Read Documents
- Capella Operational
- how-to
How to read documents with a command line tool or an SDK.
Introduction
Retrieving documents by ID is the fastest and simplest way to read data in Couchbase Capella. The Key-Value (KV) or Data Service allows you to retrieve a full document when you need to fetch all of the data stored. However, in instances where this can be costly and unnecessary, Couchbase also provides access to specific paths within a document.
Read the following for further information about the clients available:
-
Couchbase Shell (cbsh) — developer preview
Please note that the examples in this guide will alter the data in your sample database. To restore your sample data, remove and reinstall the travel sample data. Refer to Import Data with the Capella UI for details. |
Reading a Document
To read a single document, perform a get operation.
-
cbsh
-
.NET
-
Java
-
Node.js
-
Python
-
If you haven’t already done so, use
cb-env
to set the bucket, scope, and collection where the document is stored. -
Use the
doc get
command to retrieve a document by ID and output its data.
An object is returned, which includes the id
, content
, and other metadata.
The document itself is wrapped in the content
field.
The example below retrieves document hotel-123
from the hotel
keyspace in the inventory
scope.
cb-env bucket travel-sample
cb-env scope inventory
cb-env collection hotel
doc get hotel-123
╭───┬───────────┬────────────────────┬─────────────────────┬───────┬─────────╮
│ # │ id │ content │ cas │ error │ cluster │
├───┼───────────┼────────────────────┼─────────────────────┼───────┼─────────┤
│ 0 │ hotel-123 │ {record 11 fields} │ 1717190781443309568 │ │ capella │
╰───┴───────────┴────────────────────┴─────────────────────┴───────┴─────────╯
If the document cannot be found, Couchbase Shell returns a Key not found error.
|
For further details, refer to Reading in the Couchbase Shell documentation.
Use the GetAsync()
method to retrieve a document by ID.
A GetResult
object is returned, which includes the content
, cas
value, and other valuable metadata.
The example below retrieves document hotel-123
from the hotel
keyspace in the inventory
scope.
var getResult = await hotelCollection.GetAsync("hotel-123");
// Print some result metadata to the console.
Console.WriteLine($"CAS: {getResult.Cas}");
Console.WriteLine($"Data: {getResult.ContentAs<JObject>()}");
If the document doesn’t exist, the SDK returns a DocumentNotFoundException error.
|
Click the View button to see this code in context.
For further details, refer to CollectionExtensions.
Use the get()
method to retrieve a document by ID.
A GetResult
object is returned, which includes the content
, cas
value, and other valuable metadata.
The example below retrieves document hotel-123
from the hotel
keyspace in the inventory
scope.
GetResult getResult = hotelCollection.get("hotel-123");
// Print the result's CAS metadata to the console.
System.out.println("CAS:" + getResult.cas());
If the document doesn’t exist, the SDK returns a DocumentNotFoundException error.
|
Click the View button to see this code in context.
For further details, refer to Collection.
Use the get()
function to retrieve a document by ID.
A GetResult
promise is returned, which includes the content
, cas
value, and other valuable metadata.
The example below retrieves document hotel-123
from the hotel
keyspace in the inventory
scope.
const getResult = await hotelCollection.get('hotel-123')
// Print some result metadata to the console.
console.log('CAS:', getResult.cas)
console.log('Data:', JSON.stringify(getResult.content, null, ' '))
If the document doesn’t exist, the SDK returns a DocumentNotFoundError error.
|
Click the View button to see this code in context.
For further details, refer to Collection.
Use the get()
function to retrieve a document by ID.
A GetResult
object is returned, which includes the content
, cas
value, and other valuable metadata.
The example below retrieves document hotel-123
from the hotel
keyspace in the inventory
scope.
get_result = hotel_collection.get("hotel-123")
# Print some result metadata to the console.
print("CAS:", get_result.cas)
print("Data: {}".format(get_result.content_as[dict]))
If the document doesn’t exist, the SDK returns a DocumentNotFoundException error.
|
Click the View button to see this code in context.
