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An Atoti cube can work on top of a Datastore or an external data warehouse. Therefore, a common interface is used to represent any component capable of providing versioned data for the cube. This interface is com.activeviam.database.api.IDatabase.

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Database Schema

The database schema consists of a set of tables, each containing fields, and that are interlinked with joins.
For those used to the vocabulary historically used in the Datastore, the tables used to be called stores, and the joins used to be called references.
Naming joins is not something that exists in common databases. In the context of Atoti where it is mandatory to pre-define a flattened schema, it is convenient to assign names to those paths. This makes it easier reason about those fields as integrated to the schema.
schema with tables and join

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Exploring the Database Schema

As users do not usually focus on one table, but a set of connected tables and all the fields contained in those tables, they access the fields from their paths: a starting table, followed by a series of joins, to a target field. This can be tedious for a basic component listing only tables. The IDatabaseSchemaEntityResolver is a utility tool to explore that schema. Its goals are to find the referenced tables and fields from their names and paths.

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Versions

Atoti Databases have the same concept of versions and branches that were previously exposed by the Datastore and ActivePivot cubes. As before, they represent single points in time of the Database and alternative scenarii on the dataset.

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Query Runner

This component is accessed from a Version though the method IDatabaseVersion#getQueryRunner.
The Query Runner is the entry-point to run queries on a Database. It can run different types of queries:
  • List: These queries are made to retrieve a list of records that match some specified conditions.
  • Get-By-Key: These queries are made to retrieve one or several records (lines of data in a table) for which we know the unique identifier (e.g. the key).
  • Statistics: These queries are made to retrieve information about the Database. Details like the size of a table, or the cardinality of a given field.
  • Distinct: These queries are made to retrieve distinct values of a field or a field combination from a list of records. The list of records can be optionally filtered with specified conditions.

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Query Manager

This component is accessed from a Version though the method IDatabaseVersion#getQueryManager or from the database itself.
Completing the Query Runner, the Query Manager makes it possible to prepare queries beforehand. Using an analogy with JDBC, the Query Runner creates an SQL Statement while the Query Manager creates Prepared Statements. In the language of the QueryManager, it produces instances of IPreparedQuery
The benefits of Prepared Queries include compiling-once, managing, parametrizing and reusing them. Once created, those queries must be passed to a given Query Runner to be executed in a given version.

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Data streamer

This component is accessed from the database though the method IDatabase#getDataStreamer.
You can register an IPreparedListQuery in the streamer. On data change, if it impacts the result of the query, the streamer transmits refresh operations to the listener.