acebase

AceBase realtime database. Open source firebase alternative for nodejs and browser, with additional features: indexes, geo, fulltext, queries, custom storage, offline usage, synchronization, live data proxies and more

Usage no npm install needed!

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README

AceBase realtime database

AceBase realtime database

A fast, low memory, transactional, index & query enabled NoSQL database engine and server for node.js and browser with realtime data change notifications. Supports storing of JSON objects, arrays, numbers, strings, booleans, dates and binary (ArrayBuffer) data.

Inspired by (and largely compatible with) the Firebase realtime database, with additional functionality and less data sharding/duplication. Capable of storing up to 2^48 (281 trillion) object nodes in a binary database file that can theoretically grow to a max filesize of 8 petabytes.

AceBase is easy to set up and runs anywhere: in the cloud, NAS, local server, your PC/Mac, Raspberry Pi, the browser, wherever you want.

🔥 Check out the new live data proxy feature that allows your app to use and update live database values using in-memory objects and no additional db coding!

Table of contents

Getting Started

AceBase is split up into multiple packages:

  • acebase: local AceBase database engine (github, npm)
  • acebase-server: AceBase server endpoint to enable remote connections. Includes built-in user authentication and authorization, supports using external OAuth providers such as Facebook and Google (github, npm).
  • acebase-client: client to connect to an external AceBase server (github, npm)
  • acebase-core: shared functionality, dependency of above packages (github, npm)

AceBase uses semver versioning to prevent breaking changes to impact older code. Please report any errors / unexpected behaviour you encounter by creating an issue on Github.

Prerequisites

AceBase is designed to run in a Node.js environment, as it (by default) requires the 'fs' filesystem to store its data and indexes. However, since v0.9.0 it is now also possible to use AceBase databases in the browser! To run AceBase in the browser, simply include 1 script file and you're good to go! See AceBase in the browser for more info and code samples!

Installing

All AceBase repositories are available through npm. You only have to install one of them, depending on your needs:

Create a local database

If you want to use a local AceBase database in your project, install the acebase package.

npm install acebase

Then, create (open) your database:

const { AceBase } = require('acebase');
const db = new AceBase('my_db'); // nodejs
// OR: const db = AceBase.WithIndexedDB('my_db'); // browser
db.ready(() => {
    // Do stuff
});

Try AceBase in your browser

If you want to try out AceBase running in Node.js, simply open it in RunKit and follow along with the examples. If you want to try out the browser version of AceBase, open google.com in a new tab (GitHub doesn't allow cross-site scripts to be loaded) and run the code snippet below to use it in your browser console immediately.

To try AceBase in RunKit:

const { AceBase } = require('acebase');
const db = new AceBase('mydb');

await db.ref('test').set({ text: 'This is my first AceBase test in RunKit' });

const snap = await db.ref('test/text').get();
console.log(`value of "test/text": ` + snap.val());

To try AceBase in the browser console:

await fetch('https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/acebase@latest/dist/browser.min.js')
    .then(response => response.text())
    .then(text => eval(text));
if (!AceBase) { throw 'AceBase not loaded!'; }

var db = AceBase.WithIndexedDB('mydb');
await db.ref('test').set({ text: 'This is my first AceBase test in the browser' });

const snap = await db.ref('test/text').get();
console.log(`value of "test/text": ` + snap.val());

Setup a database server

If you want to setup an AceBase server, install acebase-server.

npm install acebase-server

Then, start your server (server.js):

const { AceBaseServer } = require('acebase-server');
const server = new AceBaseServer('my_server_db', { /* server config */ });
server.ready(() => {
    // Server running
});

Connect to a remote database

If you want to connect to a remote (or local) AceBase server, install acebase-client.

npm install acebase-client

Then, connect to your AceBase server:

const { AceBaseClient } = require('acebase-client');
const db = new AceBaseClient({ /* connection config */ });
db.ready(() => {
    // Connected!
});

Example usage

The API is similar to that of the Firebase realtime database, with additions.

Creating a database

Creating a new database is as simple as opening it. If the database file doesn't exists, it will be created automatically.

const { AceBase } = require('acebase');
const options = { logLevel: 'log', storage: { path: '.' } }; // optional settings
const db = new AceBase('mydb', options);  // Creates or opens a database with name "mydb"

db.ready(() => {
    // database is ready to use!
})

NOTE: The logLevel option specifies how much info should be written to the console logs. Possible values are: 'verbose', 'log' (default), 'warn' and 'error' (only errors are logged)

Loading data

Run .get on a reference to get the currently stored value. This is short for the Firebase syntax of .once("value")

db.ref('game/config')
.get(snapshot => {
    if (snapshot.exists()) {
        config = snapshot.val();
    }
    else {
        config = new MyGameConfig(); // use defaults
    }
});

Note: When loading data, the currently stored value will be wrapped and returned in a DataSnapshot object. Use snapshot.exists() to determine if the node exists, snapshot.val() to get the value.

Storing data

Setting the value of a node, overwriting if it exists:

db.ref('game/config')
.set({
    name: 'Name of the game',
    max_players: 10
})
.then(ref => {
    // stored at /game/config
})

Note: When storing data, it doesn't matter whether the target path, and/or parent paths exist already. If you store data in 'chats/somechatid/messages/msgid/receipts', it will create any nonexistent node in that path.

Updating data

Updating the value of a node merges the stored value with the new object. If the target node doesn't exist, it will be created with the passed value.

db.ref('game/config').update({
    description: 'The coolest game in the history of mankind'
})
.then(ref => {
    // config was updated, now get the value
    return ref.get(); // shorthand for firebase syntax ref.once("value")
})
.then(snapshot => {
    const config = snapshot.val();
    // config now has properties "name", "max_players" and "description"
});

Transactional updating

If you want to update data based upon its current value, and you want to make sure the data is not changed in between your get and update, use transaction. A transaction gets the current value, runs your callback with a snapshot. The value you return from the callback will be used to overwrite the node with. Returning null will remove the entire node, returning undefined will cancel the transaction.

db.ref('accounts/some_account')
.transaction(snapshot => {
    // some_account is locked until its new value is returned by this callback
    var account = snapshot.val();
    if (!snapshot.exists()) {
        // Create it
        account = {
            balance: 0
        };
    }
    account.balance *= 1.02;    // Add 2% interest
    return account; // accounts/some_account will be set to the return value
});

Note: transaction loads the value of a node including ALL child objects. If the node you want to run a transaction on has a large value (eg many nested child objects), you might want to run the transaction on a subnode instead. If that is not possible, consider structuring your data differently.

