Creating views with PHP for couchDB

Question

I have started to try out noSQL databases now and are currently testing out couchDB. Seems like a good solution, but I really get some headache when I follow available examples on how to create views (queries) to select documents from a database and sort them.

Everything I can find is regarding JavaScript and it would be great to take part of some examples for PHP since that is the language we will use.

So, how do I create views using PHP for couchDB?

Answer 1

As far as I know, the equivalent of the SQL language that would be used for a relationnal database is, for CouchDB, Javascript.

So, if you want to create some "query", or "view", you have to do it in that language : it's the one that's understood by CouchDb.

PHP and CouchDb are totally independant : the only thing is that :

• PHP can send requests to CouchDb
• and get results

But what happens on the CouchDb side is independant of your PHP script -- and there is no PHP on the CouchDb side.

The only way to filter results using PHP would be to :

• Request more data from CouchDb than you need
• And throw away, from PHP, what's not needed

But, obviously, that would not be an efficient solution...

Answer 2

Javascript is privileged as a CouchDB view server only because that's what's bundled with CouchDB. There are view server implementations for many other languages/runtimes, including PHP.

• JavaScript (CouchDB native)
• Common Lisp
• PHP
• Ruby (fork)
• Python
  • couchdb-python
  • couchdb-pythonviews
• Erlang
  • built-in view server
  • erlview
• Clojure
• Perl
• Chicken Scheme
• Coldfusion
• Haskell
• OCaml