# CouchRest: CouchDB, close to the metal CouchRest is based on [CouchDB's couch.js test library](http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/couchdb/trunk/share/www/script/couch.js), which I find to be concise, clear, and well designed. CouchRest lightly wraps CouchDB's HTTP API, managing JSON serialization, and remembering the URI-paths to CouchDB's API endpoints so you don't have to. CouchRest is designed to make a simple base for application and framework-specific object oriented APIs. CouchRest is Object-Mapper agnostic, the parsed JSON it returns from CouchDB shows up as subclasses of Ruby's Hash. Naked JSON, just as it was mean to be. Note: CouchRest only support CouchDB 0.9.0 or newer. ## Easy Install Easy Install is moving to RubyForge, heads up for the gem. ### Relax, it's RESTful The core of Couchrest is Heroku’s excellent REST Client Ruby HTTP wrapper. REST Client takes all the nastyness of Net::HTTP and gives is a pretty face, while still giving you more control than Open-URI. I recommend it anytime you’re interfacing with a well-defined web service. ### Running the Specs The most complete documentation is the spec/ directory. To validate your CouchRest install, from the project root directory run `rake`, or `autotest` (requires RSpec and optionally ZenTest for autotest support). ## Examples Quick Start: # with !, it creates the database if it doesn't already exist @db = CouchRest.database!("http://127.0.0.1:5984/couchrest-test") response = @db.save_doc({:key => 'value', 'another key' => 'another value'}) doc = @db.get(response['id']) puts doc.inspect Bulk Save: @db.bulk_save([ {"wild" => "and random"}, {"mild" => "yet local"}, {"another" => ["set","of","keys"]} ]) # returns ids and revs of the current docs puts @db.documents.inspect Creating and Querying Views: @db.save_doc({ "_id" => "_design/first", :views => { :test => { :map => "function(doc){for(var w in doc){ if(!w.match(/^_/))emit(w,doc[w])}}" } } }) puts @db.view('first/test')['rows'].inspect ## CouchRest::Model CouchRest::Model has been deprecated and replaced by CouchRest::ExtendedDocument ## CouchRest::ExtendedDocument ### Callbacks `CouchRest::ExtendedDocuments` instances have 4 callbacks already defined for you: `:validate`, `:create`, `:save`, `:update` and `:destroy` `CouchRest::CastedModel` instances have 1 callback already defined for you: `:validate` Define your callback as follows: set_callback :save, :before, :generate_slug_from_name CouchRest uses a mixin you can find in lib/mixins/callbacks which is extracted from Rails 3, here are some simple usage examples: set_callback :save, :before, :before_method set_callback :save, :after, :after_method, :if => :condition set_callback :save, :around {|r| stuff; yield; stuff } Or the new shorter version: before_save :before_method, :another_method after_save :after_method, :another_method, :if => :condition around_save {|r| stuff; yield; stuff } Check the mixin or the ExtendedDocument class to see how to implement your own callbacks. ### Casting Often, you will want to store multiple objects within a document, to be able to retrieve your objects when you load the document, you can define some casting rules. property :casted_attribute, :cast_as => 'WithCastedModelMixin' property :keywords, :cast_as => ["String"] If you want to cast an array of instances from a specific Class, use the trick shown above ["ClassName"]