For further details, refer to Collection.
Reading with Options
To specify further parameters, add options to the get operation.
-
cbsh
-
.NET
-
Java
-
Node.js
-
Python
-
If you haven’t already done so, use
cb-env
to set the bucket, scope, and collection where the document is stored. -
Use the
doc get
command to retrieve a document by ID, and pass options as required.
The example below pipes the hotel-123
document and its metadata through the to json
filter to transform the output to JSON.
cb-env bucket travel-sample
cb-env scope inventory
cb-env collection hotel
doc get hotel-123 | to json
[
{
"id": "hotel-123",
"content":
{
"address": "Capstone Road, ME7 3JE",
"city": "Medway",
"country": "United Kingdom",
"description": "40 bed summer hostel about 3 miles from Gillingham.",
"geo":
{
"accuracy": "RANGE_INTERPOLATED",
"lat": 51.35785,
"lon": 0.55818
},
"id": 123,
"name": "Medway Youth Hostel",
"reviews":
[
{
"author": "Ozella Sipes",
"content": "This was our 2nd trip here and we enjoyed it more than last year.",
"date": "2021-11-17T17:35:05.351Z"
}
],
"state": null,
"url": "http://www.yha.org.uk",
"vacancy": true
},
"cas": 1717190781443309568,
"error": "",
"cluster": "capella"
}
]
For further details, refer to Reading in the Couchbase Shell documentation.
Pass any required options to the GetAsync()
method when retrieving a document.
A GetResult
object is returned, which may include extra metadata, depending on the options passed.
The example below retrieves a document hotel-123
with additional expiry metadata.
var getResult = await hotelCollection.GetAsync("hotel-456", options =>
{
options.Expiry();
});
// Print some result metadata to the console.
Console.WriteLine($"CAS: {getResult.Cas}");
Console.WriteLine($"Data: {getResult.ContentAs<JObject>()}");
Console.WriteLine($"Expiry: {getResult.ExpiryTime}");
Click the View button to see this code in context.
For further details, refer to CollectionExtensions.
Pass any required options to the get()
method when retrieving a document.
A GetResult
object is returned, which may include extra metadata, depending on the options passed.
The example below retrieves a document hotel-123
with additional expiry metadata.
GetResult getResult = hotelCollection.get("hotel-123",
GetOptions.getOptions().withExpiry(true)
);
// Print the result's CAS metadata to the console.
System.out.println("CAS:" + getResult.cas());
System.out.println("Data:" + getResult.contentAsObject());
System.out.println("Expiry:" + getResult.expiryTime());
Click the View button to see this code in context.
For further details, refer to Collection.
Pass any required options to the get()
method when retrieving a document.
A GetResult
object is returned, which may include extra metadata, depending on the options passed.
The example below retrieves a document hotel-123
with additional expiry metadata.
const getResult = await hotelCollection.get('hotel-456', {
withExpiry: true,
})
// Print some result metadata to the console.
console.log('CAS:', getResult.cas)
console.log('Data:', JSON.stringify(getResult.content, null, ' '))
console.log('Expiry time:', getResult.expiryTime)
Click the View button to see this code in context.
For further details, refer to Collection.
Pass any required options to the get()
method when retrieving a document.
A GetResult
object is returned, which may include extra metadata, depending on the options passed.
The example below retrieves a document hotel-123
with additional expiry metadata.
get_result = hotel_collection.get(
"hotel-456", GetOptions(with_expiry=True)
)
# Print some result metadata to the console.
print("CAS:", get_result.cas)
print("Data: {}".format(get_result.content_as[dict]))
print("Expiry time: {}".format(get_result.expiryTime))
Click the View button to see this code in context.
For further details, refer to Collection.
Reading a Sub-Document
JSON documents can contain a lot of nested data — which might not necessarily need to be accessed all at once.
For example, the document airport_1254
contains a sub-document called geo
.
{
"id": 1254,
// ...
