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dojo.data Terminology

dojo.data terminology is similar to relational database terminology. The following table compares and contrasts dojo.data terminology and relational database terminology:

dojo.data APIs
Term Equiv. Database Term Description
datastore cursor A JavaScript object that reads data from a data source and makes that data available as data items using the dojo.data APIs.
data source database The place that the raw data comes from. For example, in a CsvStore, the data source would be the .csv formatted file that the store loaded. In general, the data source could be a file, a database server, a Web service, or something else completely. They can be as simple as flat, table-like rows, or as complex as a full heirarchical database with nested details.
item row A data item that has attributes with attribute values.
attribute column One of the fields or properties of an item.
value - The contents of an attribute for a given item.
reference -- A value in an item that points to another item.
identity primary key An identifier that can be used to uniquely identify an item within the context of a single datastore.
query WHERE clause of SQL Select A specification or request that asks a datastore for some subset of the items it knows about. A query is often an object with a set of attribute/value pairs that define what attributes should be matched. It is possible, however, that the query could be a string or a number.

Note: It is highly recommended that all stores use an object structure of attribute name/value pairs as the query format for consistency between stores.

JDBC or ODBC The standard set of functions that datastore implements. The dojo.data.api module includes a set of APIs (such as Read and Write) and a datastore can implement one or more of the APIs.
internal data representation - The private data structures that a datastore uses to cache data in local memory (for example XML DOM nodes, anonymous JSON objects, or arrays of arrays).
request SQL Select The parameters used to limit and sort a set of items. This includes the query, sorting attributes, upper and lower limits, and callbacks.