// Run transaction on balance only, reduces amount of data being loaded, transferred, and overwritten
db.ref('accounts/some_account/balance')
.transaction(snapshot => {
    var balance = snapshot.val();
    if (balance === null) { // snapshot.exists() === false
        balance = 0;
    }
    return balance * 1.02;    // Add 2% interest
});

Removing data

You can remove data with the remove method

db.ref('animals/dog')
.remove()
.then(() => { /* removed successfully */ )};

Removing data can also be done by setting or updating its value to null. Any property that has a null value will be removed from the parent object node.

// Remove by setting it to null
db.ref('animals/dog')
.set(null)
.then(ref => { /* dog property removed */ )};

// Or, update its parent with a null value for 'dog' property
db.ref('animals')
.update({ dog: null })
.then(ref => { /* dog property removed */ )};

Generating unique keys

For all generic data you add, you need to create keys that are unique and won't clash with keys generated by other clients. To do this, you can have unique keys generated with push. Under the hood, push uses cuid to generated keys that are guaranteed to be unique and time-sortable.

db.ref('users')
.push({
    name: 'Ewout',
    country: 'The Netherlands'
})
.then(userRef => {
    // user is saved, userRef points to something 
    // like 'users/jld2cjxh0000qzrmn831i7rn'
};

The above example generates the unique key and stores the object immediately. You can also choose to have the key generated, but store the value later.

const postRef = db.ref('posts').push();
console.log(`About to add a new post with key "${postRef.key}"..`);
// ... do stuff ...
postRef.set({
    title: 'My first post'
})
.then(ref => {
    console.log(`Saved post "${postRef.key}"`);
};

NOTE: This approach is recommended if you want to add multitple new objects at once, because a single update performs way faster:

const newMessages = {};
// We got messages from somewhere else (eg imported from file or other db)
messages.forEach(message => {
    const ref = db.ref('messages').push();
    newMessages[ref.key] = message;
})
console.log(`About to add multiple messages in 1 update operation`);
db.ref('messages').update(newMessages)
.then(ref => {
    console.log(`Added all messages at once`);
};

Using arrays

AceBase supports storage of arrays, but there are some caveats when working with them. For instance, you cannot remove or insert items that are not at the end of the array. AceBase arrays work like a stack, you can add and remove from the top, not within. It is possible however to edit individual entries, or to overwrite the entire array. The safest way to edit arrays is with a transaction, which requires all data to be loaded and stored again. In many cases, it is wiser to use object collections instead.

You can safely use arrays when:

  • The number of items are small and finite, meaning you could estimate the typical average number of items in it.
  • There is no need to retrieve/edit individual items using their stored path. If you reorder the items in an array, their paths change (eg from "playlist/songs[4]" to "playlist/songs[1]")
  • The entries stored are small and do not have a lot of nested data (small strings or simple objects, eg: chat/members with user IDs array ['ewout','john','pete'])
  • The collection does not need to be edited frequently.

Use object collections instead when:

  • The collection keeps growing (eg: user generated content)
  • The path of items are important and preferably not change, eg "playlist/songs[4]" might point to a different entry if the array is edited. When using an object collection, playlist/songs/jld2cjxh0000qzrmn831i7rn will always refer to that same item.
  • The entries stored are large (eg large strings / blobs / objects with lots of nested data)
  • You have to edit the collection frequently.

Having said that, here's how to safely work with arrays:

// Store an array with 2 songs:
await db.ref('playlist/songs').set([
    { id: 13535, title: 'Daughters', artist: 'John Mayer' }, 
    { id: 22345,  title: 'Crazy', artist: 'Gnarls Barkley' }
]);

// Editing an array safely:
await db.ref('playlist/songs').transaction(snap => {
    const songs = snap.val();
    // songs is instanceof Array
    // Add a song:
    songs.push({ id: 7855, title: 'Formidable', artist: 'Stromae' });
    // Edit the second song:
    songs[1].title += ' (Live)';
    // Remove the first song:
    songs.splice(0, 1);
    // Store the edited array:
    return songs;
});

If you do not change the order of the entries in an array, it's safe to use them in referenced paths:

// Update a single array entry:
await db.ref('playlist/songs[4]/title').set('Blue on Black');

// Or:
await db.ref('playlist/songs[4]').update({ title: 'Blue on Black') };

// Or:
await db.ref('playlist/songs').update({
    4: { title: 'Blue on Black', artist: 'Kenny Wayne Shepherd' }
})

// Get value of single array entry:
let snap = await db.ref('playlist/songs[2]').get();

// Get selected entries with an include filter (like you'd use with object collections)
let snap = await db.ref('playlist/songs').get({ include: [0, 5, 8] });
let songs = snap.val();
// NOTE: songs is instanceof PartialArray, which is an object with properties '0', '5', '8'

NOTE: you CANNOT use ref.push() to add entries to an array! push can only be used on object collections because it generates unique child IDs such as "jpx0k53u0002ecr7s354c51l" (which obviously is not a valid array index)

To summarize: ONLY use arrays if using an object collection seems like overkill, and be very cautious! Adding and removing items can only be done to/from the END of an array, unless you rewrite the entire array. That means you will have to know how many entries your array has up-front to be able to add new entries, which is not really desirable in most situations. If you feel the urge to use an array because the order of the entries are important for you or your app: consider using an object collection instead, and add an 'order' property to the entries to perform a sort on.

