Poor Renfield. Poor Mina.​

Building up abstract types​

Wherever there are vampires, there are vampire hunters. Sometimes they will destroy a vampire’s coffins, and other times vampires will build more. It would be nice to have a generic way to update this information. But the problem right now is this:

• the HasCoffins type is an abstract type, with one property: coffins

• places that can have coffins are Place and all the types from it, plus Ship,

• the best way to filter is by .name, but HasCoffins doesn’t have this property.

So maybe it’s time to turn this abstract type into a larger one called HasNameAndCoffins, and put the name and coffins properties inside there. This won’t be a problem because every place needs a name and a number of coffins in our game. Remember, 0 coffins means that vampires can’t stay in a place for long: just quick trips in at night before the sun rises. It’s essentially a “Has name and can vampires terrorize it” property. And that will let us do queries on HasNameAndCoffins which is guaranteed to have these two properties.

Here is the type with its new property. We’ll give it two constraints: exclusive and max_len_value to keep names from being too long.

abstract type HasNameAndCoffins {
  required coffins: int16 {
    default := 0;
  }
  required name: str {
    delegated constraint exclusive;
    constraint max_len_value(30);
  }
}

So now we can change our Ship type (notice that we removed name):

type Ship extending HasNameAndCoffins {
  multi sailors: Sailor;
  multi crew: Crewman;
}

And the Place type. It’s much simpler now.

abstract type Place extending HasNameAndCoffins {
  modern_name: str;
  multi important_places: Landmark;
}

Finally, we can change our can_enter() function. This one needed a HasCoffins type before:

function can_enter(person_name: str, place: HasCoffins) -> optional str
  using (
    with vampire := (select Person filter .name = person_name),
    has_coffins := place.coffins > 0,
      select vampire.name ++ ' can enter.'
        if has_coffins else vampire.name ++ ' cannot enter.'
    );

But now that HasNameAndCoffins holds name, the user can now just enter a string. We’ll change it to this:

function can_enter(person_name: str, place: str) -> optional str
  using (
    with
      vampire := assert_single(
        (select Person filter .name = person_name)
      ),
      enter_place := assert_single(
        (select HasNameAndCoffins filter .name = place)
      )
    select vampire.name ++ ' can enter.' if enter_place.coffins > 0 
      else vampire.name ++ ' cannot enter.'
  );

And now let’s do a migration. The migration questions this time have some interesting ones, which are:

did you drop function 'default::can_enter'? [y,n,l,c,b,s,q,?]
> y
did you create function 'default::can_enter'? [y,n,l,c,b,s,q,?]
> y
did you alter object type 'default::Place'? [y,n,l,c,b,s,q,?]
> y
did you alter object type 'default::Ship'? [y,n,l,c,b,s,q,?]
> y
The following extra DDL statements will be applied:
    ALTER TYPE default::Ship {
        ALTER PROPERTY name {
            RESET OPTIONALITY;
            DROP OWNED;
            RESET TYPE;
        };
    };

The CLI first asks us if we dropped the function default::can_enter, which we might be tempted to say no to - because from our point of view we changed, not dropped, this function. But remember that from the compiler’s point of view a function with a different signature is a different function, so we are effectively dropping it and creating another one. And that means that the fact that they both have the same can_enter name is irrelevant!

The next few questions show that EdgeDB understands that we are using an abstract type to hold the name property that Place and Ship have held themselves all this time. It does this with a few extra DDL commands that alter the name property from one owned by Ship to one that is still inside the Ship type, just not owned anymore. The migration file holds the rest of the DDL commands, some of which are:

  ALTER TYPE default::Place {
      DROP EXTENDING default::HasCoffins;
      EXTENDING default::HasNameAndCoffins LAST;
      ALTER PROPERTY name {
          ALTER CONSTRAINT std::exclusive {
              RESET DELEGATED;
              DROP OWNED;
          };
          RESET OPTIONALITY;
          DROP OWNED;
          RESET TYPE;
      };
  };
  ALTER TYPE default::Ship {
      DROP EXTENDING default::HasCoffins;
      EXTENDING default::HasNameAndCoffins LAST;
  };
  ALTER TYPE default::Ship {
      ALTER PROPERTY name {
          RESET OPTIONALITY;
          DROP OWNED;
          RESET TYPE;
      };
  };

