Cannot add design documents (beginning with "_") in CouchDB

Question

When I try to add design documents (beginning with "_") I get an error "Only reserved document ids may start with underscore." How can I add a design document?

Answer 1

According to the Definitive Guide, a design document like this one:

{
  "_id" : "_design/example",
  "views" : {
    "foo" : {
      "map" : "function(doc){ emit(doc._id, doc._rev)}"
    }
  }
}

can be added to the database named basic with a curl command like this:

curl -X PUT http://127.0.0.1:5984/basic/_design/example --data-binary @mydesign.json

Personally, I find it much easier to use CouchApp to add and manage design documents. This section of the Definitive Guide describes how to install and use it.