Counting children

To quickly find out how many children a specific node has, use the count method on a DataReference:

const messageCount = await db.ref('chat/messages').count();

Limit nested data loading

If your database structure is using nesting (eg storing posts in 'users/someuser/posts' instead of in 'posts'), you might want to limit the amount of data you are retrieving in most cases. Eg: if you want to get the details of a user, but don't want to load all nested data, you can explicitly limit the nested data retrieval by passing exclude, include, and/or child_objects options to .get:

// Exclude specific nested data:
db.ref('users/someuser')
.get({ exclude: ['posts', 'comments'] })
.then(snap => {
    // snapshot contains all properties of 'someuser' except 
    // 'users/someuser/posts' and 'users/someuser/comments'
});

// Include specific nested data:
db.ref('users/someuser/posts')
.get({ include: ['*/title', '*/posted'] })
.then(snap => {
    // snapshot contains all posts of 'someuser', but each post 
    // only contains 'title' and 'posted' properties
});

// Combine include & exclude:
db.ref('users/someuser')
.get({ exclude: ['comments'], include: ['posts/*/title'] })
.then(snap => {
    // snapshot contains all user data without the 'comments' collection, 
    // and each object in the 'posts' collection only contains a 'title' property.
});

NOTE: This enables you to do what Firebase can't: store your data in logical places, and only get the data you are interested in, fast! On top of that, you're even able to index your nested data and query it, even faster. See Indexing data for more info.

Iterating (streaming) children

(NEW since v1.4.0)

To iterate through all children of an object collection without loading all data into memory at once, you can use forEach which streams each child and executes a callback function with a snapshot of its data. If the callback function returns false, iteration will stop. If the callback returns a Promise, iteration will wait for it to resolve before loading the next child.

The children to iterate are determined at the start of the function. Because forEach does not read/write lock the collection, it is possible for the data to be changed while iterating. Children that are added while iterating will be ignored, removed children will be skipped.

It is also possible to selectively load data for each child, using the same options object available for ref.get(options)

Examples:

// Stream all books one at a time (loads all data for each book):
await db.ref('books').forEach(bookSnapshot => {
   const book = bookSnapshot.val();
   console.log(`Got book "${book.title}": "${book.description}"`);
});

// Now do the same but only load 'title' and 'description' of each book:
await db.ref('books').forEach(
   { include: ['title', 'description'] }, 
   bookSnapshot => {
      const book = bookSnapshot.val();
      console.log(`Got book "${book.title}": "${book.description}"`);
   }
);

Also see Streaming query results

Monitoring realtime data changes

You can subscribe to data events to get realtime notifications as the monitored node is being changed. When connected to a remote AceBase server, the events will be pushed to clients through a websocket connection. Supported events are:

  • 'value': triggered when a node's value changes (including changes to any child value)
  • 'child_added': triggered when a child node is added, callback contains a snapshot of the added child node
  • 'child_changed': triggered when a child node's value changed, callback contains a snapshot of the changed child node
  • 'child_removed': triggered when a child node is removed, callback contains a snapshot of the removed child node
  • 'mutated': (NEW v0.9.51) triggered when any nested property of a node changes, callback contains a snapshot and reference of the exact mutation.
  • 'mutations': (NEW v0.9.60) like 'mutated', but fires with an array of all mutations caused by a single database update.
  • 'notify_*': notification only version of above events without data, see "Notify only events" below
// Using event callback
db.ref('users')
.on('child_added', userSnapshot => {
    // fires for all current children, 
    // and for each new user from then on
});

// To be able to unsubscribe later:
function userAdded(userSnapshot) { /* ... */ }
db.ref('users').on('child_added', userAdded);
// Unsubscribe later with .off:
db.ref('users').off('child_added', userAdded);

AceBase uses the same .on and .off method signatures as Firebase, but also offers another way to subscribe to the events using the returned EventStream you can subscribe to. Having a subscription helps to easier unsubscribe from the events later. Additionally, subscribe callbacks only fire for future events by default, as opposed to the .on callback, which also fires for current values of events 'value' and 'child_added':

// Using .subscribe
const addSubscription = db.ref('users')
.on('child_added')
.subscribe(newUserSnapshot => {
    // .subscribe only fires for new children from now on
});

const removeSubscription = db.ref('users')
.on('child_removed')
.subscribe(removedChildSnapshot => {
    // removedChildSnapshot contains the removed data
    // NOTE: snapshot.exists() will return false, 
    // and snapshot.val() contains the removed child value
});

const changesSubscription = db.ref('users')
.on('child_changed')
.subscribe(updatedUserSnapshot => {
    // Got new value for an updated user object
});

// Stopping all subscriptions later:
addSubscription.stop();
removeSubscription.stop();
changesSubscription.stop();

If you want to use .subscribe while also getting callbacks on existing data, pass true as the callback argument:

db.ref('users/some_user')
.on('value', true) // passing true triggers .subscribe callback for current value as well
.subscribe(userSnapshot => {
    // Got current value (1st call), or new value (2nd+ call) for some_user
});

The EventStream returned by .on can also be used to subscribe more than once:

const newPostStream = db.ref('posts').on('child_added');
const subscription1 = newPostStream.subscribe(childSnapshot => { /* do something */ });
const subscription2 = newPostStream.subscribe(childSnapshot => { /* do something else */ });
// To stop 1's subscription:
subscription1.stop(); 
// or, to stop all active subscriptions:
newPostStream.stop();

Using variables and wildcards in subscription paths

It is also possible to subscribe to events using wildcards and variables in the path:

// Using wildcards:
db.ref('users/*/posts')
.on('child_added')
.subscribe(snap => {
    // This will fire for every post added by any user,
    // so for our example .push this will be the result:
    // snap.ref.vars === { 0: "ewout" }
    const vars = snap.ref.vars;
    console.log(`New post added by user "${vars[0]}"`)
});
db.ref('users/ewout/posts').push({ title: 'new post' });

// Using named variables:
db.ref('users/$userid/posts/$postid/title')
.on('value')
.subscribe(snap => {
    // This will fire for every new or changed post title,
    // so for our example .push below this will be the result:
    // snap.ref.vars === { 0: "ewout", 1: "jpx0k53u0002ecr7s354c51l", userid: "ewout", postid: (...), $userid: (...), $postid: (...) }
    // The user id will be in vars[0], vars.userid and vars.$userid
    const title = snap.val();
    const vars = snap.ref.vars; // contains the variable values in path
    console.log(`The title of post ${vars.postid} by user ${vars.userid} was set to: "${title}"`);
});
db.ref('users/ewout/posts').push({ title: 'new post' });