How nice that we don’t have to type all of that ourselves! And if we do a query on the Ship and Place names we can see that all the data is still there.

db> select {Ship.name, Place.name};
{
  'The Demeter',
  'Castle Dracula',
  'Rumeli Feneri',
  'Whitby',
  'Buda-Pesth',
  'Bistritz',
  'Munich',
  'Exeter',
  'London',
  'Hungary',
  'Romania',
  'France',
  'Slovakia',
}

Meanwhile, with the new function in our schema we can just enter can_enter('Count Dracula', 'Munich') to get 'Count Dracula cannot enter.'. That makes sense: Dracula didn’t bring any coffins there.

Finally, thanks to this larger abstract type we can now put together a query that takes arguments to change the number of coffins in a number of places. It’s easy:

update HasNameAndCoffins filter .name = <str>$place_name
set {
  coffins := .coffins + <int16>$number
};

Now let’s give the ship The Demeter some coffins.

db> update HasNameAndCoffins filter .name = <str>$place_name
  set {
    coffins := .coffins + <int16>$number
  };
Parameter <str>$place_name: The Demeter
Parameter <int16>$number: 10

Castle Dracula naturally should have some coffins too. 50 feels about right.

db> update HasNameAndCoffins filter .name = <str>$place_name
  set {
    coffins := .coffins + <int16>$number
  };
Parameter <str>$place_name: Castle Dracula
Parameter <int16>$number: 50

Then we’ll make sure that these places got them:

select HasNameAndCoffins { 
  name, 
  coffins } 
filter .coffins > 0;

And the result:

{
  default::Castle {name: 'Castle Dracula', coffins: 50},
  default::Ship {name: 'The Demeter', coffins: 20},
  default::City {name: 'London', coffins: 21},
}

Looks like the Demeter and Castle Dracula got their coffins!

Object type aliases: creating subtypes when you need them​

We’ve used abstract types a lot in this book. You’ll notice that abstract types by themselves are generally made from very general concepts, such as Person and HasNameAndCoffins. In databases in real life you’ll probably see them in the forms HasEmail, HasID and so on, which get extended to make subtypes.

Aliases will first look similar to extending an abstract type. Let’s first compare the syntax between extending and using an alias so that you will be able to spot the difference:

type Vampire extending Person {
    # Properties and links
}

alias AliasPerson := Person {
    # Computables, etc.
};

The first difference is that an alias uses := instead of extending. In other words, an alias is a computed expression. Also note that alias Vampire ends in a semicolon - again, because it is an expression. And since aliases are expressions and not standalone types, they can’t be inserted into a database. Instead, they point to data — often a type that exists in the database — and can give it an extra shape on top of the original. So you can query an alias, but you can’t insert one.

Let’s make an alias for fun for our schema too. Looking at the Demeter again, we see that the ship left from Varna in Bulgaria and reached London. We’ll imagine in our game that we have built Varna up into a big port for the characters to explore, and are changing the schema to reflect this. Right now our Crewman type just looks like this:

type Crewman extending HasNumber, Person {
  overloaded name: str {
    default := 'Crewman ' ++ <str>.number;
  }
}

Imagine that we would like a CrewmanInBulgaria type as well, because Bulgarians use the term ‘Gospodin’ to be polite (Bulgarian for “Mister”) and our game would like to reflect that. A Crewman will be called “Gospodin (name)” whenever they are in Bulgaria. In addition, the fresh Bulgarian air gives sailors extra strength in our game so our CrewmanInBulgaria objects will also be a bit stronger. You can see that an alias is much better than an entirely separate type here, because all we want to do is have a different shape to work with when making queries. Here’s how to do that:

alias CrewmanInBulgaria := Crewman {
  name := 'Gospodin ' ++ .name,
  strength := .strength + <int16>1,
  # Just in case we want to filter on the original name
  original_name := .name,
};

You’ll notice right away that name and strength inside the alias are separated by commas, not semicolons. That’s a clue that this isn’t creating a new type: it’s just creating a shape on top of the existing Crewman type.

