How to manage documents?

jIO is mapped after the CouchDB APIs and extends them to provide unified, scalable and high performance access via JavaScript to a wide variety of storage backends.

If you are not familiar with Apache CouchDB: it is a scalable, fault-tolerant, and schema-free document-oriented database. It is used in large and small organizations for a variety of applications where traditional SQL databases are not the best solution for the problem at hand. CouchDB provides a RESTful HTTP/JSON API accessible by many programming libraries and tools (like curl or Pouchdb) and has its own conflict management system.

What is a document?

A document is an association of metadata and attachment(s). The metadata is the set of properties of the document and the attachments are binary (or text) objects that represent the content of the document.

In jIO, the metadata is a dictionary with keys and values (a JSON object), and attachments are simple strings.

{
    // document metadata
    title: 'A Title!',
    creator: 'Mr.Author'
}

Here is a draft about metadata to use with jIO.

Basic Methods

Below you can see examples of the main jIO methods.

// Create a new jIO instance
var jio_instance = jIO.createJIO(storage_description);

// create and store new document
jio_instance.post({title: 'my document'}).
  then(function (response) {
    // console.log(response);
  });

// create or update an existing document
jio_instance.put('document_name', {title: 'another document'}).
  then(function (response) {
    // console.log(response);
  });

// add an attachment to a document
jio_instance.putAttachment('document_name',
                           'attachment_name',
                           new Blob([data], {'type' : data_mimetype});
  ).
  then(function (response) {
    // console.log(response);
  });

// read a document
jio_instance.get('document_name').
  then(function (response) {
    // console.log(response);
  });

// read an attachment
jio_instance.getAttachment('document_name',
                           'attachment_name').
  then(function (response) {
    // console.log(response);
  });

// delete a document and its attachment(s)
jio_instance.remove('document_name').
  then(function (response) {
    // console.log(response);
  });

// delete an attachment
jio_instance.removeAttachment('document_name',
                              'attachment_name').
  then(function (response) {
    // console.log(response);
  });

// get all documents
jio_instance.allDocs().then(function (response) {
  // console.log(response);
});

Promises

Each jIO method (with the exception of .createJIO()) returns a Promise object, which allows us to get responses into callback parameters and to chain callbacks with other returned values.

jIO uses a custom version of RSVP.js, adding canceler and progression features.

You can read more about promises:

Method Options and Callback Responses

To retrieve jIO responses, you have to provide callbacks like this:

jio_instance.post(metadata, [options]).
    then([responseCallback], [errorCallback], [progressionCallback]);
  • On command success, responseCallback is called with the jIO response as first parameter.
  • On command error, errorCallback is called with the jIO error as first parameter.
  • On command notification, progressionCallback is called with the storage notification.

Here is a list of responses returned by jIO according to methods and options:

Available for Option Response (Callback first parameter)
.post(), .put(), .remove() Any id of the document affected (string)
.putAttachment(), .removeAttachment() Any no specific value
.get() Any document_metadata (object)
.getAttachment() Any
new Blob([data], {"type": content_type})
.allDocs() No option
{
    total_rows: 1,
    rows: [{
      id: 'mydoc',
      value: {},
    }]
  }
.allDocs() include_docs: true
{
    total_rows: 1,
    rows: [{
      id: 'mydoc',
      value: {
        // Here, 'mydoc' metadata
      }
    }]
  }

In case of error, the errorCallback first parameter looks like:

{
  status_code: 404,
  message: 'Unable to get the requested document'
}

How to store binary data

The following example creates a new jIO in localStorage and then posts a document with two attachments.

// create a new jIO
var jio_instance = jIO.createJIO({type: 'indexeddb'});

// post the document 'myVideo'
jio_instance.put( 'metadata', {
  title       : 'My Video',
  type        : 'MovingImage',
  format      : 'video/ogg',
  description : 'Images Compilation'
})
.push(undefined, function(err) {
    // pushes error handler with RSVP.Queue push method
    // nothing to do with JIO itself
    return alert('Error posting the document metadata');
  });

  // post a thumbnail attachment
jio_instance.putAttachment('metadata',
  'thumbnail',
  new Blob([my_image], {type: 'image/jpeg'})
  ).push(undefined, function(err) {
  return alert('Error attaching thumbnail');
  });

  // post video attachment
  jio_instance.putAttachment('metadata',
    'video',
    new Blob([my_video], {type: 'video/ogg'})
  ).push(undefined, function(err) {
    return alert('Error attaching video');
  });
  alert('Video Stored');

indexedDB Storage now contains:

{
  "/myVideo/": {
    "title": "My Video",
    "type": "MovingImage",
    "format": "video/ogg",
    "description": "Images Compilation",
    "_attachments":{
      "thumbnail":{
        "digest": "md5-3ue...",
        "content_type": "image/jpeg",
        "length": 17863
      },
      "video":{
        "digest": "md5-0oe...",
        "content_type": "video/ogg",
        "length": 2840824
      }
    }
  },
  "/myVideo/thumbnail": "...",
  "/myVideo/video": "..."
}