Introduction to Sterling NoSQL OODB

Sterling NoSQL OODB is a lightweight NoSQL object database designed for use in projects on .NET 4.0, Silverlight 4/5 and Windows Phone 7.

Opportunities

• Work with complex objects (including other simple or complex objects, which may include more objects - and so on unlimitedly). Both classes and structures can act as objects.
• Works with both fields and properties.
• The ability to prohibit saving a specific type, property or field.
• Detection of circular references.
• DB type in memory.
• Support for working in local file systems of trusted Silverlight-applications.
• Support for isolated datastores for Silverlight and Windows Phone.
• Support for standard file systems for common desktop applications.
• The table structure is created dynamically on the fly.
• Simple configuration: you specify the type of table, the type of key and the lambda expression for highlighting the key - and you can fully work.
• Preservation of specific types when specifying in the description of the structure of their basic interfaces or abstract classes.
• Full foreign key support - child objects are stored in separate tables.
• A binary serializer that generates smaller objects on disk than JSON, XML, and so on.
• Encryption support.
• Compression support.
• Support for all CRUD operations: loading, saving (asynchronous for collections), deletion, alignment, and full zeroing.
• Support for multiple databases per application for partitioning and / or versioning.
• Native support for the following types: basic, Nullable, strings, byte arrays, DateTime, TimeSpan, Guid, enumerations (Enum), Decimal, lists, dictionaries, arrays, WritableBitmap.
• Support for custom type processing by writing your own serializers.
• Support for Linq to Objects queries on indexes and keys.
• Delayed (lazy) loading of objects in requests.
• Built-in caching.
• Built-in backup and recovery.
• Ability to mount triggers on events “before saving”, “after saving” and “deleting”.
• The ability to generate a key using a trigger.
• The ability to implement relationships through triggers.
• DLL weighs less than 100 kb.

Usage example

Suppose we need to store a species database. Let's describe the following entities:

enum FeedingType {
  Herbivore,
  Carnivore,
  Omnivore
}

class Feeding {
  public FeedingType Type { get; set; }
  public TimeSpan DefaultInterval { get; set; }
}

class Animal {
  public Guid Key { get; set; }
  public string Name { get; set; }
  public TimeSpan LifeExpectancy { get; set; }
  public Feeding Supply { get; set; }
}

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Accordingly, we will store objects of type Animal in the database.
Now we need to describe the structure of our database:

class BiologyDatabaseInstance: BaseDatabaseInstance {
  public const string INDEX_ANIMAL_NAME = "idx_animal_name";

  public override string Name { get { return "BiologyDb"; } }

  protected override List RegisterTables () {
    // В нашей БД будет пока только одна таблица - животные.
    return new List {
      CreateTableDefinition (animal => animal.Key)
        .WithIndex (INDEX_ANIMAL_NAME, animal => animal.Name)
    };
  }
}

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There will be one table in the database with a key of type Guid and an index on the name of the view.
Now we need to actually activate the database:

var engine = new SterlingEngine ();
engine.Activate();
var databaseInstance = engine.SterlingDatabase.RegisterDatabase (
  new FileSystemDriver ("C:/Temp/Animals/"));

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That's all. Can be used. All work is carried out through the copy that was provided to us during registration. For example:

var catId = databaseInstance.Save (new Animal {
  Key = Guid.NewGuid (),
  LifeExpectancy = TimeSpan.FromDays (365 * 15),
  Name = "Cat",
  Supply = new Feeding {
    Type = FeedingType.Carnivore,
    DefaultInterval = TimeSpan.FromHours (12)
  }
});

var cat = databaseInstance.Load (catId);

var orderedAnimals = databaseInstance
  .Query (BiologyDatabaseInstance.INDEX_ANIMAL_NAME)
  .OrderBy (x => x.Index)
  .Select (x => x.LazyValue.Value);

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To finish working with the database, call the Dispose () method.

Sources

• Codeplex project page .
• Home page .