// Or a combination:
db.ref('users/*/posts/$postid/title')
.on('value')
.subscribe(snap => {
    // snap.ref.vars === { 0: 'ewout', 1: "jpx0k53u0002ecr7s354c51l", postid: "jpx0k53u0002ecr7s354c51l", $postid: (...) }
});
db.ref('users/ewout/posts').push({ title: 'new post' });

Notify only events

In additional to the events mentioned above, you can also subscribe to their notify_ counterparts which do the same, but with a reference to the changed data instead of a snapshot. This is quite useful if you want to monitor changes, but are not interested in the actual values. Doing this also saves serverside resources, and results in less data being transferred from the server. Eg: notify_child_changed will run your callback with a reference to the changed node:

ref.on('notify_child_changed', childRef => {
    console.log(`child "${childRef.key}" changed`);
})

Wait for events to activate

In some situations, it is useful to wait for event handlers to be active before modifying data. For instance, if you want an event to fire for changes you are about to make, you have to make sure the subscription is active before performing the updates.

var subscription = db.ref('users')
.on('child_added')
.subscribe(snap => { /*...*/ });

// Use activated promise
subscription.activated()
.then(() => {
    // We now know for sure the subscription is active,
    // adding a new user will trigger the .subscribe callback
    db.ref('users').push({ name: 'Ewout' });
})
.catch(err => {
    // Access to path denied by server?
    console.error(`Subscription canceled: ${err.message}`);
});

If you want to handle changes in the subscription state after it was activated (eg because server-side access rights have changed), provide a callback function to the activated call:

subscription.activated((activated, cancelReason) => {
    if (!activated) {
        // Access to path denied by server?
        console.error(`Subscription canceled: ${cancelReason}`);
    }
});

Get triggering context of events

(NEW v0.9.51)

In some cases it is benificial to know what (and/or who) triggered a data event to fire, so you can choose what you want to do with data updates. It is now possible to pass context information with all update, set, remove , and transaction operations, which will be passed along to any event triggered on affected paths (on any connected client!)

Imagine the following situation: you have a document editor that allows multiple people to edit at the same time. When loading a document you update its last_accessed property:

// Load document & subscribe to changes
db.ref('users/ewout/documents/some_id').on('value', snap => {
    // Document loaded, or changed. Display its contents
    const document = snap.val();
    displayDocument(document);
});

// Set last_accessed to current time
db.ref('users/ewout/documents/some_id').update({ last_accessed: new Date() })

This will trigger the value event TWICE, and cause the document to render TWICE. Additionally, if any other user opens the same document, it will be triggered again even though a redraw is not needed!

To prevent this, you can pass contextual info with the update:

// Load document & subscribe to changes (context aware!)
db.ref('users/ewout/documents/some_id')
    .on('value', snap => {
        // Document loaded, or changed.
        const context = snap.context();
        if (context.redraw === false) {
            // No need to redraw!
            return;
        }
        // Display its contents
        const document = snap.val();
        displayDocument(document);
    });

// Set last_accessed to current time, with context
db.ref('users/ewout/documents/some_id')
    .context({ redraw: false }) // prevent redraws!
    .update({ last_accessed: new Date() })

Change tracking using "mutated" and "mutations" events

(NEW v0.9.51)

These events are mainly used by AceBase behind the scenes to automatically update in-memory values with remote mutations. See Observe realtime value changes and Realtime synchronization with a live data proxy. It is possible to use these events yourself, but they require some additional plumbing, and you're probably better off using the methods mentioned above.

Having said that, here's how to use them:

If we you want to monitor a specific node's value, but don't want to get its entire new value every time a small mutation is made to it, subscribe to the "mutated" event. This event is only fired with the target data actually being changed. This allows you to keep a cached copy of your data in memory (or cache db), and replicate all changes being made to it:

const chatRef = db.ref('chats/chat_id');
// Get current value
const chat = (await chatRef.get()).val();

// Subscribe to mutated event
chatRef.on('mutated', snap => {
    const mutatedPath = snap.ref.path; // 'chats/chat_id/messages/message_id'
    const propertyTrail = 
        // ['messages', 'message_id']
        mutatedPath.slice(chatRef.path.length + 1).split('/');

    // Navigate to the in-memory chat property target:
    let targetObject = propertyTrail.slice(0,-1).reduce((target, prop) => target[prop], chat);
    // targetObject === chat.messages
    const targetProperty = propertyTrail.slice(-1)[0]; // The last item in array
    // targetProperty === 'message_id'

    // Update the value of our in-memory chat:
    const newValue = snap.val(); // { sender: 'Ewout', text: '...' }
    if (newValue === null) {
        // Remove it
        delete targetObject[targetProperty]; // delete chat.messages.message_id
    }
    else {
        // Set or update it
        targetObject[targetProperty] = newValue; // chat.messages.message_id = newValue
    }
});

// Add a new message to trigger above event handler
chatRef.child('messages').push({
    sender: 'Ewout'
    text: 'Sending you a message'
})

NOTE: if you are connected to a remote AceBase server and the connection was lost, it is important that you always get the latest value upon reconnecting because you might have missed mutation events.

The 'mutations' event does the same as 'mutated', but will be fired on the subscription path with an array of all mutations caused by a single database update. The best way to handle these mutations is by iterating them using snapshot.forEach:

chatRef.on('mutations', snap => {
    snap.forEach(mutationSnap => {
        handleMutation(mutationSnap);
    });
})

Observe realtime value changes

(NEW v0.9.51)

You can now observe the realtime value of a path, and (for example) bind it to your UI. ref.observe() returns a RxJS Observable that can be used to observe updates to this node and its children. It does not return snapshots, so you can bind the observable straight to your UI. The value being observed is updated internally using the "mutations" database event. All database mutations are automatically applied to the in-memory value, and trigger the observable to emit the new value.

<!-- In your Angular view template: -->
<ng-container *ngIf="liveChat | async as chat">
   <h3>{{ chat.title }}</h3>
   <p>Chat was started by {{ chat.startedBy }}</p>
   <div class="messages">
    <Message *ngFor="let item of chat.messages | keyvalue" [message]="item.value"></Message>
   </div>
</ng-container>

Note that to use Angular's *ngFor on an object collection, you have to use the keyvalue pipe.

