Data Type : Array

Data Service
1

I remember you mentioning yesterday that you will be supporting Array types in the data schema soon but how soon can we expect this change to take place? A lot of my Parse data was of type Array and I’m just wondering if I should wait for the update or work on a different workaround.

Thanks!

2

Hi Brandon,

The work has not started on that yet. A temporary workaround may be in storing JSON arrays as strings. Would that approach work for you?

Regards,
Mark

3

Yeah, that’s my plan for now. I was just curious if Array support could be expected sooner or later. Thanks for the info.

1 Like
4

Actually, I’m running into a max size problem. Some of my arrays representing SQL tables are rather large (~21000 characters). Is there any way to extend a string past 2000 characters? If not, how would you suggest working around this limitation?

Thanks

5

Why not store your “blobs” as json file in the data store? (as file.json)

ElasticSearch
I’ve just done a elastic search - backendless configuration. (done in 5 minutes)
On a meta level, you can throw almost everything into elastic (it’s a storing/indexing engine) and get it back out with a rest api, super easy… If you are interested in this solution, just ping back and I’ll give you further instructions on how to setup.

6

In addition to what Jens wrote, I’d like to find out under what circumstances it makes sense to keep 21k worth of data which represents SQL tables as an object property? Granted that I know nothing about your app (but would love to learn more) and maybe you have all the reasons to design it like that, but on the surface it seems a design like that calls for some refactoring… Just my $0.02

7

The app I am working with keeps track of parts and transactions for different dealers. My objective with Backendless is to send a push through JS to a targeted device that has the app installed. This push will then signal the device to upload a table created from the desired SQL query to Backendless. At that point, the the front end JS will collect the table entry in Backendless, parse it, and display it as a table in HTML. That is what I am trying to accomplish. It’s a debugging tool for our developers so that when a client has a problem with their app, we can remotely query their data and logs without bothering them with the details. With Parse, I just stored the tables as arrays and then constructed the table from the array. Granted, this probably wasn’t the best method but it worked and was fairly simple to implement. I’m looking at the documentation for Backendless file storage now. Is there a way to store a reference to a file in a data column? That would be nice. Thanks for the suggestions guys. Always appreciated.

8

Every file has a unique URL which I can save as a reference in the table instead of the array. Nice!

9

yep!

10

Hi Brandon,

Thank you for describing what the app does. For any large block of data, it is recommended to store it in a file. You can upload files using Backendless console or with the API. Once a file is uploaded, you get a URL for it which then can be stored in the object as a property. This way your objects are light and fast and you can always get additional data by fetching the contents of the file.

Regards,
Mark

11

Hi Jens,

Please let me the steps to do elastic search - backendless configuration.

Thanks and Regards,
Santhosh P

12

I wonder if my post on this other topic would be relevant towards this one as well? How can I create an array column in the database? - #6 by Hung_Le