Datomish.ReadWrite | Datomish.Create);
+
+    // All schema evolutions bump a counter. This allows for almost-free schema
+    // checking. Pass a callback to be told if the schema changed.
+    const dbSchemaVersion = await db.schemaVersion(this.schemaDidChange);
+
+    if (dbSchemaVersion !== this.lastSchemaVersion) {
+      // Do a full check.
+      // On failure, throws SchemaError, which carries the check result
+      // with attributes .ok, .failed, .added, .updated.
+      await db.ensureSchemaFragments(this.schemaFragments);
+
+      // Otherwise, we're good. Either we added fragments, or they were already
+      // there in some congruent form.
+      this.db = db;
+    }
+  },
+
+  async printNameForEmail(email) {
+    const results = await db.q(
+      `[:find ?name :in $ :where [
+        [?user :user/email '<foo@example.com>']
+        [?user :user/name ?name]]]`);
+    const result = results.pop();
+    if (!result) {
+      return;
+    }
+    console.log(`Name is ${result[0]}.`);
+  },
+```