// In your Angular component:
ngOnInit() {
   this.liveChat = this.db.ref('chats/chat_id').observe();
}

Or, if you want to monitor updates yourself, handle the subscribe and unsubscribe:

ngOnInit() {
   this.observer = this.db.ref('chats/chat_id').observe().subscribe(chat => {
      this.chat = chat;
   });
}
ngOnDestroy() {
   // DON'T forget to unsubscribe!
   this.observer.unsubscribe();
}

NOTE: objects returned in the observable are only updated downstream - any changes made locally won't be updated in the database. If that is what you would want to do... keep reading! (Spoiler alert - use proxy()!)

Realtime synchronization with a live data proxy

(NEW v0.9.51)

You can now create a live data proxy for a given path. The data of the referenced path will be loaded, and kept in-sync with live data by listening for remote 'mutated' events, and immediately syncing back all changes you make to its value. This allows you to forget about data storage, and code as if you are only handling in-memory objects. Synchronization was never this easy!

Check out the following example:

const proxy = await db.ref('chats/chat1').proxy();
const chat = proxy.value; // contains realtime chat value

// Make changes in memory, AND database (yes!)
chat.title = 'Changing the title in the database too!';
chat.members = ['Ewout'];
chat.members.push('John', 'Jack', 'Pete'); // Append to array
chat.messages.push({ // Push child to a collection (generates an ID for it!)
    from: 'Ewout', 
    message: 'I am changing the database without programming against it!' 
});
chat.messages.push({
    from: 'Pete', 
    message: 'Impressive dude' 
});
if (chat.members.includes('John') && !chat.title.startsWith('Hallo')) {
    chat.title = 'Hallo, is John May er?'; // Dutch joke
}
// Now that all synchronous updates above have taken place,
// AceBase will update the database automatically

All changes made above will be persisted to the database, and any changes made remotely will be automatically become available in the proxy object. The above code will result in the execution of 2 updates to the database, equivalent to below statements. How awesome is that?!

// This is what is executed behind the scenes by above example:
db.ref('chats/chat1').update({
    title: 'Hallo, is John May er?', // Dutch joke
    members: ['Ewout','John','Jack','Pete']
});
db.ref('chats/chat1/messages').update({
    kh1x3ygb000120r7ipw6biln: {
        from: 'Ewout',
        message: 'I am changing the database without programming against it!'
    },
    kh1x3ygb000220r757ybpyec: {
        from: 'Pete',
        message: 'Impressive dude'
    }
});

To get a notification each time a mutation is made to the value, use proxy.onMutation(handler). To get notifications about any errors that might occur, use proxy.onError(handler):

proxy.onError(err => {
    console.error(`Proxy error: ${err.message}`, err.details);
});
proxy.onMutation((mutationSnapshot, isRemoteChange) => {
    console.log(`Value of path "${mutationSnapshot.ref.path}" was mutated by ${isRemoteChange ? 'somebody else' : 'us' }`);
})

If you no longer need the proxy object, use proxy.destroy() to stop realtime updating. Don't forget this!

A number of additional methods are available to all proxied object values to make it possible to monitor specific properties being changed, get the actual target values, add children etc. See code below for more details:

const proxy = await db.ref('chats/chat1').proxy();
if (!proxy.hasValue) {
    // If the proxied path currently does not have a value, create it now.
    proxy.value = {};
}
const chat = proxy.value;

forEach: iterate object collection

chat.messages.forEach((message, key, index) => {
    // Fired for all messages in collection, or until returning false
});

for...of: iterate array or object collection's values, keys or entries (v1.2.0+)

for (let message of chat.messages) {
    // Iterates with default .values iterator, same as:
    // for (let message of chat.messages.values())
}
for (let keys of chat.messages.keys()) {
    // All keys in the messages object collection
}
for (let [key, message] of chat.messages.entries()) {
    // Same as above
}

push: Add item to object collection with generated key

const key = chat.messages.push({ text: 'New message' });

remove: delete a node

chat.messages[key].remove();
chat.messages.someotherkey.remove();

// Note, you can also do this:
delete chat.messages.somemessage;
// Or this:
chat.messages.somemessage = null;

toArray: access an object collection like an array:

const array = chat.messages.toArray();

toArray (with sort): like above, sorting the results:

const sortedArray = chat.messages.toArray((a, b) => a.sent < b.sent ? -1 : 1);

valueOf (or getTarget): gets the underlying value (unproxied, be careful!)

const message = chat.messages.message1.valueOf();
message.text = 'This does NOT update the database'; // Because it is not the proxied value
chat.messages.message1.text = 'This does'; // Just so you know

onChanged: registers a callback for the value that is called every time the underlying value changes:

chat.messages.message1.onChanged((message, previous, isRemote, context) => {
    if (message.read) {
        // Show blue ticks
    }
    if (message.title !== previous.title && isRemote) {
        // Somebody changed the title 
        // (remote: not through this proxy instance)
    }
});

getRef: returns a DataReference instance to current target if you'd want or need to do stuff outside of the proxy's scope:

const messageRef = chat.messages.message1.getRef();
// Eg: add an "old fashioned" event handler
messageRef.on('child_changed', snap => { /* .. */ });
// Or, if you need to know when an update is done
await messageRef.update({ read: new Date() });

getObservable: returns a RxJS Observable that is updated each time the underlying value changes:

const observable = chat.messages.message1.getObservable();
const subscription = observable.subscribe(message => {
    if (message.read) {
        // Show blue ticks
    }
});
// Later:
subscription.unsubscribe();

startTransaction: (NEW v0.9.62) Enables you to make changes to the proxied value, but not writing them to the database until you want them to. This makes it possble to bind a proxy to an input form, and wait to save the changes until the user click 'Save', or rollback when canceling. Meanwhile, the value will still be updated with any remote changes.

const proxy = await db.ref('contacts/ewout').proxy();
const contact = proxy.value; // NOTE: === null if node doesn't exist
const tx = await contact.startTransaction();

// Make some changes:
contact.name = 'Ewout Stortenbeker'; // Was 'Ewout'
contact.email = 'ewout@appy.one'; // Was 'me@appy.one'

async function save() {
    await tx.commit();
    console.log('Contact details updated');
}

function rollback() {
    tx.rollback();
    // contact.name === 'Ewout'
    // contact.email === 'me@appy.one'
    console.log('All changes made were rolled back');
}

Once tx.commit() is called, all pending updates will be processed and saved to the database. When tx.rollback() is called, all changes made to the proxied object will be reverted and no further action is taken.