Let’s do a schema migration and then take a look at the error we get if we try to insert a CrewmanInBulgaria. Remember, it won’t work because an alias is just an expression, not a type that can be inserted:

insert CrewmanInBulgaria {name := "New Crewman", number := 6};

Here is the error:

error: cannot insert into expression alias 'default::CrewmanInBulgaria'

So all inserts are still done through the Crewman type. But because an alias is a subtype and a shape, we can select it in the same way as anything else. Let’s now compare a select on the Crewman objects to a select with the CrewmanInBulgaria alias:

db> select Crewman { name, strength };
{
  default::Crewman {name: 'Crewman 1', strength: 1},
  default::Crewman {name: 'Crewman 2', strength: 2},
  default::Crewman {name: 'Crewman 3', strength: 1},
  default::Crewman {name: 'Crewman 4', strength: 2},
  default::Crewman {name: 'Crewman 5', strength: 5},
}
db> select CrewmanInBulgaria { original_name, name, strength };
{
  default::Crewman {original_name: 'Crewman 1', name: 'Gospodin Crewman 1', strength: 2},
  default::Crewman {original_name: 'Crewman 2', name: 'Gospodin Crewman 2', strength: 3},
  default::Crewman {original_name: 'Crewman 3', name: 'Gospodin Crewman 3', strength: 2},
  default::Crewman {original_name: 'Crewman 4', name: 'Gospodin Crewman 4', strength: 3},
  default::Crewman {original_name: 'Crewman 5', name: 'Gospodin Crewman 5', strength: 6},
}

The expression works well, giving names that start with Gospodin and strength values a bit higher than outside of Bulgaria. But note that the expression still returns a default::Crewman, as the alias is just an expression on top of the original type.

Local expression aliases: creating new names for types in a query​

It’s somewhat interesting that our alias is just declared using a := when we wrote alias CrewmanInBulgaria := Crewman. Would it be possible to do something similar inside a query? The answer is yes: we can use with and then give a new name for an existing type. (In fact, the keyword with that we have been using the whole time is defined as a “block used to define aliases”).

Let’s say that we want to compare the strengths of all our MinorVampire objects. This first query won’t work the way we want it to, and you can probably guess why:

select MinorVampire.name ++ ' is stronger than ' ++ MinorVampire.name ++ '? ' 
++ <str>(MinorVampire.name > MinorVampire.name);

It doesn’t work because we are simply comparing one object against itself every time.

{
  'Vampire Woman 1 is stronger than Vampire Woman 1? false',
  'Vampire Woman 2 is stronger than Vampire Woman 2? false',
  'Vampire Woman 3 is stronger than Vampire Woman 3? false',
  'Lucy is stronger than Lucy? false',
}

We know that the detached keyword can help by pulling up a separate set of objects for a type. It won’t help us here though unfortunately as we have to use it twice: once to concatenate the names, and again to compare strengths:

select MinorVampire.name ++ ' is stronger than ' ++ detached MinorVampire.name ++ '? '
++ <str>(MinorVampire.name > detached MinorVampire.name);

Just a small portion of the output shows what the problem is here: using detached pulls up a separate set of MinorVampire objects each time. Every time detached is used, the number of objects doubles!

{
  'Vampire Woman 1 is stronger than Vampire Woman 1? false',
  'Vampire Woman 1 is stronger than Vampire Woman 1? false',
  'Vampire Woman 1 is stronger than Vampire Woman 1? false',
  'Vampire Woman 1 is stronger than Vampire Woman 1? true',
  'Vampire Woman 1 is stronger than Vampire Woman 2? false',
  'Vampire Woman 1 is stronger than Vampire Woman 2? false',
  'Vampire Woman 1 is stronger than Vampire Woman 2? false',
}

Instead, we can use an alias for a set of MinorVampire objects and use that to compare:

with M := MinorVampire,
select M.name ++ ' is stronger than ' ++ MinorVampire.name ++ '? ' ++ 
<str>(M.strength > MinorVampire.strength);