"geo": {
"lat": 50.962097,
"lon": 1.954764,
"alt": 12
}
}
Reading full documents to access a field or two is not ideal and could cause performance issues in your application. Instead, a better practice would be to access specific paths, or sub-documents, to perform more efficient read operations. To fetch a specific field inside a document, you can perform a sub-document get operation.
-
cbsh
-
.NET
-
Java
-
Node.js
-
Python
-
If you haven’t already done so, use
cb-env
to set the bucket, scope, and collection where the document is stored. -
Use the
doc get
command to retrieve a document by ID. -
Pipe the document through the
get
filter and specify the path to the field containing the sub-document.
The example below fetches the geo
data from the hotel-123
document.
cb-env bucket travel-sample
cb-env scope inventory
cb-env collection hotel
doc get hotel-123 | get content.geo
╭───┬────────────────────┬─────────┬────────╮
│ # │ accuracy │ lat │ lon │
├───┼────────────────────┼─────────┼────────┤
│ 0 │ RANGE_INTERPOLATED │ 51.3578 │ 0.5582 │
╰───┴────────────────────┴─────────┴────────╯
If the field containing the sub-document cannot be found, the get command returns a Cannot find column error.
|
For further details, refer to get for filters in the Nushell documentation.
-
Call the
LookupInAsync()
method, which takes a document ID and an IEnumerable containingLookUpInSpec
objects. -
Use the
LookUpInSpec
object to specify the sub-operation to be performed within the lookup.
A LookupInResult
object is returned, containing the result and metadata relevant to the sub-document get operation.
The example below fetches the geo
data from the hotel-123
document.
var lookupInResult = await hotelCollection.LookupInAsync("hotel-123",
specs => specs.Get("geo")
);
Console.WriteLine($"CAS: {lookupInResult.Cas}");
Console.WriteLine($"Geo: {lookupInResult.ContentAs<JObject>(0)}");
Click the View button to see this code in context.
For further details, refer to CollectionExtensions.
-
Call the
lookupIn()
method, which takes a document ID and an array ofLookUpInSpec
objects. -
Use the
LookUpInSpec
object to specify the sub-operation to be performed within the lookup.
A LookupInResult
object is returned, containing the result and metadata relevant to the sub-document get operation.
The example below fetches the geo
data from the hotel-123
document.
List<LookupInSpec> specs = Arrays.asList(LookupInSpec.get("geo"));
LookupInResult lookupInResult = hotelCollection.lookupIn("hotel-123", specs);
System.out.println("CAS:" + lookupInResult.cas());
System.out.println("Geo:" + lookupInResult.contentAsObject(0));
If the document path can’t be found, the SDK returns a PathNotFoundException error.
|
Click the View button to see this code in context.
For further details, refer to Collection.
-
Call the
lookupIn()
function, which takes a document ID and an array ofLookUpInSpec
objects. -
Use the
LookUpInSpec
object to specify the sub-operation to be performed within the lookup.
A LookupInResult
promise is returned containing the result and metadata relevant to the sub-document get operation.
The example below fetches the geo
data from the hotel-123
document.
const lookupInResult = await hotelCollection.lookupIn('hotel-123', [
couchbase.LookupInSpec.get('geo'),
])
console.log('CAS:', lookupInResult.cas)
console.log('Geo:', lookupInResult.content[0].value)
Click the View button to see this code in context.
For further details, refer to Collection.
-
Call the
lookup_in()
function, which takes a document ID and a list ofLookUpInSpec
objects. -
Use the
LookUpInSpec
object to represent the sub-operation to be performed within the lookup.
A LookupInResult
object is returned containing the result and metadata relevant to the sub-document get operation.
The example below fetches the geo
data from the hotel-123
document.
lookup_in_result = hotel_collection.lookup_in(
"hotel-123", [subdocument.get("geo")]
)
print("CAS:", lookup_in_result.cas)
print("Data:", lookup_in_result.content_as[dict](0))
If the document path can’t be found, the SDK returns a PathNotFoundException error.
|
Click the View button to see this code in context.
For further details, refer to Collection.