Using proxy methods in Typescript

In TypeScript some additional typecasting is needed to access proxy methods shown above. You can use the proxyAccess function to get help with that. This function typecasts and also checks if your passed value is indeed a proxy.

type ChatMessage = { from: string, text: string, sent: Date, received: Date, read: Date };
type MessageCollection = IObjectCollection<ChatMessage>;

// Easy & safe typecasting:
proxyAccess<MessageCollection>(chat.messages)
    .getObservable()
    .subscribe(messages => {
        // No need to define type of messages, TS knows it is a MessageCollection
    });

// Instead of:
(chat.messages as any as ILiveDataProxyValue<MessageCollection>)
    .getObservable()
    .subscribe(messages => {
        // messages: MessageCollection
    });

// Or, with unsafe typecasting (discouraged!)
(chat.messages as any)
    .getObservable()
    .subscribe((messages: MessageCollection) => {
        // messages: MessageCollection, but only because we've prevented typescript
        // from checking if the taken route to get here was ok.
        // If getObservable or subscribe method signatures change in the 
        // future, code will break without typescript knowing it!
    });

With Angular, getObservable comes in handy for UI binding and updating:

@Component({
  selector: 'chat-messages',
  template: `<ng-container *ngIf="liveChat | async as chat">
    <h1>{{ chat.title }}</h1>
    <Message *ngFor="let item of chat.messages | keyvalue" [message]="item.value" />
    </ng-container>`
})
export class ChatComponent {
    liveChat: Observable<{ 
        title: string, 
        messages: IObjectCollection<{ from: string, text: string }> 
    }>;

    constructor(private dataProvider: MyDataProvider) {}

    async ngOnInit() {
        const proxy = await this.dataProvider.db.ref('chats/chat1').proxy();
        this.liveChat = proxyAccess(proxy.value).getObservable();
    }
}

For completeness of above example, MyDataProvider would look something like this:

import { AceBase } from 'acebase';
@Injectable({
    providedIn: 'root'
})
export class MyDataProvider {
    db: AceBase;
    constructor() {
        this.db = new AceBase('chats');
    }
}

I'll leave up to your imagination what the MessageComponent would look like.

Querying data

When running a query, all child nodes of the referenced path will be matched against your set criteria and returned in any requested sort order. Pagination of results is also supported, so you can skip and take any number of results. Queries do not require data to be indexed, although this is recommended if your data becomes larger.

To filter results, multiple filter(key, operator, compare) statements can be added. The filtered results must match all conditions set (logical AND). Supported query operators are:

  • '<': value must be smaller than compare
  • '<=': value must be smaller or equal to compare
  • '==': value must be equal to compare
  • '!=': value must not be equal to compare
  • '>': value must be greater than compare
  • '>=': value must be greater or equal to compare
  • 'exists': key must exist
  • '!exists': key must not exist
  • 'between': value must be between the 2 values in compare array (compare[0] <= value <= compare[1]). If compare[0] > compare[1], their values will be swapped
  • '!between': value must not be between the 2 values in compare array (value < compare[0] or value > compare[1]). If compare[0] > compare[1], their values will be swapped
  • 'like': value must be a string and must match the given pattern compare. Patterns are case-insensitive and can contain wildcards * for 0 or more characters, and ? for 1 character. (pattern "Th?" matches "The", not "That"; pattern "Th*" matches "the" and "That")
  • '!like': value must be a string and must not match the given pattern compare
  • 'matches': value must be a string and must match the regular expression compare
  • '!matches': value must be a string and must not match the regular expression compare
  • 'in': value must be equal to one of the values in compare array
  • '!in': value must not be equal to any value in compare array
  • 'has': value must be an object, and it must have property compare.
  • '!has': value must be an object, and it must not have property compare
  • 'contains': value must be an array and it must contain a value equal to compare, or contain all of the values in compare array
  • '!contains': value must be an array and it must not contain a value equal to compare, or not contain any of the values in compare array

NOTE: A query does not require any filter criteria, you can also use a query to paginate your data using skip, take and sort. If you don't specify any of these, AceBase will use .take(100) as default. If you do not specify a sort, the order of the returned values can vary between executions.

db.query('songs')
.filter('year', 'between', [1975, 2000])
.filter('title', 'matches', /love/i)  // Songs with love in the title
.take(50)                   // limit to 50 results
.skip(100)                  // skip first 100 results
.sort('rating', false)      // highest rating first
.sort('title')              // order by title ascending
.get(snapshots => {
    // ...
});

To quickly convert a snapshots array to the values it encapsulates, you can call snapshots.getValues(). This is a convenience method and comes in handy if you are not interested in the results' paths or keys. You can also do it yourself with var values = snapshots.map(snap => snap.val()):

db.query('songs')
.filter('year', '>=', 2018)
.get(snapshots => {
    const songs = snapshots.getValues();
});

Instead of using the callback of .get, you can also use the returned Promise which is very useful in promise chains:

// ... in some promise chain
.then(fromYear => {
    return db.query('songs')
    .filter('year', '>=', fromYear)
    .get();
})
.then(snapshots => {
    // Got snapshots from returned promise
})

This also enables using ES6 async / await:

const snapshots = await db.query('songs')
    .filter('year', '>=', fromYear)
    .get();

Limiting query result data

By default, queries will return snapshots of the matched nodes, but you can also get references only by passing the option { snapshots: false } or use the new .find() method.

// ...
const references = await db.query('songs')
    .filter('genre', 'contains', 'rock')
    .get({ snapshots: false });

// now we have references only, so we can decide what data to load

Using the new find() method does the same (v1.10.0+):

const references = await db.query('songs')
    .filter('genre', 'contains', 'blues')
    .find();

If you do want your query results to include some (but not all) data, you can use the include and exclude options to filter the fields in the query results returned by get:

const snapshots = await db.query('songs')
    .filter('title', 'like', 'Love*')
    .get({ include: ['title', 'artist'] });

The snapshots in the example above will only contain each matching song's title and artist fields. See Limit nested data loading for more info about include and exclude filters.

