dojo.data Terminology | The Dojo Toolkit

dojo.data Terminology

Submitted by criecke on Sun, 05/06/2007 - 17:38.

dojo.data terminology is similar to relational database terminology. The following table compares and contrasts dojo.data terminology and relational database terminology:

dojo.data APIs

Term	Equiv. Database Term	Description
datastore	cursor	A JavaScript object that reads data from a data source and makes that data available as data items using the dojo.data APIs.
data source	database	The place that the raw data comes from. For example, in a `CsvStore`, the data source would be the `.csv` formatted file that the store loaded. In general, the data source could be a file, a database server, a Web service, or something else completely. They can be as simple as flat, table-like rows, or as complex as a full heirarchical database with nested details.
item	row	A data item that has attributes with attribute values.
attribute	column	One of the fields or properties of an item.
value	-	The contents of an attribute for a given item.
reference	--	A value in an item that points to another item.
identity	primary key	An identifier that can be used to uniquely identify an item within the context of a single datastore.
query	WHERE clause of SQL Select	A specification or request that asks a datastore for some subset of the items it knows about. A query is often an object with a set of attribute/value pairs that define what attributes should be matched. It is possible, however, that the query could be a string or a number. Note: It is highly recommended that all stores use an object structure of attribute name/value pairs as the query format for consistency between stores.
JDBC or ODBC	The standard set of functions that datastore implements. The `dojo.data.api` module includes a set of APIs (such as `Read` and `Write`) and a datastore can implement one or more of the APIs.
internal data representation	-	The private data structures that a datastore uses to cache data in local memory (for example XML DOM nodes, anonymous JSON objects, or arrays of arrays).
request	SQL Select	The parameters used to limit and sort a set of items. This includes the query, sorting attributes, upper and lower limits, and callbacks.