The output is now closer to what we want, except that some objects with the same values are still being compared with each other. Here is part of the output (it’s still pretty long):

{
  'Vampire Woman 1 is stronger than Vampire Woman 1? false',
  'Vampire Woman 1 is stronger than Vampire Woman 2? false',
  'Vampire Woman 1 is stronger than Vampire Woman 3? false',
  'Vampire Woman 1 is stronger than Lucy? false',
  'Vampire Woman 2 is stronger than Vampire Woman 1? true',
  'Vampire Woman 2 is stronger than Vampire Woman 2? false',
  'Vampire Woman 2 is stronger than Vampire Woman 3? false',
  'Vampire Woman 2 is stronger than Lucy? false',
}

And since we are using M as an expression alias, we can use it to filter. Let’s filter out the objects that share the same id.

with M := MinorVampire,
select M.name ++ ' is stronger than ' ++ MinorVampire.name ++ '? ' ++ 
<str>(M.strength > MinorVampire.strength) filter M.id != MinorVampire.id;

And now we no longer have any duplicate names.

{
  'Vampire Woman 1 is stronger than Vampire Woman 2? false',
  'Vampire Woman 1 is stronger than Vampire Woman 3? false',
  'Vampire Woman 1 is stronger than Lucy? false',
  'Vampire Woman 2 is stronger than Vampire Woman 1? true',
  'Vampire Woman 2 is stronger than Vampire Woman 3? false',
  'Vampire Woman 2 is stronger than Lucy? false',
  'Vampire Woman 3 is stronger than Vampire Woman 1? true',
  'Vampire Woman 3 is stronger than Vampire Woman 2? true',
  'Vampire Woman 3 is stronger than Lucy? false',
  'Lucy is stronger than Vampire Woman 1? true',
  'Lucy is stronger than Vampire Woman 2? true',
  'Lucy is stronger than Vampire Woman 3? false',
}

But we aren’t limited to just writing := MinorVampire either. Because an alias is simply an expression, we can make some modifications to the set of objects we have been calling M. Let’s make a set of MinorVampire objects (an “expression alias” of MinorVampire) that have a bit more strength than the regular set and compare them to the regular set of MinorVampire objects. While we’re at it, let’s change their names a bit too. This is starting to feel a lot like the alias we have in our schema, don’t you think? The query now looks like this:

with PumpedUp := MinorVampire {
name := 'Pumped up ' ++ .name,
strength := .strength + <int16>2
 },
select PumpedUp.name ++ ' is stronger than ' ++ MinorVampire.name ++
'? ' ++ 
<str>(PumpedUp.strength > MinorVampire.strength) filter PumpedUp.id != MinorVampire.id;

Now the expression returns a lot more true, because the chance of having greater strength than the other object is that much greater.

{
  'Pumped up Vampire Woman 1 is stronger than Vampire Woman 2? true',
  'Pumped up Vampire Woman 1 is stronger than Vampire Woman 3? false',
  'Pumped up Vampire Woman 1 is stronger than Lucy? false',
  'Pumped up Vampire Woman 2 is stronger than Vampire Woman 1? true',
  'Pumped up Vampire Woman 2 is stronger than Vampire Woman 3? true',
  'Pumped up Vampire Woman 2 is stronger than Lucy? true',
  'Pumped up Vampire Woman 3 is stronger than Vampire Woman 1? true',
  'Pumped up Vampire Woman 3 is stronger than Vampire Woman 2? true',
  'Pumped up Vampire Woman 3 is stronger than Lucy? true',
  'Pumped up Lucy is stronger than Vampire Woman 1? true',
  'Pumped up Lucy is stronger than Vampire Woman 2? true',
  'Pumped up Lucy is stronger than Vampire Woman 3? true',
}

So how about adding links and properties in the same way that we did to our CrewmanInBulgaria alias? We can do that too by using select and then adding any new links and properties you want inside {}. Here’s a simple example:

with NPCExtraInfo := NPC {
    would_win_against_dracula := .strength > Vampire.strength
  }
  select NPCExtraInfo {
    name,
    would_win_against_dracula
  };

