Gorka Cesium•2y ago

Shorter unique IDs for documents

is there a recommended way of implemented short code searchable references for documents? for example that I create a Job that would have a reference field with value "JD13931" and this value would be unique in the Jobs table. That way the users can search by reference. This would be to make it easier for users to type in a short ID than the real convex document ids.

10 Replies

ian•2y ago

I would recommend the following: In your schema:

...
jobs: defineTable({
  reference: v.string(),
  ...
}).index('by_reference', ['reference'])
...

...
jobs: defineTable({
  reference: v.string(),
  ...
}).index('by_reference', ['reference'])
...

To look up a job:

const job = await db
  .query("jobs")
  .withIndex("by_reference", q => q.eq("reference", userInput))
  .unique();

const job = await db
  .query("jobs")
  .withIndex("by_reference", q => q.eq("reference", userInput))
  .unique();

To insert a job:

// look up the reference to ensure it doesn't exist, if you think there might be a collision
await db.insert("jobs", { reference, ...});

// look up the reference to ensure it doesn't exist, if you think there might be a collision
await db.insert("jobs", { reference, ...});

by checking that it exists before inserting it, the ACID transaction guarantees of Convex ensure it'll be unique if the mutation succeeds in inserting it

ian•2y ago

If you use my helper from this relationship post it can look like await getOneFrom(db, "jobs", "reference", userInput); https://stack.convex.dev/functional-relationships-helpers#back-reference-the-getonefrom-helper

Functional Relationships: Helpers

In this post, we’ll look at some helper functions to help write code to traverse relationships in a readable, predictable, and debuggable way.

Gorka CesiumOP•2y ago

ah I see, so I could generate the reference with a lib like https://github.com/ai/nanoid and then check in a recursive loop with getOneFrom to see if it exists otherwise keep trying new reference

GitHub

GitHub - ai/nanoid: A tiny (130 bytes), secure, URL-friendly, uniqu...

A tiny (130 bytes), secure, URL-friendly, unique string ID generator for JavaScript - GitHub - ai/nanoid: A tiny (130 bytes), secure, URL-friendly, unique string ID generator for JavaScript

Gorka CesiumOP•2y ago

that should work. thanks

Michal Srb•2y ago

I do this in my chess app demo: https://github.com/xixixao/convex-chess-demo/blob/main/convex/game.ts#L10-L20 (but as @ian pointed out I should be using an index instead of a filter 🙂 )

Gorka CesiumOP•2y ago

I was so long into functional programming that i forgot the usefulness of a while loop, thanks for sharing can this helper functions be in a file outside of the convex folder? otherwise if they live in the convex folder would they be registered as mutations/queries?

ian•2y ago

Only functions wrapped in query/mutation/action are registered. But yes can also be anywhere and be imported. The convex-helpers GitHub repo has a bunch of useful stuff if you haven’t perused before.

Gorka CesiumOP•2y ago

ah ok, so makes more sense to have it in convex folder

ian•2y ago

Yeah, I’ve started storing helpers in convex/lib but anywhere works. Same file if it’s only used there. However you like

Gorka CesiumOP•2y ago

https://github.com/get-convex/convex-helpers this one?

GitHub

GitHub - get-convex/convex-helpers: A collection of useful code to ...

A collection of useful code to complement the official packages. - GitHub - get-convex/convex-helpers: A collection of useful code to complement the official packages.

Shorter unique IDs for documents

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