Removing data with a query

To remove all nodes that match a query, simply call remove instead of get:

db.query('songs')
    .filter('year', '<', 1950)
    .remove(() => {
        // Old junk gone
    }); 

// Or, with await
await db.query('songs')
    .filter('year', '<', 1950)
    .remove();

Counting query results

(NEW since v1.10.0)

To get a quick count of query results, you can use .count():

const count = await db.query('songs')
    .filter('artist', '==', 'John Mayer')
    .count();

You can use this in combination with skip and limit to check if there are results beyond a currently loaded dataset:

const nextPageSongsCount = await db.query('songs')
    .filter('artist', '==', 'John Mayer')
    .skip(100)
    .take(10)
    .count(); // 10: full page, <10: last page.

NOTE: This method currently performs a count on results returned by .find() behind the scenes, this will be optimized in a future version.

Checking query result existence

(NEW since v1.10.0)

To quickly determine if a query has any matches, you can use .exists():

const exists = await db.query('users')
    .filter('email', '==', 'me@appy.one')
    .exists();

Just like count(), you can also combine this with skip and limit.

NOTE: This method currently performs a check on the result returned by .count() behind the scenes, this will be optimized in a future version.

Streaming query results

(NEW since v1.4.0)

To iterate through the results of a query without loading all data into memory at once, you can use forEach which streams each child and executes a callback function with a snapshot of its data. If the callback function returns false, iteration will stop. If the callback returns a Promise, iteration will wait for it to resolve before loading the next child.

The query will be executed at the start of the function, retrieving references to all matching children (not their values). After this, forEach will load their values one at a time. It is possible for the underlying data to be changed while iterating. Matching children that were removed while iterating will be skipped. Children that had any of the filtered properties changed after initial results were populated might not match the query anymore, this is not checked.

It is also possible to selectively load data for each child, using the same options object available for query.get(options).

Example:

// Query books, streaming the results one at a time:
await db.query('books')
 .filter('category', '==', 'cooking')
 .forEach(bookSnapshot => {
    const book = bookSnapshot.val();
    console.log(`Found cooking book "${book.title}": "${book.description}"`);
 });

// Now only load book properties 'title' and 'description'
await db.query('books')
 .filter('category', '==', 'cooking')
 .forEach(
   { include: ['title', 'description'] },
   bookSnapshot => {
      const book = bookSnapshot.val();
      console.log(`Found cooking book "${book.title}": "${book.description}"`);
   }
);

Also see Iterating (streaming) children

Realtime queries

(NEW 0.9.9, alpha)

AceBase now supports realtime (live) queries and is able to send notifications when there are changes to the initial query results

let fiveStarBooks = {}; // maps keys to book values
function gotMatches(snaps) {
    snaps.forEach(snap => {
        fiveStarBooks[snap.key] = snap.val();
    });
}
function matchAdded(match) {
    // add book to results
    fiveStarBooks[match.snapshot.key] = match.snapshot.val();
}
function matchChanged(match) {
    // update book details
    fiveStarBooks[match.snapshot.key] = match.snapshot.val();
}
function matchRemoved(match) {
    // remove book from results
    delete fiveStarBooks[match.ref.key];
}

db.query('books')
    .filter('rating', '==', 5)
    .on('add', matchAdded)
    .on('change', matchChanged)
    .on('remove', matchRemoved)
    .get(gotMatches)

NOTE: Usage of take and skip are currently not taken into consideration, events might fire for results that are not in the requested range.

Indexing data

Indexing data will dramatically improve the speed of queries on your data, especially as it increases in size. Any indexes you create will be updated automatically when underlying data is changed, added or removed. Indexes are used to speed up filters and sorts, and to limit the amount of results. NOTE: If you are connected to an external AceBase server (using AceBaseClient), indexes can only be created if you are signed in as the admin user.

Promise.all([
    // creates indexes if they don't exist
    db.indexes.create('songs', 'year'),
    db.indexes.create('songs', 'genre')
])
.then(() => {
    return db.query('songs')
    .filter('year', '==', 2010) // uses the index on year
    .filter('genre', 'in', ['jazz','rock','blues']) // uses the index on genre
    .get();
})
.then(snapshots => {
    console.log(`Got ${snapshots.length} songs`);
});

Indexing scattered data with wildcards

Because nesting data is recommended in AceBase (as opposed to Firebase that discourages this), you are able to index and query data that is scattered accross your database in a structered manner. For example, you might want to store posts for each user in their own user node, and index (and query) all posts by any user:

db.indexes.create('users/*/posts', 'date') // Index date of any post by any user
.then(() => {
    let now = new Date();
    let today = new Date(now.getFullYear(), now.getMonth(), now.getDate());
    return db.query('users/*/posts') // query with the same wildcard
    .filter('date', '>=', today)
    .get();
})
.then(postSnapshots => {
    // Got all today's posts, of all users
});

NOTE: Wildcard queries always require an index - they will not execute if there is no corresponding index.

Include additional data in indexes

If your query uses filters on multiple keys you could create separate indexes on each key, but you can also include that data into a single index. This will speed up queries even more in most cases:

db.indexes.create('songs', 'year', { include: ['genre'] })
.then(() => {
    return db.query('songs')
    .filter('year', '==', 2010) // uses the index on year
    .filter('genre', 'in', ['jazz','rock','blues']) // filters indexed results of year filter: FAST!
    .get();
})
.then(snapshots => {
    // ...
});

If you are filtering data on one key, and are sorting on another key, it is highly recommended to include the sort key in your index on the filter key, because this will greatly increase sorting performance:

db.indexes.create('songs', 'title', { include: ['year', 'genre'] })
.then(() => {
    return db.query('songs')
    .filter('title', 'like', 'Love *') // queries the index
    .sort('genre')  // sorts indexed results: FAST!
    .sort('title')  // sorts indexed results: FAST!
    .get();
})
.then(snapshots => {
    // ...
});

Other indexing options

In addition to the include option described above, you can specify the following options:

  • caseSensitive: boolean that specifies whether texts should be indexed using case sensitivity. Setting this to true will cause words with mixed casings (eg "word", "Word" and "WORD") to be indexed separately. Default is false.
  • textLocale: string that specifies the default locale of the indexed texts. Should be a 2-character language code such as "en" for English and "nl" for Dutch, or an LCID string for country specific locales such as "en-us" for American English, "en-gb" for British English etc.
  • textLocaleKey: string that specifies a key in the source data that contains the locale to use instead of the default specified in textLocale

Special indexes

Normal indexes are able to index string, number, Date, boolean and undefined (non-existent) values. To index other data, you have to create a special index. Currently supported special indexes are: Array, FullText and Geo indexes.

