DocLite

A powerful PHP NoSQL document store built on top of SQLite.

Table of contents

• About DocLite
  • Why DocLite?
• Getting Started
• The Database
  • Creating a memory database
  • Creating a file database
  • Error Handling & Logging
  • Import and export data
    • Importing Data
    • Exporting data
  • Advanced options
    • Get DocLite version
    • Optimize database
    • Set synchronization mode
    • Set rollback journal mode
• Collections
  • About Collections
  • Obtain a collection
  • Create a document
  • Save a document
  • Retrieve a document
  • Map a document to a custom class
  • Delete a document
  • Query a collection
    • Find single document by values
    • Find all matching documents by values
    • Find all documents in collection
    • Advanced queries
    • Query operators
  • Join collections
  • Caching results
  • Index a collection
  • Unique indexes
  • Delete a collection
  • Collection transactions
  • Full text search
• Documents
  • About Documents
  • Getting and setting document data
  • Mapping document fields to objects
  • Document Unique Id
  • Saving a document
  • Deleting a document
  • Document validation
• Other info
  • Symfony integration
  • Licensing
  • Bugs, issues
  • Contact the author

About DocLite

DocLite is a powerful NoSQL document store for PHP built on top of SQLite. It uses the PHP PDO SQLite library to access a SQLite database and automatically manage documents organized in to named collections, which are stored as JSON.

DocLite takes advantage of the SQLite JSON1 extension (this is usually bundled in to the libsqlite included with your PHP distribution, so you probably already have it) to store, parse, index and query JSON documents - giving you the power and flexibility of a fully transactional and ACID compliant NoSQL solution, yet contained within the local file system. No need for more complex systems like Mongo, CouchDB or Elasticsearch when your requirements are slim. No need for any external dependencies, just PHP with PDO SQLite enabled.

DocLite provides a simple, intuitive, flexible and powerful PHP library that you can learn, install and start using in minutes.

Why DocLite?

DocLite lends itself well to a variety of use cases, including but not limited to:

• Agile development and rapid prototyping while your requirements are evolving.

• Powerful, self-contained NoSQL database for small to medium websites or applications, such as blogs, business website, CMS, CRM or forums.

• A fast and reliable cache for data retrieved from remote databases, APIs or servers. Process your data in to documents, save in DocLite and easily query and filter your data as needed.

• Robust, performant, ACID compliant replacement for weaker, slower, flat-file data stores utilizing JSON, XML or YAML.

• Application database for web apps installed and run on a local environment.

• Database for microservices and middleware.

• Fast in-memory database for data processing or machine learning algorithms.

Broadly speaking, DocLite is suitable for the same uses cases as the underlying SQLite engine it is built on, but where you desire a NoSQL solution.

Getting Started

<details> <summary>System requirements</summary>

• PHP 7.4 or above

• With PDO SQLite enabled, built against libsqlite ≥ 3.18.0 with JSON1 extension.

(on most systems, if you're running PHP 7.4 you probably already meet the second requirement)

</details> <details> <summary>Installation</summary>

Install with Composer

composer require dwgebler/doclite

</details> <details> <summary>Usage Overview</summary>

DocLite provides both a FileDatabase and MemoryDatabase implementation. To create or open an existing database, simply create a Database object, specifying the file path if using a FileDatabase.

If your FileDatabase does not exist, it will be created (ensure your script has the appropriate write permissions). This will include creating any parent directories as required.

If you specify an existing directory without a filename, a default filename data.db will be used.

use Gebler\Doclite\{FileDatabase, MemoryDatabase};

// To create or open an existing file database.
$db = new FileDatabase('/path/to/db');

// To open an existing file database in read-only mode.
$db = new FileDatabase('/path/to/existing/db', true);

// To create a new in-memory database.
$db = new MemoryDatabase();

Once you have opened a database, you can obtain a document Collection which will be automatically created if it does not exist.

$users = $db->collection("user"); 

The Collection object can then be used to retrieve, create and manipulate documents.

// Create a new User in the collection
$user = $users->get();

// Get the automatically generated document ID
$id = $user->getId();

// Set properties by magic set* methods
$user->setUsername("dwgebler");
$user->setRole("admin");
$user->setPassword(password_hash("admin", \PASSWORD_DEFAULT));
$user->setCreated(new \DateTimeImmutable);

// Update the user in the collection
$user->save();

// Retrieve this user later on by ID
$user = $users->get($id);

// Or search for a user by any field
$user = $users->findOneBy(["username" => "dwgebler"]);

In the example above, $user is an instance of a DocLite Document, but you can also hydrate objects of your own custom classes from a collection.

class CustomUser
{
    private $id;
    private $username;
    private $password;
    
    public function getId() {...}
    public function setId($id) {...}
    public function getUsername() {...}
    public function setUsername($username) {...}    
}

// Retrieve a previously created user and map the result on to a CustomUser object.
// You can also pass a null ID as the first parameter to create a new CustomUser.
$user = $users->get($id, CustomUser::class);

// $user is now an instance of CustomUser and can be saved through the Collection.
$users->save($user);

To learn more about the Collection object including how to query a document store, please read the full documentation below.

</details>

The Database

DocLite is built on top of SQLite 3 and supports two types of database; file and memory. The corresponding classes are FileDatabase and MemoryDatabase.

Creating a memory database

MemoryDatabase is stored in volatile memory and is therefore ephemeral for the lifetime of your application scripts. Its constructor takes optional parameters:

• a boolean flag indicating whether to enable full text search features (defaults to false) - this feature requires SQLite to have been compiled with the FTS5 extension.
• an integer representing the maximum connection timeout in seconds (defaults to 1) which is how long the connection should wait if the underlying SQLite database is locked.
• A PSR-3 compatible logger instance (defaults to null).

```php
use Gebler\Doclite\MemoryDatabase;

$db = new MemoryDatabase();

// With full text search enabled and a 2-second connection timeout
$logger = new \Monolog\Logger('my-logger');
$db = new MemoryDatabase(true, 2, $logger); 

Creating a file database

FileDatabase constructor takes one mandatory and then some optional parameters; only the file or directory path to a new or existing database is required.

Optional parameters are:

• a boolean flag indicating whether the database should be opened in read-only mode, which defaults to false.
• a boolean flag indicating whether to enable full text search features (defaults to false) - this feature requires SQLite to have been compiled with the FTS5 extension.
• an integer representing the maximum connection timeout in seconds (defaults to 1) which is how long the connection should wait if the underlying SQLite database is locked.
• A PSR-3 Logger instance to use for logging database events.

The path supplied to FileDatabase can be a relative or absolute path which is any of:

• An existing directory with read and write access.
• A non-existent file in a directory with read-write access.
• An existing database in a directory with read-write or read-only access (read-only mode).
• A non-existing directory path which your script has permission to create.

If no file name is specified, a default file name data.db will be used for the underlying database.

use Gebler\Doclite\FileDatabase;

// Open a new