@begin/data

Begin Data

Begin Data is a durable and fast key/value store built on top of DynamoDB with super simple storage/access patterns that are similar to Redis.

Concepts

Begin Data organizes itself into tables. Tables contain documents which are just collections of plain Objects. documents stored in Begin Data always have the properties table and key. Optionally an document can also have a ttl property with a UNIX epoch value representing the expiry time for the document.

API

let data = require('@begin/data')

The core API is three methods:

• data.get(params, [callback]) for retreiving data
• data.set(params, [callback]) for writing data
• data.destroy(params, [callback]) for removing data

Additional helper methods are also made available:

• data.incr(params, [callback]) increment an attribute on an document
• data.decr(params, [callback]) decrement an attribute on an document
• data.count(params, [callback]) get the number of documents for a given table

All methods require a params object and, optionally, a Node style errback. If no errback is supplied a promise is returned. All methods support async/await.

Writes

Save an document in a table by key. Remember table is always required.

let taco = await data.set({
  table: 'tacos', 
  key: 'al-pastor'
})

key is optional. But all documents have a key. If no key is given set will generate a unique key.

let token = await data.set({
  table: 'tokens', 
})
// {table:'tokens', key:'s89sdfjskfdj'}

Batch save multiple documents at once by passing an array of objects.

let collection = await data.set([
  {table: 'ppl', name:'brian', email:'[e-mail]'},
  {table: 'ppl', name:'sutr0', email:'[e-mail]'},
  {table: 'tacos', key:'pollo'},
  {table: 'tacos', key:'carnitas'},
])

Reads

Read an document by key:

let yum = await data.get({
  table: 'tacos', 
  key: 'baja'
})

Batch read by passing an array of objects. With these building blocks you can construct secondary indexes and joins like one-to-many and many-to-many.

await data.get([
  {table:'tacos', key:'carnitas'},
  {table:'tacos', key:'al-pastor'},
])

Destroy

Delete an document by key.

await data.destroy({
  table: 'tacos', 
  key: 'pollo'
})

Batch delete documents by passing an array of objects.

await data.destroy([
  {table:'tacos', key:'carnitas'},
  {table:'tacos', key:'al-pastor'},
])

Additional Superpowers

• Documents can be expired by setting ttl to an UNIX epoch in the future.
• Atomic counters: data.incr and data.decr

See the tests for more examples!

Patterns

Coming soon! Detailed guides for various data persistence tasks:

• denormalizing
• pagination
• counters
• secondary indexes
• one to many
• many to many