Collections are the equivalent of a database table or entity.

Name

The name of a collection corresponds to its key in the collections configuration property.

In the example below, it is users:

collections:
  users:
    attributes: {}

It is possible to differentiate between the name used server-side (anywhere in the configuration) and client-side (in URLs, method names, error responses and documentation) by specifying the collection.name configuration property.

In the example below, the server-side name is users and the client-side name is players:

collections:
  users:
    name: players
    attributes: {}

It is also possible to specify several client-side names, which will behave as aliases, by using an array of names in collection.name.

collections:
  users:
    name: [users, players]
    attributes: {}

Attributes

Attributes are the equivalent of a database column or key.

The name of an attribute corresponds to its key in the collection.attributes configuration property. It follows the same naming rules as collections.

In the example below, there is an attribute named age:

collections:
  users:
    attributes:
      age: {}

Attributes called id are special as they:

• are used as primary key
• must be required
• are automatically created by the system, but can be overriden

Attribute type

One can specify an attribute.type among:

• string (default)
• integer
• number: includes both floating number and integer
• boolean
• COLLECTION: where COLLECTION is the collection's name, e.g. users, for nested collections
• string[], integer[], number[], boolean[] or COLLECTION[]: same but as an array

Default collection

If a collection is called default, it will not be used as a regular collection, but instead be deeply merged into each collection.

In the example below, each model's name will be required, and the mongodb database will be used by default.

collections:
  default:
    database: mongodb
    attributes:
      name:
        validate:
          required: true

Empty values

Attributes with undefined or null values are considered empty, are treated the same way and are converted to unset attributes.

Each example below is treated the same way and converted to the last form.

{ "name": "Bob", "weight": null }

{ "name": "Bob", "weight": undefined }

{ "name": "Bob" }

The exception is for patch commands, where null is used to unset a value.