And here’s the result. Looks like nobody wins:

{
  default::NPC {name: 'Jonathan Harker', would_win_against_dracula: {false}},
  default::NPC {name: 'The innkeeper', would_win_against_dracula: {false}},
  default::NPC {name: 'Mina Murray', would_win_against_dracula: {false}},
  default::NPC {name: 'John Seward', would_win_against_dracula: {false}},
  default::NPC {name: 'Quincey Morris', would_win_against_dracula: {false}},
  default::NPC {name: 'Arthur Holmwood', would_win_against_dracula: {false}},
  default::NPC {name: 'Abraham Van Helsing', would_win_against_dracula: {false}},
  default::NPC {name: 'Lucy Westenra', would_win_against_dracula: {false}},
  default::NPC {name: 'Renfield', would_win_against_dracula: {false}},
}

Finally, let’s create a quick type alias where Dracula has achieved all his goals and now rules London. We can give it the alias DraculaKingOfLondon, and a link to subjects (people who live under a king) that will be every Person that has been to London. Then we’ll select this type, and also count how many subjects there are. It looks like this:

with DraculaKingOfLondon := Vampire {
      name := .name ++ ', King of London',
      subjects := (select Person filter 'London' in .places_visited.name),
    } 
select DraculaKingOfLondon {
  name,
  subjects: {name},
  number_of_subjects := count(.subjects)
} filter .name = 'Count Dracula';

Here’s the output:

{
  default::Vampire {
    name: 'Count Dracula, King of London',
    subjects: {
      default::NPC {name: 'Jonathan Harker'},
      default::NPC {name: 'Mina Murray'},
      default::NPC {name: 'John Seward'},
      default::NPC {name: 'Quincey Morris'},
      default::NPC {name: 'Arthur Holmwood'},
      default::NPC {name: 'Abraham Van Helsing'},
      default::NPC {name: 'Lucy Westenra'},
      default::NPC {name: 'Renfield'},
      default::NPC {name: 'Lord Billy'},
    },
    number_of_subjects: 9,
  },
}

Note that this expression works because Count Dracula is our only Vampire object: he’s almost like a unique global object. If we had more Vampire objects in the database we would need to filter by name.

Other types of aliases​

Aliases can be used in a number of other ways too. So far we have used object type aliases, but an alias is just an expression which makes them really quite open-ended. An alias can be a single scalar, a set of scalars, a tuple or set of tuples, a query, and so on. In this case an alias can feel a bit like a global value because it gives us quick access to some data that otherwise would be stored in a format like JSON somewhere.

For example, we could take an expression that helps us keep track of all the names we have in our database and turn it into an alias for convenience. At the moment, we have names for every HasNameAndCoffins object, plus every modern_name inside Place, name inside Landmark and of course the name property for the Person type:

alias AllNames := (
  distinct (HasNameAndCoffins.name union
  Place.modern_name union
  Landmark.name union 
  Person.name)
);

Another alias we could put together is a tuple that holds all of the metadata for our game. This has a sort of JSON-like feel but is baked into our schema as an EdgeDB tuple. You could imagine this alias used for the player menu which displays differently depending on the language of the user:

alias GameInfo := (
  title := ( 
    en := "Dracula the Immortal",
    fr := "Dracula l'immortel",
    no := "Dracula den udødelige",
    ro := "Dracula, nemuritorul"
  ),
  country := "Norway",
  date_published := 2023,
  website := "www.draculatheimmortal.com"
);

After doing a migration you can see how easy and readable these queries become:

db> select GameInfo.title.ro;
{'Dracula, nemuritorul'}
db> select 'Max Demian' in AllNames;
{true}
db> select 'Canada' in AllNames;
{false}

The documentation on aliases has a number of other interesting examples of how you might want to use an alias in your project.

