RethinkDB - Updating nested array

Question

I have a survey table that looks like so:

{
  id: Id,
  date: Date,
  clients: [{
    client_id: Id,
    contacts: [{
      contact_id: Id,
      score: Number,
      feedback: String,
      email: String
    }]
  }]
}

I need to updated the score and feedback fields under a specific contact. Currently, I am running the update like this:

function saveScore(obj){
  var dfd = q.defer();
  var survey = surveys.get(obj.survey_id);

  survey 
    .pluck({ clients: 'contacts' })
    .run()
    .then(results => {

      results.clients.forEach((item, outerIndex) => {
        item.contacts.forEach((item, index, array) => {
          if(Number(item.contact_id) === Number(obj.contact_id)) {
            array[index].score = obj.score;
            console.log(outerIndex, index);
          }
        });
      });

      return survey.update(results).run()
    })
    .then(results => dfd.resolve(results))
    .catch(err => dfd.resolve(err));

  return dfd.promise;
};

When I look at the update method, it specifies how to update nested key:value pairs. However, I can't find any examples to update an individual item in an array.

Is there a better and hopefully cleaner way to update items in a nested array?

Answer 1

You might need to get the array, filter out the desired value in the array and then append it again to the array. Then you can pass the updated array to the update method.

Example

Let's say you have a document with two clients that both have a name and a score and you want to update the score in one of them:

{
  "clients": [
    {
      "name":  "jacob" ,
      "score": 200
    } ,
    {
      "name":  "jorge" ,
      "score": 57
    }
  ] ,
  "id":  "70589f08-284c-495a-b089-005812ec589f"
}

You can get that specific document, run the update command with an annonymous function and then pass in the new, updated array into the clients property.

r.table('jacob').get("70589f08-284c-495a-b089-005812ec589f")
  .update(function (row) {
    return {
      // Get all the clients, expect the one we want to update
      clients: row('clients').filter(function (client) {
        return client('name').ne('jorge')
      })
      // Append a new client, with the update information
      .append({ name: 'jorge', score: 57 })
    };
  });

I do think this is a bit cumbersome and there's probably a nicer, more elegant way of doing this, but this should solve your problem.

Database Schema

Maybe it's worth it to create a contacts table for all your contacts and then do a some sort of join on you data. Then your contacts property in your clients array would look something like:

{
  id: Id,
  date: Date,
  clients: [{
    client_id: Id,
    contact_scores: {
      Id: score(Number)
    },
    contact_feedbacks: {
      Id: feedback(String)
    }
  }]
}

Answer 2

it works for me

r.table(...).get(...).update({
contacts: r.row('Contacts').changeAt(0,
  r.row('Contacts').nth(0).merge({feedback: "NICE"}))
 })