Array indexes

Use Array indexes to dramatically improve the speed of "contains" filters on array values. Consider the following data structure:

chats: {
    chat1: {
        members: ['ewout','john','pete','jack'],
        // ...
    }
}

By adding an index to the members key, this will speed up queries to get all chats a specific user is in.

db.indexes.create('chats', 'members', { type: 'array' });
.then(() => {
    return db.query('chats')
    .filter('members', 'contains', 'ewout'); // also possible without index, but now way faster
    .get()
})
.then(snapshots => {
    // Got all chats with ewout
})

By supplying an array to the filter, you can get all chats that have all of the supplied users:

db.query('chats')
.filter('members', 'contains', ['ewout', 'jack']);
.get(snapshots => {
    // Got all chats with ewout AND jack
})

Using !contains you can check which chats do not involve 1 or more users:

db.query('chats')
.filter('members', '!contains', ['ewout', 'jack']);
.get(snapshots => {
    // Got all chats without ewout and/or jack
})

Fulltext indexes

A fulltext index will index all individual words and their relative positions in string nodes. A normal index on text nodes is only capable of searching for exact matches quickly, or proximate like/regexp matches by scanning through the index. A fulltext index makes it possible to quickly find text nodes that contain multiple words, a selection of words or parts of them, in any order in the text.

db.indexes.create('chats/*/messages', 'text', { type: 'fulltext' });
.then(() => {
    return db.query('chats/*/messages')
    .filter('text', 'fulltext:contains', `confidential OR secret OR "don't tell"`); // not possible without fulltext index
    .get()
})
.then(snapshots => {
    // Got all confidential messages
})

Fulltext indexes support whitelisting, blacklisting, manual word stemming and filtering, and using different locales. All indexed words are stored "unidecoded": all unicode characters are translated into ascii characters so they become searchable in both ways. Eg: Japanese "AceBaseはクールです" is indexed as "acebase wa kurudesu" and will be found with queries on both "クール", "kūru" and "kuru".

You can define these additional settings using the the config property in the options parameter passed to the indexes.create method:

transform

Callback function that transforms (and/or filters) words being indexed and queried.

db.indexes.create('chats/*/messages', 'text', { 
    type: 'fulltext', 
    config: { 
        transform: function(locale, word) {
            // Correct misspelled words:
            if (word === 'mispeled') { return 'misspelled'; } 

            // Do not index a specific word:
            if (word === 'secret') { return null; }

            // Word stemming:
            if (['fishing','fished','fisher'].includes(word)) { return 'fish'; }

            // Consider multiple locales to allow multilingual query results:
            if (locale === 'nl') {
                // Word being indexed or queried is Dutch, index and query in English
                // Also see localeKey setting for more info
                return dutchToEnglish(word);
            }

            // Or, keep the word as it is:
            return word;
        } 
    } 
});

blacklist

Also known as a stoplist. Array of words to automatically be ignored for indexing and querying.

db.indexes.create('chats/*/messages', 'text', { 
    type: 'fulltext', 
    config: { 
        blacklist: ['a','the','on','at'] // these words won't be indexed and ignored in queries
    }
}

whitelist

Words to be included if they did not match minLength and/or blacklist criteria:

db.indexes.create('chats/*/messages', 'text', { 
    type: 'fulltext', 
    config: { 
        minLength: 3,
        whitelist: ['ok'] // allow "ok" although it's only 2 characters
    }
}

minLength and maxLength

Only use words with a minimum and/or maximum length:

db.indexes.create('chats/*/messages', 'text', { 
    type: 'fulltext', 
    config: { 
        minLength: 3,   // Ignore small words
        maxLength: 20   // Ignore large words
    }
}

localeKey

Specify a key in the data that contains the locale of the indexed texts. This allows multiple languages to be indexed using their own rules.

Imagine the following the dataset:

{
    "love": {
        "item1": {
            "text": "I love AceBase",
            "locale": "en"
        },
        "item2": {
            "text": "Amo AceBase",
            "locale": "es"
        },
        "item3": {
            "text": "J'aime AceBase",
            "locale": "fr"
        },
        "item4": {
            "text": "Ich liebe AceBase",
            "locale": "de"
        },
        "item5": {
            "text": "Ik hou van AceBase",
            "locale": "nl"
        },
        "item6": {
            "text": "Jag älskar AceBase",
            "locale": "sv"
        }
    }
}

You can have the texts in text indexed using the locale specified in locale. The locale found is used in a given transform function. If the source data does not have the specified locale key, the default textLocale option specified in the options will be used.

db.indexes.create('chats/*/messages', 'text', { 
    type: 'fulltext', 
    textLocale: 'en' // default locale to use
    config: { 
        localeKey: 'locale' // Use the locale found in the locale property
    }
}

useStoplist

Boolean value that specifies whether a default stoplist for the used locale should be used to automatically blacklist words. Currently only available for locale "en", which contains very frequently used words like "a", "i", "me", "it", "the", "they", "them" etc.

Geo indexes

A geo index is able to index latitude/longitude value combinations so you can create very fast location-based queries.

Consider the following dataset:

landmarks: {
    landmark1: {
        name: 'I Amsterdam Sign',
        note: 'This is where it used to be before some crazy mayor decided it had to go',
        location: {
            lat: 52.359157,
            long: 4.884155
        }
    },
    landmark2: {
        name: 'Van Gogh Museum',
        location: {