Mutation rewrites​

Since version 3.0, EdgeDB allows us to automatically rewrite properties of an object whenever an insert or update happens. The syntax for a mutation rewrite is really simple: just choose insert and/or update, and then add the expression.

rewrite {insert | update} [, ...]
  using expr

A mutation rewrite makes it really easy to keep track of when an object was last updated. To do this, just add a property to the object and a mutation rewrite that calls datetime_of_statement() whenever the object is inserted or updated. Let’s give this a try on our PC type:

type PC extending Person {
  required class: Class;
  required created_at: datetime {
    default := datetime_of_statement()
  }
  required number: PCNumber {
    default := sequence_next(introspect PCNumber);
  }
  last_updated: datetime {
    rewrite insert, update using (datetime_of_statement());
  }
}

But while we are at it, let’s stretch our imagination a bit and make another mutation rewrite for fun for the PC type. Imagine that every time a PC is created or gets to a save point (which updates it) we will give it a chance to win a bonus item at the same time. Let’s call it a LotteryTicket and add some items that are useful to vampire hunters.

scalar type LotteryTicket extending enum <Nothing, WallChicken, 
ChainWhip, Crucifix, Garlic>;

Most of the time a lottery ticket will be nothing, but sometimes it will be a bonus item. Let’s make a function to represent that:

  function get_ticket() -> LotteryTicket using (
    with rnd := <int16>(random() * 10),
    select(LotteryTicket.Nothing if rnd <= 6 else
    LotteryTicket.WallChicken    if rnd = 7 else
    LotteryTicket.ChainWhip      if rnd = 8 else
    LotteryTicket.Crucifix       if rnd = 9 else
    LotteryTicket.Garlic)
  );

Putting all those together, here are the changes to make to the schema:

type PC extending Person {
  required class: Class;
  required created_at: datetime {
    default := datetime_of_statement()
  }
  required number: PCNumber {
    default := sequence_next(introspect PCNumber);
  }
  last_updated: datetime {
    rewrite insert, update using (datetime_of_statement());
  }
  bonus_item: LotteryTicket {
    rewrite insert, update using (get_ticket());
  }
}

scalar type LotteryTicket extending enum <Nothing, WallChicken, ChainWhip, Crucifix, Garlic>;

function get_ticket() -> LotteryTicket using (
  with rnd := <int16>(random() * 10),
  select(LotteryTicket.Nothing if rnd <= 6 else
  LotteryTicket.WallChicken if rnd = 7 else
  LotteryTicket.ChainWhip if rnd = 8 else
  LotteryTicket.Crucifix if rnd = 9 else
  LotteryTicket.Garlic)
);

Once the migration is done, let’s insert a new PC and see what she gets! First the insert:

insert PC {
 name := 'Sypha',
 class := Class.Mystic
};

And now a few queries to see what Sypha’s bonus item is. This will return something different every time, so let’s “update” her by…just giving her the same name as before.

update PC filter .name = 'Sypha' set { name := .name };

This will still count as an update to the object and thus the last_updated property will change, while the bonus_item is likely to change depending on the random number chosen. The output will look something like this:

db> select PC { name, class, bonus_item, last_updated } filter .name = 'Sypha';
{
  default::PC {
    name: 'Sypha',
    class: Mystic,
    bonus_item: Nothing,
    last_updated: <datetime>'2023-06-18T07:50:56.181567Z',
  },
}
db> update PC filter .name = 'Sypha' set { name := .name };
{default::PC {id: 803d4486-0dac-11ee-9250-4746f54d7008}}
db> select PC { name, class, bonus_item, last_updated } filter .name = 'Sypha';
{
  default::PC {
    name: 'Sypha',
    class: Mystic,
    bonus_item: Crucifix,
    last_updated: <datetime>'2023-06-18T07:51:03.998048Z',
  },
}

Here is all our code so far up to Chapter 17.

1. How would you display every NPC’s name, strength, name and population of cities visited, and age (displaying 0 if age = {})? Try it on a single line.

   Show answer

2. The query in 1. showed a lot of numbers without any context. What should we do?

   Show answer

3. How would you create an alias that contains all the months of the year?

   Show answer

4. How do you make sure that no data is lost when changing a type’s properties from owned properties to properties extended from abstract types?

   Show answer

Up next: Jonathan the detective.